News Release

14th May 2004

QUEEN'S CROFT SCHOOL CHANGES: "UNNECESSARY AND HEARTLESS"

Michael Fabricant today (Friday 14th May) visited Queen's Croft School in Lichfield to talk to Years 10 and 11 students about life as an MP, but also to find out what pupils and staff think about the recently announced merger with Rocklands School. Both pupils and staff are unhappy about this change.

Michael Fabricant says: "Only 18 months ago or so, Staffordshire Education picked up with enthusiasm the Government's politically correct directive to remove children with special needs from specialist schools and integrate them into mainstream schools. Now, this latest change is being part justified by a claim that there are falling rolls in special needs schools. What a surprise.

"Yet in fact, despite the change of policy 18 or so months ago, there is a waiting list for children wishing to enter Queen's Croft School. And there are no vacant seats in classrooms. Moreover, with extra homes being constructed in the City, demand is likely to increase still further. I visit Queen's Croft School each year and the School works because it caters for children with specific needs. To integrate children with severe learning difficulties from Rocklands will neither help them nor the existing students at Queen's Croft. Integration is admirable in principle, but in practice it creates all sorts of difficulties in the classroom where the brightest children are held back while the least able feel out of place and disorientated."

The proposal is that Rocklands School will cater for primary school children with both moderate and severe learning difficulties while Queen's Croft will accommodate secondary age children of mixed ability.

Michael adds: "Vulnerable children with special needs, just like most children, don't welcome change. Queen's Croft's ethos of including primary age children as well as secondary means that they do not have to change schools at 10 or 11. The changes now being proposed by Staffordshire Education Authority, at a cost of around £1 million to the council tax payer, will destroy all that. At a time when the Government has finally admitted that mixed ability classes don't work, it is remarkable that our County Council is now proposing this so-called solution.