 Idyllic scenery came at a price for Lowick school in Cumbria |
With the future of hundreds of small schools in jeopardy across England, campaigners who unsuccessfully fought against the closure of one rural school in Cumbria share their experiences. Strange as it may seem, the striking view of the Lake District from the windows of Lowick Primary School was ultimately one of the biggest factors in its demise.
To one side, Coniston Water, the third largest of the lakes, nestling among enchanted peaks, which attract millions of hillwalkers, young and old, every year.
To the other side, views towards the estuary and the sands of Morecambe Bay, which, every summer, fill with windbreaks and picnic blankets and the patter of young feet.
Mountains in the garden
But being on the doorstep of one of the country's most beautiful areas comes at a price.
Mountains in your back garden add significantly to property values, and that's simply pricing young families out.
The average cost of a house in South Lakeland is �256,016, while the average for Cumbria as a whole is �172,548.
According to local vicar, Reverend Gary Wemyss, people buying in the area these days are more likely to be retirees or people investing in a second home.
He denies that's stirring hostility among local residents; as he puts it, "those who move in are trying to fit in".
But he adds, "the difficulty is that as people make higher bids for houses, young people with less money can't afford it".
Shirley Rainbow agrees. For 20 years, she taught at Lowick before retiring as headmistress when the school served its last dinner on 15 July 2005.
Bitter battle
"Because housing around Lowick is so expensive", she says, "young families are being forced to move into town."
 Until its closure, Lowick school had been in existence since 1856 |
There's been a school in Lowick for 150 years and there's passion in Shirley Rainbow's voice as she recalls the bitter battle to keep it open.
"We fought as hard as we could," she says. "We went to the High Court twice to get Cumbria County Council to reconsider.
"We forced two judicial reviews and then the decision went to an adjudicator, who sided with the council. After that, we ran the school independently."
But in the end, it all came down to money.
"It was a great shame", says local district councillor, Betty Spendlove.
"After a year of running the school as an independent, we couldn't keep up financially. How were we going to raise �100,000 a year without charging fees?"
The woman children used to call "Miss Rainbow" speaks eloquently about the benefits of running a small school. She comes across as being one of the teachers you remember fondly from your own time as an infant.
"Six months in a small school is worth two years in a big school", she says.
"The atmosphere is totally different. Everyone joins in, everyone's included."
Small is beautiful
She speaks from experience. For several years, she had two blind pupils and made sure they joined in as many activities as possible as the sighted children.
No mean feat when you have only 19 charges in your care - spread across infants and juniors.
"All the research shows that small schools are good," she says.
It's a view echoed by local district councillor, Betty Spendlove.
"The children get more personal attention in a smaller school with a better teacher-pupil ratio," she says.
The pupils at Lowick "were living in an almost Wordsworthian environment", she adds. "It was a beautiful setting, a far cry from an inner city school."
But the cruel reality, according to the Cumbria county council, is that Lowick just wasn't viable.
It's currently in the middle of a review of all of its schools. It says about a quarter of school places will become empty in Cumbria over the next decade.
Official council policy states: "It is very important that we plan for the future to ensure we have the correct number and type of schools and that they are the right size and in the right locations."
Shirley Rainbow disputes the savings made by the council.
"Every school in the county might have benefited by about �5 each with the �100,000 they saved by closing Lowick," according to Miss Rainbow.
"That's nothing when you consider the detriment to the community."
Children scattered
Rose Bugler was chair of Lowick school's board of governors and had children at the school. She's got some advice for parents and teachers in Shropshire and other parts of the country who now face school closures of their own.
"We pushed really hard", she recalls. "But the reality is that the decisions are made by the politicians."
"They need to work with the community in Shropshire," she says.
"The more they can arrange around the schools, the better. They need to be talking and working together the whole time."
As for her own children, Mrs Bugler is in no doubt they lost out as a result of the closure of their primary school.
"They've lost contact with their all friends", she laments.
"You get a group of teenagers together from this area and they don't know each other because they're all scattered around in different schools."
"It's had a huge impact", says Mrs Bugler.
"We used to have harvest festivals in the church. The kids would perform in church. They'd run errands for the older folk. Now that kind of thing doesn't happen any more."
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The difficulty is that... young people with less money can't afford it
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