SOUTH Craven School has been knocked back in its application for foundation status.

The North Yorkshire School Organisation Committee - a body made up of key education providers - said no to the plans on Friday.

The Cross Hills school currently holds community status meaning that the local education authority (LEA) controls it and has the primary responsibility for deciding arrangements for admitting pupils.

By changing to foundation status, South Craven would have been maintained by the LEA, but the governing body would have been the employer and admissions authority. Its land and buildings would have been either owned by the governing body or by a charitable foundation.

Chairman of the governors Iain Harris presented the school's case for conversion to committee members.

He said the school's reasons for seeking foundation status lay in three areas - autonomy, the site and admissions.

Mr Harris explained that the school straddled two education authorities - North Yorkshire and Bradford - and therefore had to show foresight in its decision making.

He added that the school had received an appalling quality of service from the LEA on building projects.

He said when the school had managed projects internally they had achieved much better value for money.

With regards to admission, Mr Harris said the current system had not worked at South Craven. He explained that the expansion of the selective education provision in Craven, whereby Skipton's grammar schools took more students from outside the town, was a threat to the school and changes made by Bradford LEA had also affected its catchment area.

"No other school in North Yorkshire is faced with the situation of half its catchment area being in another LEA and a different set of selective admission arrangments being in place in the neighbouring North Yorkshire area," he said.

The committee broke up into three groups to reach a decision on South Craven's future. While one group abstained from voting, the other two turned down the application.

They said they had not heard enough information about admission arrangements and were concerned about the future use of the school's land.

One of the groups giving the thumbs down stated that there was a lack of information about how the changes would affect the position of children in the South Craven area.

Mr Harris said: "We will be looking at continuing to pursue this course as we believe it is in the best interest of the school and the community. At the moment we are taking advice on the options available. There is strong support for the proposal from the consultation process.

"We believe firmly in the highest quality of education being available in South Craven and we will do all in our power as a governing body to continue to ensure the school's future development."