DELAWARE and Gunnislake Primary Schools are looking to form a federation where they share a headteacher, management, resources and benefits, the school governors said this week.

Public meetings are being held on March 9 in Gunnislake school at 2.30pm and Delaware school at 6pm so parents, members of the community and interested parties can find out more about the partnership.

The schools have been working closely for a year now on an informal basis with head of Delaware Jo Grail acting as executive head of both schools since the resignation of Tim Holmes as headteacher of Gunnislake.

Chairman of governors Ann Scoles said things were working so well that the schools were now looking at making it formal and setting up a federation.

'There are a lot of benefits for the children and also on the financial side of things,' she said.

'We can take advantage of the economies of scale. It is cheaper to order things for both schools at the same time than order them separately and if we want to take children swimming we can hire one bus instead of two.'

Mrs Scoles said an example of where the children benefitted was a recent visit by a local poet who was only visiting schools of over 200 pupils — Gunnislake has 55 pupils and Delaware 186.

'By linking the schools together we used the resources of a local poet and the children had a wonderful time,' she said.

The assistant head at Delaware Bridget Shillaber is now based at Gunnislake and under the federation there would be one governing body managing both schools.

Mrs Scoles said: 'This has given Gunnislake some stability which it has not had for a long time.

'There have been six headteachers in an eight year period. It is hard being head of a school where you have to teach for half the week as well.

'We want both schools to remain unique but we also want to protect their future as they serve separate communities. We believe this is the smartest way forward.'