GOVERNORS at a Leigh school have threatened to resign after plans to merge its junior and infant departments into a single school failed.

Talks are understood to have stalled at a recent meeting of West Leigh Junior School’s 19- strong governing body over plans to merge with West Leigh Infant School, both of which are in Ronald Hill Grove, Leigh.

Two governors are said to have threatened to resign if the merger plan is voted down by their fellowgovernors, which include five parent governors, four community governors and three local authority governors. West Leigh councillor and Tory leader John Lamb is one of them.

He confirmed there had been threats of resignation over the result of the vote, but said he hoped the governors would remain on the body as the issue had not yet been decided.

He said: “One or two people have inferred they are going to resign.

“There are still things being looked at and worked through and that’s why we are hoping people won’t go down that route.

“I can’t say everyone’s going to be happy with the final result, but hopefully, they will be, as we don’t want them to go.”

Mr Lamb said he was not in a position to speak about the details of the meeting, but indicated governors had rejected one particular proposal rather than the idea of a merger in itself.

He added: “There were issues which people weren’t happy with and they decided there were options they wouldn’t go for and ones they might go for, which would involve the two schools coming together.

“It’s a bit premature to say what’s going to happen.”

Headteacher Cheryl Woolf, who refused to comment, is also executive headteacher of Friars Primary School.

“An attempt to merge the two into a federation was blocked after a backlash from parents.

One member of staff, who wished to remain anonymous, said uncertainly over the school’s future was affecting morale.

They said: “It’s a real mess and staff do not knowwhat’s going to happen. It used to be great working there, but things are really declining.”

Chairman of governors Bob Hellen was unavailable at the time of going to press.

HEADTEACHER HAS IMPROVED OTHER SCHOOLS

WEST Leigh Junior School was rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted, which is why headteacher Cheryl Woolf is also executive head of Friars Primary.

Ms Woolf, who has been at the helm for 19 years, previously turned Eastwood Primary School’s fortunes around by taking it out of special measures – which indicates a school is failing – within two years.

As executive headteacher of Friars Primary, in Shoebury, since September 2012, she is undertaking a similar task in raising the school’s standards, which has also so far proved successful.

After its 2010 Ofsted inspection, Friars was rated “satisfactory”

and was told it “requires improvement” in 2013. But the most recent inspection report, released in January, found it to be a “good” school.

Despite the success of Mrs Woolf’s work, some West Leigh parents were not happy that 40 per cent of her time was being spent at Friars – and responded strongly in May 2013 when asked if they wanted to see the schools merge with a single headteacher and governing body.

After they formed a protest outside the school, which needed police officers to act as crowd control, the proposal was dropped within days.