About
Why does Godmanchester need a secondary school?
For a town to be a community, rather than 8,000 residents living in the same place, they need to work, shop, play and learn together.
The events provided by the Community Association are invaluable in bringing us together 3 or 4 times a year, but for this new, bigger Godmanchester to be a real community it will take more.
A community school would:
+ Bring together all 11 to 16 year olds, who would grow up knowing everyone of their age in the town
+ Give those young people an easier and safer journey to school every day
+ Provide over a hundred permanent jobs
+ Give Godmanchester a suite of new buildings, available for myriad social and educational purposes, for residents of all ages, eg: evening classes, U3A, political meetings, music groups, drama club, youth club, WI
+ Provide a venue for live entertainment and fund-raising events
+ Provide sports facilities and a gym for the community to use out of school hours for training and club sports for players of all ages
+ Relieve traffic congestion at rush hour by removing the need for any pupils to travel through the town and over the bridge to Huntingdon.
+ Cost nothing to the council-tax payers of Godmanchester because it would be paid for entirely by central government
We believe that if the town had its own secondary school, everyone would benefit, and it would give our community a heart.
It would be a genuine community hub bringing residents together naturally and regularly.
Research done by CET (the Cambridgeshire Educational Trust, now the Eastern Learning Alliance) found huge support for the idea of a secondary school, and because of that the Government approved their request to establish a school in the town. Plans were then blocked by Cambridgeshire County Council on the grounds that it would be detrimental to the existing schools in the area.
Campaign for GSA aims to bring pressure to bear on CCC to make it revisit their decision and help bring us the school that would transform Godmanchester for the better.
Sarah Smith
Oxana Popkova