The Welsh kids condemned
to learn in limbo.

The Welsh kids condemned to learn in limbo

In October 2022, builders working on a housing estate opposite Manorbier Church in Pembrokeshire noticed smoke rising from the roof of the school.

A fire quickly spread across the old part of the school, leaving a trail of destruction.

Mum of two kids in attendance Charlotte Fortune told us:

“I had just sat down with a cuppa. I opened Facebook and a status that Manorbier school was on fire. I jumped up, ran straight to my car. As I got to the top of the hill, I could barely see the road through the smoke.

“I called my husband hysterically crying, I was convinced my two beautiful daughters were dead. My husband was frantic on the phone. I got to the bottom of the hill and went to turn into the street and a builder stopped me, saying that the school was on fire and nobody could go down. I ran past him, fully prepared to throw myself into the fire to save my babies. As I approached the school firefighters were tackling the blaze.

“My father who owns a caravan site next to the school raced towards me and kept shouting ‘they’re fine, they’re safe, they’re fine’.
I dropped to the floor, my emotions had taken over.”

Blessedly, all 27 children escaped unharmed, but the building was left badly damaged and uninhabitable. The council promised parents that their school would be rebuilt.

In the meantime the children were moved temporarily to the nearby Jameston Village Hall.

But this happened in 2022? Why are we reporting on this now?

Well this is because we are now more than that three years on from the fire. Those children are still in a temporary hall and, far from being rebuilt, the council are now saying that they want to permanently close the school and amalgamate it with two others.

Some of these children face the prospect of spending almost their entire primary education in a village hall. The hall and portacabin lack the facilities expected in a modern British primary school. Playtime is confined to a small car park, teachers and pupils share the toilets, there is no security fencing around the hall. There is no dining room and space issues not been addressed

This is an area of significant deprivation and poverty and many of the children have additional learning needs.

Despite the remarkable efforts by the staff at the school, the conditions in the village hall are cramped and simply not appropriate for educating children.

Naomi Creese, eight:

“I miss having classrooms. I miss running around and playing outside.”

Kahlila Okwedy, seven:

“I miss my old school. We used to run around outside, I miss the playground.”

Michelle Hampson, a chartered educational psychologist, said:
“Incidents such as a fire followed by disruption to education, in this case being in a temporary school building with uncertainty about the future, will be difficult for children because all children need emotional stability. Children with additional needs are also likely to need more support in coping with uncertainty and disruption.”

Broken promise

Manorbier School opened in 1873. It has great Estyn reports. I spent a great deal of time speaking to parents in the area and it is obvious both that the school is the heart of this community and that the fire has taken its toll on people.

While it is clearly unacceptable for children to spend what will likely end up as more than half a decade in a temporary school, the key question for parents is why, after years of delay, are the council now simply planning to close the school and amalgamate it with two others?

Cesca Ventris Field, is a mum that has been central to the fight to keep the school open. She said:

“Nearly three years on, and we remain at the village hall. The cause of the fire remains unknown, PCC will not disclose this information, this makes us all suspicious as to what actually happened. Their solution is to close our school, along with two other schools in these areas. The argument is that no one wants to send their children to a temporary school, they want a proper school that hasn’t burned down. I just think that the council is hiding something, and it is all the more infuriating when our council tax went up 21% last year.”

When you scratch beneath the surface, there are a lot of unanswered questions around the fire and what happened subsequently.

• What was the cause of the fire? Parents say that despite repeated questioning and Freedom of Information requests, Pembrokeshire County Council (PCC) has still not fully explained how it started.

• What has happened to the insurance money from the fire? The council won’t reveal who the insurance is even held with.

• How much would a rebuild cost? The figure of £2.6m was suggested but that was removed from council documents and plans.

• Why has there been so little communication from the council to parents and the community since the blaze?

We approached PCC to ask these questions. Regarding a lack of communication a PCC spokesperson said:

“The Council acknowledges that initial communication delays occurred, with parents receiving formal updates only after lodging complaints. Since then, PCC has issued half-termly newsletters, held meetings with parents, and maintained contact through the school.”

