DULVERTON Middle School will not shut if four West Somerset schools unite in a Multi-Trust Academy, according to one of the area’s head teachers.

Parents fear that a proposal for Dulverton’s All Saints Church First School, Dulverton Middle & Community School, Exford Church First School and Minehead Middle School to work under a single board of directors in conjunction with the Diocese of Bath & Wells will cause the middle school in Dul-verton to close.

A group of Dulverton parents – Julie Christian, Donna Lyndsay, Claire Miles and Ruth Boyce – fear the move would not financially support Dulverton Middle School if parents decided to send their children to Kingsmead School in Wiveliscombe instead.

Kingsmead, in the Taunton Deane district, takes children from the age of 11, and is widening its catchment area to include youngsters in the Dulverton Middle School catchment as of September, 2015.

In a letter to the County Gazette, the group of parents said they were “particularly worried about the apparent lack of knowledge relating to the financial sustainability and structure of the proposed Multi-Trust Academy”.

They added that “without transparency on the figures and structure we can only assume the worst for Dulverton Middle School”.

Somerset County Gazette:

PAUL Rushforth, Minehead Middle School, says that the aim of the MTA is to make Dulverton Middle School a "centre of excellence".

However, Paul Rushworth, head teacher at Minehead Middle School, says the proposed set-up will help Dulverton Middle School.

He said: “We want to make Dulverton Middle School a place of excellence.

“We want to make the facilities so fantastic that parents won’t want to send their children anywhere else.

“The idea is that all four schools have their own separate identity with their own area in West Som-erset and their own head teacher, but they’ll have access to teaching staff across all four schools.

“At Minehead Middle there’s a strong team of staff who know how to manage a school, so we want to share that capacity with other schools in West Somerset to improve standards”.

Another issue raised by the parents’ group is that “the new proposal would seem to mean a substantial reduction in funding compared to existing budgets”.

However, Theresa Gale, director of education with the Diocese of Bath & Wells, says the change to academy status entitles the school to a £25,000 conversion grant from the Department of Education, as well as a potential £100,000 primary chain grant.

She said: “Schools don’t lose any funding by joining a MAT, but MATs can bring significant cost savings through competitive procurement methods and economies of scale.”

The four schools educate over 800 children, and employ 50 teachers and over 100 support staff. It is hoped that the Multi-Trust Academy could be in place in September, 2015.

The consultation process comes to a close on Tuesday, March 10.