A local authority accused of failing to arrest the dramatic desertion of pupils from a 160-year-old village school may offer it a lifeline if the community signs up to sending children there.

North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for education, Councillor Annabel Wilkinson said while Hovingham Primary School, near Helmsley, currently had no pupils, if sufficient a number of pupils started there next September, the authority would consider halting a process to close it permanently.

A meeting of the authority had heard farmer and parish councillor Mark Wilson appeal to the council to support the governors and community to put a strategy in place to relaunch the school, which he said had been at the heart of the village, providing excellent education for generations of families.

Mr Wilson added It had become apparent at a packed public meeting earlier this month that the “lack of pupils was down to poor leadership and no support from the local authority when it should have been obvious there was a problem”.

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While the school has only had 40 pupils or below for the last decade, pupil numbers fell from 33 in May 2020 to none at the start of the new term in September.

Mr Wilson said the local authority’s lack of action had caused families to remove pupils and the families of potential pupils to look elsewhere.

He said local schools had offered informal collaboration with Hovingham school on many occasions, but their help was refused, so the offers stopped.

Mr Wilson said: “By removing the school from the community, the church and ceasing any engagement with the village, the school and the teachers became isolated.”

He called for the consultation to be stopped and the council “take a hard look at their culpability”.

Cllr Wilkinson revealed the authority had received a number of questions from a variety of sources about why the situation had developed at Hovingham and was examining the sequence of events.

She said: “The background to this case is important, but it does not change the position that there are no children on roll at the school and that the Department for Education will not provide any funding for the school in the next financial year.”

She said in light of potential applications being made for pupils to join or rejoin the school, the consultation had been extended by two weeks to December 12 so the council’s executive could consider the number of applications to start in September next year.

Amotherby and Ampleforth division councillor Steve Mason responded that the authority was only extending the consultation to the standard length.

Outside the meeting he said: “I fear a catalogue of failings in previous leadership and subsequent reputational damage has led to where we are today.”

Sir William Worsley, whose Hovingham Estate owns much of the village, added: “My family built the school some 150-years-ago for the benefit of the community.

"I believe the value of a village school is as important now as it was then.

"Hovingham is a growing, vibrant village and needs a well-run village school at its heart.”

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