Whiteley Forum - Whiteley Schools Issue

Category: Whiteley Schools

Whiteley Schools Issue - My Story

Whiteley is a large estate comprising mainly private detached housing, it is situated between the two cities of Southampton and Portsmouth and is close to the market town of Fareham. It was a green field development that was started in the late 1980s on farm land. Whiteley Business Park is home to many regional offices of major blue chip companies including Zurich Insurance and ITV Meridian and so provides employment for some of those living in the area and for many who travel into the area.

Whiteley has a population of approximately 6000 people which is supported by some local facilities. It has some local shops and a post office; there is also a sport’s centre, a luxury hotel, a community centre, some very pleasant wooded walks and an outlet shopping village. It has a single “district food store” (Tesco) and a single doctor’s practice. Whiteley is close to good communication links with both Portsmouth and Southampton (Motorway M27) and Rail link (Swanwick) but suffers from particularly poor access via a single access road onto the motorway. It doesn’t have a church (building) however services are held in the community centre, neither does it have sufficient school facilities for the size of the current population. There is one junior school, it is this last point which I am focusing on for this profile.

Should there be a second junior school and then a senior school built in Whiteley? Arguments supporting the building of the schools include:

Children have to travel up to 15 miles to either Portsmouth Southampton, Catisfield or Swanmore at senior school age and are spread from Stubbington to Botley at junior school age
Social exclusion for after school activities as school buses leave immediately school finishes.
Long days for children leaving at 7.00am and often not returning home until 4.30 pm or later.
Feeling of being an “outsider” for the local children who can not attend the Whiteley junior school. – Bullying etc between the main 2 senior schools
Insufficient shelters while waiting for buses.
Long walk to the station to catch a train if travelling to Southampton/ Portsmouth.
Hazard crossing busy commuter routes to and from bus collection points
Safety of individuals while travelling by train to and from Portsmouth/Southampton
Cost of travel can run to several hundred pounds a year if a designated school is not chosen

Arguments against building the school include:

Cost of building a school
Further issues with traffic planning as a pupils may apply to come to Whiteley from surrounding areas exacerbating congestion on already heavily trafficked roads
Previous proposed land for school was to take from land used for sports facilities or areas currently ear marked as green space
Whiteley is split by two councils Winchester and Fareham and to build a large school would require a lot of “joined up thinking” and cross authority co-operation.
Professional couples with no children have little interest in a school and may prefer sports facilities and green spaces left unchanged.
Large amounts of teenagers walking to and from one central area of Whiteley may result in noise and petty vandalism
“NIMBY” (Not in my back yard)

At this moment in time, having suffered the trek to and from out of area schools for all my school life, I am in favour of a new junior school and a new senior school being built.

I am keen to find out more about “why this project has not been undertaken” I would like to ask this question of local councillors, parish councillors and our MP who may reply via the Whiteley Forum, I welcome all of the residents of Whiteley to comment too. I think it will be illuminating to find out why this project has always been rejected at the planning stage.

The largest stumbling block seems to be finding land to build the schools on. I understand that there is a time constraint made when the funds are allocated, this period is never long enough for the objections to the build to be handled. Thus each proposal runs out of time and no school is built. So far this has resulted in 2 land proposals being made for a new junior school and no agreement being reached. Until the second junior school is built no one it seems will discuss a senior school.

Surely the allocation of the land for all 3 schools should have been part of the infrastructure planning. The land for all 3 schools should have been allocated and ring fenced as part of the planning permission to build houses being granted. Anyone buying a home would then have known where the school was going to be built as well as the green spaces parks shops etc and could hardly object if they were made aware before they bought a house. Application for funding could then have been made within the time frame and the schools built.

This is my personal story

I am an 18 year old A level student, I moved to Whiteley in 1995 from Warsash when I was 3 years old. Whiteley did not have a school in 1995 in fact there were no local shops or doctors either. In September 1996 I joined my sister at Hook with Warsash Junior School.

Whiteley Junior School was due to open in September 1997 with the classes being taught in Portacabins. The classes were to be of mixed ages as there were insufficient children for full classes of each year group at this stage.

Initially the school had been planned for 3 line entry, 90 children a year. This was to be the first of 2 proposed junior schools to be built in Whiteley, followed eventually by a Senior School. Due to site problems it was amended to 2 line entry, however, by July 1998 before moving into the completed school building a shortfall in places was apparent and the design of the school was amended and compromised to extend to 3 line entry for 90 children a year. However, there were still not enough places available in Whiteley Junior School and by 2002 the shortfall in places resulted in 35 children a year having to travel outside the area to attend school.

