CONSULTATION over controversial moves to reduce education provision in West Somerset from a three to a two-tier system was "seriously undermined" by three schools who sought to influence the way parents voted, it was claimed this week. Somerset County Council's executive board agreed last month to retain a modified version of the existing first, middle and secondary school system in the district, but with some schools federating and creating closer links. The authority based its decision largely on the result of informal consultation with parents and carers - threequarters of whom said they would prefer their child to go to a middle school at the age of nine rather than a secondary at 11. Less than a quarter of the 1,172 people who responded strongly favoured an option which would have seen a move to a two-tier system and the closure of West Somerset's middle schools in Dulverton and Minehead, with Danesfield Community Middle School in Williton being awarded secondary status. However, the decision to broadly retain the status quo has been criticised by county councillor Anthony Trollope-Bellew, who represents the Quantocks division. He told Williton Parish Council on Monday that the West Somerset Community College, Minehead Middle School and Dunster First School had seriously undermined the consultation process by actively suggesting parents supported the three- tier system of education. Cllr Trollope-Bellew said that at the executive board meeting in July at which the issue was decided, Danesfield was congratulated for its integrity in simply sending out the consultation documents and allowing parents to make up their own minds. In contrast, officers had been quite open about the effect of the actions of the Minehead and Dunster schools. He said that despite concluding the present system was unsustainable, the county council had still decided that effectively nothing would change: "The result is a fudge." Cllr Trollope-Bellew said he was seriously concerned for the future of Danesfield which, because of falling numbers, would lose around 150 pupils as a result of the county's decision not to award it secondary school status. The school currently had 390 pupils, compared to the 594 they could have under secondary status. "This will have a serious effect on its funding, which is based on pupil numbers. "As a result of not becoming a secondary school, Danesfield will lose around £700,000 of funding which it could have had over the next couple of years. "They are going to struggle to keep standards up." Cllr Trollope-Bellew said that in recent key stage two tests Danesfield had been given a target of getting 34 per cent of its pupils to level five in science. "It actually achieved 62 per cent - you can't ask much more of a school than that." Cllr Trollope-Bellew said he feared that Danesfield could lose some high quality teachers because staff would be disenchanted with the middle school system. "It is not a good career move for teachers to work in a middle school. "In 1976 there were a total of 1,700 middle schools in the country - by 2008 that number is expected to have dropped to just 280, compared to 6,500 secondary schools." Cllr Trollope-Bellew said although following the review, Danesfield and St Peter's First school in Williton would federate, he could not see any benefits from the move. "The only change is that there will be one set of governors - there will still be two headteachers, two caretakers. "I can't see how federation will benefit." Cllr Trollope-Bellew said he accepted the situation was different for a number of smaller schools in the district, who would be encouraged to federate, and he understood the problems for pupils on Exmoor whose travel time to and from school could have increased with the introduction of a two-tier system. "But this decision is not good news for Danesfield and if the county council has accepted that the existing system is unsustainable it will surely have to be reviewed again at some time in the future. "It cannot in the long term stay as it is." Cllr Kim Pearson, who has children at first, middle and secondary schools in the district, said she had complained to the county council about "being told how to vote." "I don't believe the consultation was good enough," she said. "There were no public meetings held." However, chairman of governors at the community college Martin McNeil defended the college's actions and said it had endeavoured throughout to keep the debate on the review of the education system as open as possible. He told the Free Press that the college had published its general submission on the options for change in February and encouraged all its partner schools to put forward the arguments for their position. "Some did this and some did not," he said "But we felt very strongly that the consultation documents put out by the county council did not contain enough background information or explanation about the issues. "To simply ask parents whether they favoured transfer (for pupils) at age nine or 11 was not really fair - it was out of context." Mr McNeil said the college also believed that parents were entitled to know the views of its governing body on the options being put forward. "We took a long time to make up our minds. As an institution, whichever option was chosen did not make a great deal of difference to us. "But overall, having weighed up the arguments we believed it was better to have one provider for the 14 to 18 curriculum." Mr McNeil said the college had not embarked on any lobbying "in the background". "We are a little bit hurt that we have been criticised for giving an explanation of the options and our views on them to parents. "However, our main concern now is that all the schools work together for the good of children and young people in West Somerset."