A COUNCIL has been criticised for its insistence that a troubled Fairford school is not to close, despite removing all pupils last month.

Chris Roberts, an employee of 11 years at the school, has referred to the situation as a ‘ridiculous charade’.

Every pupil from the school on Horcott Road was removed by Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) on July 1 due to ‘safeguarding concerns’, prior to the publication of the Ofsted report later in the month which deemed the school to not be performing well enough in several areas.

The establishment, for pupils aged nine to 16 with social, emotional and mental health issues, was then placed into 'special measures'.

On July 28, chair of the board of governors, Elizabeth Knox, announced the immediate resignation of all governors.

Ms Knox said: “The governors had hoped it would be possible to work in partnership with the local authority [GCC] to effect the necessary improvements to the school but have concluded that now the local authority has removed the children this is not a realistic possibility.”

Despite the disruption, however, GCC have continually remained adamant that the school is not to close.

In a letter to the Standard, Mrs Roberts wrote: “How can GCC continue to keep up this ridiculous charade, pretending that Coln House School is not closed?

“I worked at Coln House School for 11 years and there were always rumours about closing the school and putting the children into mainstream education.

“However, the children that attended have very serious problems and no mainstream school would be able to properly care for them.”

She went on to say, during her time at the school, “there were also rumours about converting the school buildings on both sides of Horcott Road for residential use as well as building on the extensive grounds that belong to GCC.”

She called on Cllr Paul McLain, GCC cabinet member for children and young people, to: “Make something good happen out of this terrible situation.”

“If Cllr McLain were to look to the long-term future of Fairford he might consider using the existing buildings and land for a new primary school.

“Money would have to be spent on the site to make it suitable for such a school, but GCC does have considerable funds given to it by the developers of the many new homes in Fairford, while Coln House is centrally placed to serve children from all over the town.

“Please Cllr McLain, I would ask you to think very hard about the future of the school buildings and land and not sell them off to another developer for yet more homes in Fairford,” she added.

Cllr McLain said: “As we have previously stated, Coln House hasn’t been closed. The school was put into special measures by Ofsted, having been given the lowest possible ranking in six of the nine categories, and the second lowest for two others.

“Staff continue to be employed by the school and we are working with the Department for Education to establish an Interim Executive Board to replace the board of governors who resigned earlier in the summer.

“The children at Coln House School were removed because of serious safeguarding concerns, raised by Ofsted and subsequently confirmed by a council investigation.

“I make absolutely no apology that the council acted very quickly to protect the children there. That is exactly what we should do in the circumstances.

“I can assure Mrs. Roberts that we have placements in specialist schools, not in mainstream education, for all the children.

“The county council will always put the safety and wellbeing of students first and take rapid action to protect them when we have concerns.”