A FEW years ago I was invited to Shelley College to talk to some of the pupils for an hour or so about the wonderful world of newspapers.

In my brief time at the school I found the young people to be bright and inquisitive, the teachers friendly and helpful and the building modern and well-equipped.

In short, I’ve nothing against the place which has been popping up in the Examiner’s news pages over the last few weeks.

Shelley College, as many readers will know, is part of an increasingly rare form of education.

While most of the country uses the infant/junior school and high school system, Kirkburton and Denby Dale have stuck with the three-tier regime where children go to one of the dozen or so first schools until they are nine.

This is followed by four years of middle school in Kirkburton or Scissett before they head off to Shelley College to do their GCSEs and ‘A’ Levels.

This part of rural Huddersfield is one of a dwindling number of areas which still uses the three-tier system. Thirty years ago there were 1,400 middle schools in England and Wales. Today there are fewer than 200.

Head north from the kingdom of Kirklees and you won’t come across another school for nine to 13-year-olds until you reach Gosforth Central Middle School, where Alan Shearer spent his formative years.

The three-tier system has plummeted in popularity in the last three decades because of the widespread belief that the fewer transitions a child has to cope with, the more they will achieve.

While there is undoubtedly something in this argument, I would suggest that middle schools make sense in rural areas like Kirkburton and Denby Dale.

These two council wards are huge, the biggest in Kirklees.

Having a three-tier system allows you to have lots of first schools, meaning children are more likely to go to a school in their village rather than the one down the road.

After that, they travel to the middle school at their end of the patch, rather than going straight to Big School which may be a long bus ride away.

There is a perfectly respectable argument for doing away with middle schools – but there is an entirely valid case for keeping them too.

It would be interesting to know what Shelley College headteacher John McNally thinks of the merits of the three-tier system because he doesn’t appear to be a fan.

He wants to expand his school to take in 11 and 12-year-olds – a move which could consign the two middle schools in area to history.

Scissett headteacher Helen Baxter said this week she was “absolutely appalled” at the Shelley expansion plan and accused Mr McNally of “destroying” the good work of her staff.

Judging by the 300 parents and teachers who turned up in Denby Dale last weekend to protest against the college’s expansion, it appears that public opinion is siding with Ms Baxter.

In more enlightened times, Mr McNally’s attempted land grab wouldn’t have made it past the first governors’ meeting.

But, thanks to Tony Blair and Michael Gove, Shelley College is now free to ride roughshod over the other schools in the area.

The heart of this controversy is the academy school system brought in by the last Labour government and currently being enthusiastically expanded by the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.

Shelley College left the council sector last year while the first and middle schools around it stayed in.

This means the college is free to change its structure to take in 11 and 12-year-olds and there’s nothing the feeder schools can do about it – even if it means the end for some of them.

It takes quite a lot to make me feel sorry for Kirklees, but I have to say I have sympathy for the council officials struggling to cope with this act of unilateral vandalism.

From the outside looking in, it appears that Shelley College’s expansion is a solution to a problem which doesn’t exist, a needless upheaval to a group of schools which is performing well.

It’s easy to get angry with the headteacher for coming up with an expansion plan which could cause so much disruption. But the principal is not the principle culprit for this mess.

That accolade belongs to the politicians in Westminster who have brought the chaos of market forces into the classroom in the name of “progress”.