Blueprint for education consultation

[shetlander]

The council need to make cutbacks. Somewhere along the line this is going to be detrimental to somebody.

 

That has been my point on the vexed issue of council spending in general for some time. If cuts aren't made in the education service - and the council wants to avoid a financial catastrophe which it is going to end up in if current levels of spending continue - then they have to be made somewhere else. And sure as hell, someone who uses ferries or home helps or care centres or any other council service will (rightly or wrongly) make similarly impassioned pleas for those services to be left alone just the same as some are doing in relation to education just now. On that basis, I don't see why one service area should be any more exempt than another when it comes to the need for cuts to be made. Something is going to have to give at some point.

[trowie246]

What I would like to know is exactly what £35 million pounds is being spent on in education. Lets see the books. The costing for a school is a very complicated thing as things like admin costs are shared out equally between schools. Cullivoe parent council had great difficulty getting figures from Hayfield house for the costs of Cullivoe school. We are told if they close the school they will save in the region of £50,000 per year. We dispute this figure as we still don't know how they reached it.

 

The chair of our parent council worked it out it is actually cheaper to teach a primary pupil at Cullivoe school than Mid-Yell school. This is because Mid-Yell is a junior high. He says that primary education is no more expensive in Shetland than the rest of Scotland and it is actually secondary education which is outrageously expensive here.

 

As far as social skills go in small schools my 9 year old daughter is friends with a 13 year old boy who has Aspergers and an 11 year old girl. My 7 year old daughter is friends with a 7 year old boy an 8 year old boy and a 6 year old girl. I had to restrict their after school visits to a maximun of 3 times a week because they all practically lived here! Its lightsome!

[moorit]

 

As far as social skills go in small schools my 9 year old daughter is friends with a 13 year old boy who has Aspergers and an 11 year old girl. My 7 year old daughter is friends with a 7 year old boy an 8 year old boy and a 6 year old girl. I had to restrict their after school visits to a maximun of 3 times a week because they all practically lived here! Its lightsome!

 

Is that all the friends they've got ?

[trowie246]

Sorry, I missed out my 7 year olds best friend who is an eight year old half-chinese girl.

[trowie246]

They are friends with all the children at school but these are the ones that visit and whom they visit (sleepovers etc) on a regular basis.

[Fifi]

We are told if they close the school they will save in the region of £50,000 per year. We dispute this figure as we still don't know how they reached it.

I would have thought the highest part of annual running costs would be staff salaries - HT and teachers being the largest part.

 

Teacher, chartered teacher and HT salaries - http://www.teachinginscotland.com/tis/119.29.32.html

 

[khitajrah]

 

As far as social skills go in small schools my 9 year old daughter is friends with a 13 year old boy who has Aspergers and an 11 year old girl. My 7 year old daughter is friends with a 7 year old boy an 8 year old boy and a 6 year old girl. I had to restrict their after school visits to a maximun of 3 times a week because they all practically lived here! Its lightsome!

 

Is that all the friends they've got ?

 

That seems like plenty of friends to me! My son is lucky if there is one person to play with in the playpark here - he has had to outsource his friends - Cullivoe, Sandness, Bigton as well as his pals from school, none of which live here... where are all the kids in Aith??

[Muppet]

We are told if they close the school they will save in the region of £50,000 per year.

 

Just an observation, but if they were to achieve 5% savings on the Education budget (this was the figure bandied about a while ago for across the board savings was it not?), They would need to close 35 primary schools at that level of saving per school to achieve their target.

 

Mm, food for thought there!

[khitajrah]

I wonder if this might help, in an extremely small way. Box Tops for Books

 

Every time I throw one of these box tops away I wonder why none of the local schools utilise them.

 

edit: I just asked the school and it's because they don't want to encourage parents to buy particular brands.

[Jeemsie1989]

As a potentially leading queston: What roughly costs more per annum?

 

Education or Transport?