It is clear that the second school should have been started instead of the additional classrooms for 30 extra children. A senior school should also have been planned for the 120 plus children that would be leaving the 2 junior schools every year. As the second school was supposed to be 3 line entry the senior school should have been large enough to take 150 to180 children a year in the future. They are still building houses in Whiteley that has not stopped. Whiteley North has 3000 new houses planned.

In 1997 my parents faced the dilemma of whether to move us to the new Whiteley Junior School. After much thought they decided to leave us where we were, at this stage my sister only had 2 years left at junior school. Hook with Warsash was a beacon school with a really good academic record and we were happy there we would at least be at the same school for 2 years.

When my sister left junior school once again my parents were faced with tough choices, we did not live in the catchment area for Brookfield School any more which was the school Hook with Warsash fed into. Brookfield School had more demand than places and my parents were advised it was very unlikely she would get a place there even if it was her first choice. The school that had been allocated for children from Whiteley was Henry Cort Community College.

My sister did not know many children in Whiteley at that time because she had gone to school in Warsash. So having visited several schools and considered all of the options she applied and was given a place at St Anne’s School in Southampton. The deciding factor was the superior academic results of St Anne’s compared to Henry Cort Community College. This choice meant her walking to Swanwick station and taking a train to Southampton then walking to the school. She left the house at 7.00am every morning and was not usually home until just before 5.00pm.

My parents had to pay for the train fare but she went with a couple of other girls from our street and several other girls she knew from Hook with Warsash were also going. Mum spent lots of time at weekends going to Southampton or Warsash to take us or pick us up from friend’s houses... After school activities for my sister often resulted in her not being home until 8.00pm but she could always get a train as long as it was not too late. She had a mobile phone from her first day at school so if she was late we would know she was safe. The school fully sanctioned all the girls having them for that reason. Often the train was delayed or cancelled and she was late home on a regular basis.

I completed my junior school years and then I had to choose a senior school. In 2003 the allocated school for Whiteley was still Henry Cort despite there now being over 120 children from the Whiteley area needing senior school places each year. Many parents were now looking at Swanmore College of Technology as an alternative to Henry Cort. Once again it was the academic results of Swanmore College of Technology that made my parents decide not to send me to Henry Cort. I went to my senior school not knowing a single person.

I like my sister used to leave the house just after 7.00am and although I had to walk to get the school bus on Botley Road I was lucky, the school bus dropped me at the school and picked me up from there. I was usually home just after 4.00pm. Once again my parents had to pay for my bus journey to school the bus was sometimes late and on several occasions did not turn up, parents would then have to rally round to get us to school by car.

My mother was now dropping me off and picking me up from friends in Wickham and Bishops Waltham because most of my friends did not live in Whiteley. Often there would be name calling and aggression between the students of Henry Cort and Swanmore as we were rival factions.

By 2003 my mother was working full time; there was no public bus service between the school and Whiteley so after school activities for me were almost non existent. My mother could not get from work to the school to pick me up. Vital GCSE revision classes that were run after school resulted in either her having to take time off work or my sister who was now driving coming to get me.

Activities like playing for a school team or being part of a play are not easy to be part of when the school is a 30 minute drive away and both parents work. I wonder how many activities like this have been missed by the children of Whiteley over the years. There has also been an opportunity to unite a much larger part our community that has never been taken.

There must be lots of community activities that have just never taken place in Whiteley because it has no senior school. This is the age when young people should be able to start being more independent. They should be able to join in activities at school and not require parents to pick them up afterwards. They should have the choice of walking or cycling to and from school instead of being stuck on a bus.

All of the children who live in Whiteley have the right to go to school here. They deserve to continue their education into senior school in Whiteley. Long journeys at either end of a school day are not good for children at any age. The parents of all of the children in Whiteley have the right to have their children educated here and not have to factor transport at either end of the day into going to school. Every child in Whiteley has to catch a bus to senior school unless the parent gives them a lift.

Whiteley needs a second junior school and its own senior school; we need to have one community and the people who live here want to have schools that the majority of their children can get to without transport. Most parents help their children’s schools because by helping the school they help their children. The people of Whiteley want their community their schools and the future children of Whiteley to benefit from their efforts.