SAVE Great Torrington's Mayfair !

On the first Thursday in May is Mayfair, an annual folk festival believed to date back to 1554. At this event the local children dance around a maypole set up in the town square, but this year the School wants to change it, PLEASE READ .....

"Dear Parent or Carer,

We are writing to inform you that, as a consequence of the school's poor year 6 SATs results in recent years and particularly last year, we have asked the local Authority to provide us with additional support and resources in order to help us address quickly the school's current low academic standards...
to do this, we will have to make changes to a number of ways that the school has done things in the past. One step we will take concerns the town's Mayfair celebrations..
Given the proximity of Mayfair to Year 6 national SATs tests, we have decided that from the year Year 6 pupils will NOT participate in the Maypole dancing given the amount of school time required for rehearsals ahead of the SATs test...
The May Queen, Crowner and Heralds will still be represented by Year 6 children. Year 6 pupils will be able to attend the day and of course, they will have danced whiles in Year 5
We appreciate fully the importance the community attaches to it's annual Mayfair events. However, under the current circumstances, we feel strongly that we must put our children's education first...
We would ask all parents for their support for this and those other measures we will have to take to get the School's academic standards back on track as soon as possible."