Conwy Schools shake up - Llandudno area 1

Jun 17 2010 by Judith Phillips, North Wales Weekly News

Ysgolion Ffordd Dyffryn and Tudno will merge to form an area school either on the Tudno site, or another site subject to further investigation.

Parents at Ffordd Dyffryn have vowed to fight its closure every step of the way.

“If we had wanted our children to go to Ysgol Tudno we would have sent them there,” said PTA chairman Melanie Brook.

“If this happens, class sizes are going to be bigger and families with young children won’t want to move into the area if there is no school.”

The PTA is organising a protest outside the school next Tuesday and has started a petition calling on the council to drop the merger proposal.

Town councillor Mike Hold, a governor of Ffordd Dyffryn and also a former pupil, says it will be a sad day if it has to close, but thinks a merger with Tudno could be better for its long term future.

“I feel so sorry for the teachers who are doing an excellent job in a building which isn’t the best,” he said.

“It is very sad that the school is under-subscribed because it’s a very good school, but we’re going through difficult economic times and the maintenance costs of old buildings like this are considerable.

“There will be a lot of emotion involved if the school closes, but I feel we have to move on and accept that this will probably be best in the long term for all concerned,” he commented.

Cllr Janet Jones is a governor of Tudno and believes there are no grounds to merge it with Ffordd Dyffryn. She said: “Ffordd Dyffryn is an excellent community school. I’d like to know what the council bases its prediction of falling class numbers at Tudno on. The reception class will be full this September and there are new people moving into the area all the time so I don’t believe pupil numbers will fall.”

And she didn’t think merging the two schools on the Tudno site was feasible.

“There isn’t much room to extend, the only way of merging the two would be to put them in a bigger, purpose built building,” she claimed.

Deborah Thompson has three children at Tudno: “It’s a fantastic school, anyone would want their children to go there.”