The answers to the other questions are all tied together. A spokesperson said:

“The fire at Manorbier on 10 October 2022 was reportedly caused by accidental ignition during “hot works” carried out by contractors renewing an adjacent flat roof. However, no liability has been accepted to date by the contractors or insurers.

“Ongoing legal and insurance negotiations are the reason for limited disclosure. While the estimated rebuild cost of £2.6 million has been reported this information was provided by councillors. The final settlement discussions are still in progress, and public release of details may prejudice these proceedings.

“The specific insurers and brokers have not been publicly named. However, we confirm that negotiations with insurers are ongoing, and no liability has been accepted.

“Insurance funds have been used for debris clearance (January 2024), feasibility studies, and temporary accommodation at Jameston Village Hall, with PCC covering £200,000 of insurance excess and other costs.

“The costs for the estimated rebuild have not been revealed as they were provided to Councillors via a restricted appendix due to their commercial sensitivity, the figures have not been made publicly available nor included in any previous plans.”

So in simple terms, the council has been wrangling with unspecified contractors and insurance companies for over three years. They still don’t know how much a rebuild would even cost and what insurance money has been received has been spent maintaining an unacceptable status quo rather than simply rebuilding the school.

Parents are furious, and understandably so. Especially when you consider:

• PCC is expected to underspend on its budget by £1m this year.

• PCC currently has around £100m in reserves.

That “reserves” figure is particularly frustrating for parents. Now it’s worth saying that reserves aren’t always unallocated money that is just sitting waiting to be used. Some will be earmarked and held aside to smooth out issues like cash flow. But ultimately that money is there for unexpected costs like, for example, a school burning down!

The fact that their children have been housed in a temporary building for so long while the council quibbles over insurance when it was perfectly within their gift to begin a rebuild is, to the parents of Manorbier, outrageous.

But what is really aggravating them now is that, while three years is seemingly not long enough to sort out an insurance claim, it is long enough for the council to set up the “school modernisation working group” and recommend that the school be closed due to “declining pupil numbers and surplus capacity”.

Advocates for the school say that lower pupil numbers are inevitable given that new parents are unlikely to want to send their children to a school which is in indefinite temporary accommodation purgatory.

One local woman, Annie Brougham, wanted to send her child to the school but believed they weren’t taking on students because of the fire. However, after she sent her child to another local school and he struggled, her health visitor recommended Manorbier school and Annie says that her child has since thrived due to the experienced teaching skills in additional learning needs education there.

Louise Keevil, an accountant and mother of a child at the school, has submitted countless Freedom of Information requests on the situation. She said:

“Mums feel that they are having the wool pulled over their eyes. The council are hoping that we’ll just go away. The children are in a tiny hall. They have a car park as a playground.

“I think they’ve always had this plan to close the school. It’s literally a money saving thing. There’s something not quite right about it all.”

She says that the closure of the school will disproportionately impact the kids in this area.

“I read ONS reports. The ONS say that 30% of children in Pembrokeshire are below the poverty line and I would say that 90% of children that go to Manorbier school are below the poverty line. They have to look at the impact that this is having on those children.

“Some of those children have special needs, whether that’s autism, ADHD, or other issues. These children have economic disadvantages and Manorbier school really does support their families and the community. It’s a very special school because it’s very community driven, there are some children that wouldn’t have been given the chance they’ve had elsewhere.

“It’s not just the petrol costs that have increased as a result of having to go further, it’s the loss of community as we are all spread out now. There were a lot more of us then, some took children out of the school.”

There is something not just not right about this. A school burns down. It is not rebuilt for years so some parents move their children. Then the council says it needs to close due to lack of numbers.

Speaking previously Conservative Senedd member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Sam Kurtz, said:

“There have been promises to rebuild this school from both the current and previous council leaders, yet we are still here now, in a consultation, talking about closing the school.

