{"id":670151,"date":"2026-07-02T17:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/670151\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T17:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:14:11","slug":"turmoil-at-school-amid-redundancies-and-five-staff-suspended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/670151\/","title":{"rendered":"Turmoil at school amid redundancies and five staff suspended"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ECHO has been told “staff morale is shocking” as the group which runs the school explains its decision\"Pontville<\/p>\n

Pontville School, Ormskirk(Image: Google Maps)<\/p>\n

There is turmoil at an independent specialist school where five staff have been suspended and more than 20 staff are being made redundant. The Pontville School is an independent specialist day school in Ormskirk<\/a>, which provides education for young people with special educational needs. The school says it caters for the needs of “the most complex neurodiverse young people.”<\/p>\n

Pontville, based in Black Moss Lane, is operated by the Witherslack Group, which describes itself as the “UK’s leading education provider for children and young people with special educational needs.”<\/p>\n

In recent weeks there has been chaotic scenes at the school, with five staff members suspended and a round of redundancies announced that will significantly reduce staffing numbers.<\/p>\n

Staff told the ECHO that the number of pupils attending the school has “drastically dropped”, from around 155 to 100 children and subsequently bosses have decided to make a large number of redundancies.<\/p>\n

We were told that in total, seven teachers, 12 teaching assistants and two administrative staff are being made redundant. Pontville bosses did not dispute these numbers when put to them.<\/p>\n

\"Pontville<\/p>\n

Pontville School in Ormskirk(Image: Google Maps)<\/p>\n

One staff member told the ECHO: “Staff morale is shocking and there is an environment of fear and distress. Five staff members have been suspended under questionable circumstances.”<\/p>\n

While it is not disputed that five staff from Pontville have been suspended, those running the school insist this is not related to the redundancies and is solely down to the conduct of individual members of staff.<\/p>\n

Sources close to the school said the decision to make redundancies has not been taken lightly and comes after an extensive period of consultations and financial planning for the upcoming academic year.<\/p>\n

Schools sources insist the changes are being made purely to align staffing levels with anticipated pupil numbers while maintaining the quality of provision. They insist there will be no impact on the education, care or support provided to pupils.<\/p>\n

While Pontville accepts that student numbers have fallen, the school says the reduction in staffing levels will not be proportional to this change and student will continue to benefit from high staffing ratios after the redundancies.<\/p>\n

It is understood that support is being given to affected employees, with vacancies at related schools in the region frozen to allow affected staff to apply for those roles ahead of the new academic year.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Pontville School told the ECHO: \u201cFollowing a review of staffing requirements based on projected pupil numbers, we have made the difficult decision to reduce staffing levels at Pontville School. We are supporting colleagues who have been impacted to find alternative employment opportunities, including vacancies at related schools in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cPontville School continues to serve the special educational needs of the most complex neurodiverse young people, and its focus remains on providing the highest-quality education and care.<\/p>\n

“Pontville School continues to maintain a Good Ofsted rating and continues to accept admissions. These changes will not affect the provision or support our young people benefit from, and will not impact the high ratios of specialist teaching and pastoral support at Pontville School.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ECHO has been told “staff morale is shocking” as the group which runs the school explains its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,1398,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-670151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-education","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}