Children need the best transition into secondary education to give them a confident and happy start. Unfortunately 57 kids in our community have been denied this by the council and are being sent to schools outside of the community. They will be without their friends, they will face long journeys, they will have to leave much earlier in the morning, they will not be able to choose to walk to school and it will be much more difficult to develop friendships with those they meet at school as they live in a different community.

They are sad, distressed and worried.

Apparently a £756 million budget cannot be stretched to accommodate 57 kids. If the council actually sat down with some of these children and understood how they feel I am sure they would change their mind.

On Saturday 15th April 2017 I am going to ride up my local hill one time for each of those kids. I am a 51 year old cyclist and by no means would I describe myself as an athlete so this is not going to be easy but each trip up that hill represents the obstacle that the council puts in front of these children.

I will be starting at 6:00am and it will take me around 7 hours. Please pop by and give me a bit of an encouragement or even ride up one time with me. I will be riding from the bottom of Elm Grove up to the junction with Queens Park Road.

I am doing this to raise awareness of the feelings of children which is THE most important thing. Councillors need to think again and act with their hearts instead of their heads.

Our local primary school is a fabulous place but like many schools in the UK is coming under increasing financial pressure from an uncaring government because of government cuts to funding. So please donate a little to help the school continue to nurture the lives of our kids.

Thank you.