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"Kettlewell Primary is an outstanding school. It is happy, welcoming and purposeful and has gone from strength to strength since its previous inspection."

Ofsted Report
October 2008

North Yorkshire County Council are consulting with the community on the future provision of primary school education in Upper Wharfedale. Options suggested by NYCC include no future for Kettlewell School. Parents and Governors at Kettlewell School are attempting to persuade the council against this course of action, and would welcome your support in their campaign.

A consultation document has been issued which may be downloaded from the link below. There is also a link to the form on which you can make a response to the Council. As the consultation document states that the Council would "welcome your views on whether the retention of education provision in Kettlewell is desirable", it is clearly essential that as many people as possible make their views known.

A copy of letter to the council from the Staff & Governors of Upper Wharfedale Schools is also available below for download for your information, as is the most recent Ofsted report on the school which is extremely impressive and well worth reading.

The full report that went to the NYCC “Executive Committee” (actually just two councillors from near York) laying out the “options” for Kettlewell and recommending the two that should go for consultation is also provided, as is the Decision Record of that meeting.

Public Meeting A public meeting was held on 1st November in Kettlewell Village Hall at 6.30 p.m. A packed hall heard a totally unconvincing presentation after which many of the audience expressed their universal and strongly held opposition to the proposals. While the councillor chairing the meeting stated several times that they were listening and taking account of the views of the local people, the statements made by the representatives of the Education department, and their failure to answer effectively a number of key questions, notably about forecast numbers and the sustainability of the local community, made it clear that, as one of them actually said "the decision has been taken - now we are consulting about it". The statement made about funding for increased transport costs being the responsibility of Craven District Council and therefore not relevant to the decision, served to underline the "Alice in Wonderland" feel to the proceedings. It is essential that as many of us as possible respond formally to the consultation process, expressing our views in the strongest possible terms. The consultation documents and other relevant material can be found at the bottom of this page. If you would like to share your own views with the rest of the community in the upper dale please email: saveourschool@buckden.org and they will be posted on this site.

Click here to see a comparison of Ofsted results of Primary Schools in Wharfedale

(please note that some of these files are very large and may take a while to download)