[nederlander]

I stopped posting due the fact I was getting fed up of arguing with that ridiculous "large scale social skills" point, as for the research? pfffft

 

The thread has since seemed to move on to the matter of money, which is a much more pressing issue, and the angle that the majority of the pro "close the schools" brigade would persue. The problem is, what happens to these places when the school closes? Answer: people will leave, and no new people will move in, certainly no young families anyway. We saw it when the shop/post office shut, and we will see it again if they shut the school, probably to a greater extent, as it really is the key point in many remote communities. In short, if you shut the school then the community will more or less die.

 

As a potentially leading queston: What roughly costs more per annum?

 

Education or Transport?

 

Education would cost more per annum, of course it would. But you already know that, hence the question. As loaded as any in the SIC questionnaire. Which is more important? (see, I can do it too)

[trowie246]

This is true, salaries will be saved but their will also be other costs. We were told at the last review of education that if Cullivoe school closed an extra bus would be laid on to transport the primary children. Although this would be fanatastic we are not so naive as to expect it to happen. The primary children would travel with the secondary children.

 

At the moment Jamiesons can get away with using a large mini-bus on occasion ( he has to juggle his vehicles around depending on what hires he has). If Cullivoe school shuts he will have to use a large bus at all times. Our school roll is actually rising and we are due to have 19 pupils after the summer break. How much extra money will the school transport cost? I don't know much about the contracts but I suppose the size of vehicle you have to use is factored in to the cost? Maybe they do this already and the cost is based on running a large bus at all times.

[Jeemsie1989]

I stopped posting due the fact I was getting fed up of arguing with that ridiculous "large scale social skills" point, as for the research? pfffft

 

The thread has since seemed to move on to the matter of money, which is a much more pressing issue, and the angle that the majority of the pro "close the schools" brigade would persue. The problem is, what happens to these places when the school closes? Answer: people will leave, and no new people will move in, certainly no young families anyway. We saw it when the shop/post office shut, and we will see it again if they shut the school, probably to a greater extent, as it really is the key point in many remote communities. In short, if you shut the school then the community will more or less die.

 

As a potentially leading queston: What roughly costs more per annum?

 

Education or Transport?

 

Education would cost more per annum, of course it would. But you already know that, hence the question. As loaded as any in the SIC questionnaire. Which is more important? (see, I can do it too)

 

I wish you would stop being petty. I understand that you don't want any schools to close. That's fine. But the constant jibes about the way in which I debate and what I think (or believe) is correct and is not necessary.

 

Anyway, I agree, education is (mostly) far more important. But, if something is not done now to allieviate the council's spending fiasco then we won't have an education system of a high standard anymore. Which is why I am in favour of some smaller school closures

 

Thank you trowie for giving an answer to my question. As I said before, nothing in the debate is black and white.

[nederlander]

^ I'm not being petty, I was merely pointing out that the question that you asked was as loaded as they come, and that it could be easily turned around to suit the opposite end of the arguement.

 

I personally think that some closures are inevitable, but I honestly believe that 25-30 years down the line that places that are populated at the moment will be deserted. I cannot see how that would be in anyway benefitial to Shetland.

[trowie246]

I think if someone with children is choosing to settle and live somewhere, where the school is situated (time/distance etc) is a major factor. A couple with one child stood up at the last round of consultations and said they deliberately chose Cullivoe because of its school. Who will want to settle here if their 5 year old has to travel 13 miles to get to school? The road to Gutcher is single-track, narrow and sinking. The school-bus went off the road last year, luckily no-one was hurt.

 

But this dabate about affecting communites really gets to the heart of the matter because I believe you would be changing the way we live here in Shetland by closing rural schools. We here the same old story over and over - They shut 5 schools in the south of Shetland and it didn't affect the communities. This was in the fifties I think. They shut 5 primary schools and all pupils went to a brand new purpose built primary school in Dunrossness. I don't know exactly which schools shut but I have been told none were more than 5 miles way from the new school.

 

There are just as many areas where schools shut that did not thrive - West Burrafirth and Culswick on tne West side and I'm sure there are more.

 

Also, does anyone know where it is that the nursery pupil has to make a 30 mile round trip?