www.SaveRogateSchool.com

At the school we are all more than aware of the challenges that have been faced in recent times, but that is history now. Both the quality of the school and the extremely high standards it delivers were reflected in September 2007 with an excellent Ofsted report that was, in the words of the inspector “Bordering on Outstanding”, the very top grade attainable and to put into some sort of context only one primary school in West Sussex has received Outstanding in recent years.

The truly outstanding strengths of Rogate School were reflected in the 6 week ‘Rother Valley Consultation’ period, for not only did the school show its excellence for all to see, it acted as a focal point for the community’s passion for this local key service. The job for all of us now is to both keep that community passion and the school alive.

Rogate School is one of the richest schools in the area with regards to the extended services it offers to the children. We have recently extended the services to include our exclusive ‘Breakfast Club’ which means we now offer 8am to 4pm all-through child care with a possible extension to 6pm coming soon. We are also looking at locating the village nursery onsite in the near future.

The campaign to keep the school open galvanised the community, but also made it clear what we, Rogate village, need to do to protect the schools future:

Rogate Children attend Rogate School – the children of Rogate, whose parents decide to keep them in the state system, need to attend their local school. Rogate has an excellent, thriving and very popular village school, so local children need to use it. The phrase ‘use it or lose it’ has been used in many similar situations about assets such as pubs, libraries etc., it applies to schools too. WSCC have clearly stated in their final decision report that “It is now for the community of Rogate to demonstrate its commitment to its local school by supporting it as the preferred school for children in the catchment area”.

The fact that a large percentage of the children at Rogate come from outside catchment area is a reflection of its popularity. One family who live in Petersfield and are sending their child to the school in September 2008 were overjoyed that they “still had a chance to send their child to such a wonderful school”.
The ‘Community School’ – Rogate School is the very heart of the community, the campaign to keep the school open reflected this with almost every window in Rogate adorned with the heart logo.

All of us at the school will be working very hard in the coming months to create even stronger bonds with the community, whether by way of opening up our playing fields to the youngsters, or holding the computer club in our new ICT suite, we will be constantly striving for more effective and better ways of doing this.

In addition and with the aid of many of our community, we are looking at other services we can offer in an effort to draw the school closer to the village and the village even closer to the school.
Keep the campaign spirit going – There has been so much goodwill generated by this campaign that many people have come forward with offers to help make Rogate school even better. Whilst we were the only school in the area under threat, this has put all of us in a unique situation. We are not stuck in our ways and intend to be completely open to any and all new ideas. Come and tell us what sort of schooling you want for your children, what clubs and extracurricular activities you would like to see, you can really make a difference to your children’s education and to the school’s future. We have got passion and commitment in abundance and all to provide the best for our children. Rogate School is aiming high.

Come and see the children running outside, laughing and enjoying themselves whilst they learn and be safe in the knowledge that your child really matters to us. Come and be part of something special.

An alternative to private education – During our research that led to the reversal of the proposal to close the school, we identified the narrow gap in standards between private education and rural state primary education. The school offers many unique benefits including: small class sizes, excellent standards of education and an excellent social platform in the local community. So, we request that people consider their local state primary school before the local private schools and not vice versa.

As Chair of the Governors, I led a campaign that never waned in support and was not just my efforts, but that of a community. The very people that volunteered at our first campaign meeting were still there to help at the last meeting. In fact, on the Sunday before our response was due (the day we had 4 inches of snow you may recall) people walked in to the school asking if there was anything they could do to help – there was and they did.

The response, if by chance you have not read it, not only challenged every word put forward by WSCC, but presented a very clear cut case for keeping the school open. WSCC described our response as ‘substantial’. The case put forward by the Governors was founded on the factors above. It was 90 pages long and based 100% on fact and commitment not fiction. The ‘petition & poster’ campaign was massively successful and gave a very high impact, but we knew all along, we needed to present a strong business case to keep the school open – which we did and have.

In summary, many fought hard to keep our excellent village school open, but we need to keep the support going. The simple fact is that if the children of Rogate go to Rogate School, the School will still be there in another 140 years time.

The school is a highly prized valuable community asset, as is the shop, pub and church. If we don’t use it, we very well could lose it.

For more information on Rogate School in general, please call us on 821 329 or visit www.rogate.w-sussex.sch.uk.

For more information on the campaign and a copy of the Consultation response, please visit www.saverogateschool.com.