Staff at closing Bury St Edmunds school Westley Middle talk of remaining positive and looking forward as site enters new chapter

As a new era is being ushered in at a middle school site, the remaining staff have been focused on ‘providing the best for the children’ – right up until the very end.

Westley Middle School, in Oliver Road, Bury St Edmunds, is closing at the end of term and the site will become the new County High School lower campus for Year 7 and 8 students.

Westley and the town’s Horringer Court Middle School, which is also closing this summer, are the last two middle schools in Suffolk, but due to dwindling pupil numbers their academy trust, Unity Schools Partnership, made the decision they should shut.

Westley Middle School, which opened in 1971, has been serving the community for 52 years.

Staff said the school had a ‘warm’ and ‘community feel’, adding they often refer to themselves as ‘Team Westley’ due to their support for each other through the good times and bad.

Office manager and PA Mandy Smart, who started at the school in 2001, said the lead-up to closure was ‘an emotional time’, but with the end of term being so busy it was a really good distraction. “We are still here obviously for the families and children; the teaching side goes on,” she said. “Your own emotion of it is parked because we are just trying to get all these things sorted at the moment.

“We are making sure we are doing everything for everybody, and making sure everybody feels they have got that final service from us.”

She added: “The focus has been on providing the best for the children.”

Assistant headteacher and head of music Fran Hart started at the school in 1992. In her 31 years there, she has worked under six headteachers.

She said: “The school is my home, it is. I spend so much time here. It’s my community, my go to. It’s where I got my bestfriends as it were and I have seen so much change and taught so many children.

“It’s lovely going to town and being served by someone in a shop and they are like ‘are you Mrs Hart?”

Of her memories, she mentioned seeing former headteacher Nick Templeton in tears on retiring, the concerts and sports days with the families coming and supporting each other and prom nights when the students dressed up, recalling that someone once arrived on a horse.

Mandy said ‘Westley’s Got Talent’ was a real highlight, recollecting when staff dressed up as the Spice Girls.

A newer member of staff, Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) Neve Maguire, who started there in 2021, said: “I have got really fond memories as a pupil here and lots of friends I made here are still my closest friends now so the social side of it is really good.

“There has always been lots of opportunities here, lots of sport, lots of music, and as a member of staff it’s been nice to be on the other side of it and some of the other staff members who are here are still from when I was at school.”

This academic year there have been Years 6, 7 and 8 at the school, with no Year 5s as they stayed on in primary, and from September there will just be Years 7 and 8 as part of the Oliver Road campus.

There have been fewer students on site and some staff have left, but Fran said they had tried to maintain normality for the children, with the same opportunities like residential trips and concerts and clubs. “They [pupils] are our priority, ”she said.

Mandy added: “It’s such a bittersweet time, but hopefully with all the transition that’s gone on we have kept a bit of continuity as well to help people through the change. Nobody likes change. We need to be positive for the children and the families.”

As well as some Horringer Court Middle children, some staff from that school will also be moving over to the Oliver Road campus.

Executive head of Westley and Horringer Court middles, Ben Jeffery, mentioned the ‘really good’ collaborative work between both schools this year, and added that the children had still had good teachers in front of them.

“The last year, the priority has been to maintain the standards at both schools and to prepare the students from both schools that are moving on [to the lower school or elsewhere], to make sure it’s a really smooth transition,” said Ben, who is leading the Oliver Road lower campus as head of school.

He added the fact staff had continued to go ‘above and beyond’ despite closure was a real credit to them.

Ben, who joined Westley as headteacher in 2020, said although they were ‘disappointed’ the decision was made to close the school, they had remained positive and looked forward to being part of County and taking the best bits from Westley and Horringer Court forward.

In Mandy’s words: “We try to make it half full instead of half empty. Everything will finish in a positive way.”

The West Fest celebration is taking place at Westley Middle today.

Pupils’ last day there is July 19.

•Mandy has chosen to take redundancy and spend time with her family, Fran is staying on as part of the lower school and Neve will be taking a travel break.

Closure plans

Unity Schools Partnership published proposals in January 2022 to shut Westley and Horringer Court Middle Schools and for the town's County High School, then known as County Upper, and Tollgate Primary School to take on extra year groups.

The trust said the number of families choosing middle schools was 'diminishing' but fears were raised by community leaders over the impact on education and the level of future provision in the town with the loss of two Ofsted-rated 'good' schools.

The trust amended the proposals following consultation before submitting them to the Department for Education (DfE). In May last year, the trust was told the proposals had DfE approval.

Westley and Horringer Court had been saved from Suffolk County Council's closure of middle schools after joining the Bury St Edmunds All-Through Trust, which later became part of Unity.