“That’s wholly unacceptable, given what this school, the community, and the pupils have been through. I think they’ve been forgotten by the council.

“They’re using the excuse of the fire as a reason to bring it forward for closure. Would this school have been earmarked for closure had the fire not happened? I don’t think it would have.”

Parents say that since the school closure was proposed they have had no meeting with the council and have only had five letters in total since the fire. Some parents claim they did not even see the letters as they were put in the kids school bag, via the school.

Manorbier School site is owned by the church. Canon John Cecil, director of education for The Diocese of St Davids told us:

“Considering it’s our property, no information has been shared [by the council]. We’ve been told from the beginning that the school would be reinstated. Even in December last year they said the school would be reinstated. Then it seems that there has been a change of heart. From our point of view, there has been a lack of engagement considering it’s the Diocese that is the owner of the property.

“The Church owns the old part of the school and the council has to hand it back as an operational building. It is the Diocese’s wish that the school is reinstated. If it closed, they couldn’t just walk away and drop off the key.

“There has been a lot of damage (to the building), it has been dilapidated, people have been able to break in, the entire heating system has been stolen. If more had been done to safeguard the site, things may have turned out differently”.

No one is denying that local authority finances are stretched and hard decisions have to be made.
However, this is no excuse for the broken promises, total lack of communication and years of delays.

Ultimately, the only thing that really matters here is the children who have endured a traumatic event followed by years of educational limbo.

This is a letter from Rowan, now 11, a pupil of Manorbier Primary school. He wrote this letter to a councillor on Pembrokeshire County Council:

Dear Councillors and Decision-Makers,

My name is Rowan, and I’m 11 years old. I was inside Manorbier VC School on the day it caught fire.

When I walked out and saw the building burning, I felt absolutely gutted. That school was where I learnt so many things, and it was really upsetting to see it go up in flames. It just felt so unfair.

What I miss most are my friends and the teachers. Since the fire, the school feels different. It’s like people expect it to be shut down, and the number of pupils has dropped. It’s sad, because it’s harder to make new friends now. I really miss our forest, our playground equipment, and the fun we used to have.

I’m learning at Jameston now, and everyone has been really kind — the community has been brilliant. But to be honest, I still wish we had our own school back. It doesn’t feel the same. I think we’re doing well to keep going, but we’re only managing because people are helping us survive.

The teachers have explained what’s going on as best they can, but I don’t feel like we’re being told the full story. I’m not sure if the council is talking to them or if everything is being left to the staff. I wish I could help, but I feel like I’m not being told everything.

To the people making the decisions do you actually understand what insurance is? It’s there to help when something goes wrong. So why haven’t we been rebuilt? You’re trying to shut us down, but we’re the ones who’ve lost everything. It’s not fair — it’s just really sad. I wish someone would help us instead of trying to end our school.

If I could rebuild Manorbier, I’d make it as eco-friendly as possible. I’d put up solar panels, have healthy food made by proper nutritionists, fire extinguishers everywhere, and a strong roof that wouldn’t fall down. I’d make sure we had proper insurance and a nice big library.

When I think about not getting our school back, I feel sad, confused, and angry. Sad because I’ve learnt so much there. Confused because I don’t understand why nothing’s being done. And angry because it could have been rebuilt ages ago.

Please don’t shut us down. Please rebuild our school.

Yours sincerely,
Rowan (age 11)

On first glance, this seems simply a story about a local school closure, but it is about much more than that. It is reflective of much wider issues. It is about the decline in community infrastructure in the name of efficiency saving. It’s about the rapidly aging population of rural Wales because it’s simply very hard to parent in a community with little provision. It’s about how delays by authorities leave the communities they serve more harmed by the inaction than the ultimate decision.

There is something very Welsh about the campaign to save this school. A group of 15 parents, with a high percentage of single mums, are fighting for their community. They are refusing to take no for an answer.

All photography
Copyright: Rob Norman/HayMan Media