Small is beautiful…

What’s your idea of a good village school? What makes it special? As a parent, what would make you decide to send your children there? Under what circumstances would you close a village school? Indeed, what is ‘education’ when it comes to village schools?

Exams matter. Tests tell us what is wrong. Academic reputations go up and down. So does the esteem in which teachers and institutions are held. Buildings may fall apart but the ethos of the school may thrive. Ultimately, the test is whether children, parents, teachers and communities believe in a school and what it is achieving.

Steven Fox was born in 1627, the second son of a woodcutter in Farley, four miles east of Salisbury. He won a place at my old school, Salisbury Cathedral School, and when he was just 13, he landed up at the Royal Court in Richmond and befriended 9-year old Prince Charles. He rose and prospered. He was by Charles’s side at the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 and made piles of cash. He paid for one third of the Royal Hospital for Pensioners at Chelsea.

When he came back to Farley he found poverty, indignity and ignorance. So he paid his friend Christopher Wren to design an almshouse (Farley Hospital) and a church. He also founded a school. In 1867 a new National School was built – which is still in use today, alongside buildings finished just last year.

Have you been to Farley? It is a gem of an English village. Church, school, pub (very good!) and surrounded by lush country and ancient woodlands. The village school has new buildings and old, a computer suite and an excellent website for you to browse (www.farleyallsaints.wilts.sch.uk). Beyond the large playground are two acres of playing fields and a kitchen garden full of vegetables grown by the kids.

At the end of last year, Ofsted descended to inspect the school. Their job is to measure and test every school by objective national standards. Their Report was not good. But it was glowing in its praise for the ethos of the school, for teacher and pupil relations, for parental support and community involvement.

So, I wonder what is going through the minds of Wiltshire County Council and the Salisbury Diocesan Board of Education? To the latter I say, please support and encourage a good Christian school in Farley just as you did last year when Salisbury’s Wyvern College ‘converted’ to church school status.

To the County Council I say, let’s acknowledge that at Farley we all benefit from the continuing contribution this much-loved school makes to village life - 300 years on. Administrative convenience was not the reason Stephen Fox made Farley unique in England. He did it to meet the needs of the young and the elderly plus the spiritual needs of the community.

One bad Ofsted report is neither a sufficient nor a compelling reason to doubt the value of the oldest village school in Wiltshire. On the contrary, let’s celebrate and multiply the many virtues of small village schools. Let it never be said that we knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Robert Key
8th April 2004

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