Last week, I went to the 70th birthday celebrations of Fishersgate Community First School in Gardner Road.

The headmaster showed some photographs of the first children in the school garden in 1936 and read from a log book.

What would the children of 70 years ago think of today's school with its brightly decorated classrooms and after-school activities, including family groups, cookery classes, maths, and English for parents and carers?

And what will we think in two years' time when Fishersgate children are being taught in temporary classrooms in Manor Hall School grounds?

Yes, in Fishersgate we have a community school with a high level of achievement which West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is proposing to close.

The children will have a dingy, 20-minute walk to school over the railway line and through Southwick Rec - unless there is a car in the family, which will have to take a three-mile detour to get there (how green is that?).

What is this going to do to the current high levels of attendance at Fishersgate? How "communal" will the area feel once its centre has been removed?

If West Sussex County Council takes this decision, it will let down a whole community of people who use the school to improve life for themselves and their children.

Fishersgate needs a school now even more than it did in 1936.

  • Helen Marbach governor, Fishersgate Community School, Gardner Road, Fishersgate, Email: saveourschool@fsmail.net