SCHOOLS are facing a major change - and the benefits are set to be shared by the whole community. In just four years' time, the Government is calling for all schools to become children centres, where all needs will be catered for at a type of one-stop shop.

Working parents should be offered before and after school care and holiday clubs. Extra 'booster' sessions will be provided for children needing extra tuition, as well as specialist lessons - such as music, and sport. Health sessions will also be provided in school and parenting classes. In addition, buildings left empty for large amounts of time will be used for adult learning at the weekends and in evenings.

For working parents especially, the changes should be welcomed - especially, if, as promised, the services will be subsidised. Obviously, not all schools will be able to cope, not all parents will want before and after school care, so schools will have to form into clusters, with say, Prince Henry's Grammar School, Otley, acting as head school for its family of primary schools.

Many schools, such as Ashfield School in Otley, have already embraced the changes and it has set up its own breakfast and after school clubs. Schools are definitely changing - and for the better.

FINDING someone to report a crime to at Otley Police Station is, by all accounts, difficult enough right now. So the reaction to news that West Yorkshire Police is planning to close the station's office-hours only help desk is understandable. It is hard to square the proposed cost-cutting exercise, which could see 13 help desks across the region closed, with the Government's recent commitment to put more into community policing.

Many people recovering from the shock of a crime, naturally enough, would prefer to talk to someone in person. And for a town the size of Otley, which also serves several nearby rural communities, not having an accessible police station seems plainly wrong - which is why the campaign to reverse the decision will surely grow and grow.