The group protesting against the closure of a special needs primary school are awaiting a judge's decision, before the matter can go forward.

The Save The Parks group is campaigning against Rutland County Council's decision to close the Oakham-based primary and has raised the £5,000 required for a judicial review.

The group is now waiting for a judge to give a decision on what is known as a 'stage one hearing' – a type of court proceeding in which a judge looks at the lawfulness of a decision made by a public body.

The claim is currently with the High Court, and while the first stage doesn't necessarily involve a hearing unless the judge refuses permission based on the evidence in the papers, there is no timescale as to how long this process might take.

"Unfortunately we don't know when the decision will be made by the judge," said Antonia Garnett-Wright speaking on behalf of The Save the Parks School group.

"I have spoken with our legal team as we want to keep the people who donated the £5,000 to us, as up to date as possible.

"The lawyers are telling us that effectively there is no closing date now, as we have passed the legal requirements to allow the matter to go before a judge, and so it is simply a case of waiting until the decision on the 'stage one hearing' is made."

The Parks School was Rutland's only state maintained community special education needs (SEN) nursery school taking children up to seven years old. In the last two Ofsted inspections, it achieved a rating of 'outstanding'.

In November, a public consultation was opened, and a petition against closure was signed by just under 4,000 people, representing nearly 10% of the population of Rutland.

However, the school was closed by Rutland County Council in January as part of a cost-cutting programme.

"But the petition was never formally accepted by Rutland County Council, and so did not form any part of their decision-making process." Mrs Garnett-Wright explained.

"We were not given the opportunity to present the petition before the council, it never went to either the scrutiny committee or the cabinet, was not listed on an agenda, and our emails to the council were simply ignored."

A mother of four children, three of whom have benefitted from special needs education, Mrs Garnett-Wright added: "We were then told the reason the petition was not listed for scrutiny was because the decision had already been made to close The Parks School, and that we should've asked to be present before the cabinet meeting took place."

Rutland County Council, which is responsible for state schools in the county, announced a review of its SEN provision in October 2023.

The Parks School had provision for up to eight children, but according to Dawn Godfrey, strategic director for children's services, at the time of the public consultation only two were enrolled.

The council said: "Following the independent review of The Parks School, it was identified that the current arrangement was expensive and did not reflect the national and local aim for more children with special educational needs to be educated within their local mainstream early education or school setting.

"The Parks is no longer operationally viable and continuing to keep it open does not make best use of limited resources."

However, Mrs Garnett-Wright argues that many of the children with SEN in Rutland cannot be placed within the local mainstream early education settings.

"These children require individual attention in groups of one or two, which is exactly why The Parks School was the right environment for them and why we need that facility for these children," she said.

"Where are the council proposing that we send the children now that The Parks has closed? They will be bussed out to Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and other out-of-county facilities – all of which will result in enormous transportation costs to the taxpayers of Rutland."

Depending on the circumstances and findings of the judge, the decision can be recalled for further review and investigation, or possibly even reversed altogether.