Shetland schools and education system

[Ghostrider]

Aside from cash savings vs longer journeys to school there is also the question of the kids personal development which could be enhanced by being in a school with more pupils.

 

Its worth doing from the point of view of creating better social development conditions for the kids though, spending each and every day with the same handful of peers isn't going to do you much good when you get a little bigger and venture out into the wider world.

 

Personal development/social skills etc are often put forward as a plus for the creation of larger schools, and I'm not going to deny that perhaps to a certain number of individuals they are, but it should be noted that everyone is different and that to some the bigger school roll represents a very negative experience.

 

In a somewhat chequered educational 'career' I attended 7 different schools in Shetland, covering everything from two single teacher ones with circa 20 puplis, to the AHS in the late '70's with circa 1000 pupils. Looking back with hindsight, the only skills that I can identify which were nurtured by the large roll school enviornment, for me at least, was to discover how easily it was to be severely irritated by "people", how quickly you could grow to hate numerous individuals, and to discover what it felt like to be suffocated within a gray faceless mass of human meat.

 

For me it bred intolerance towards others and greatly encouraged social exclusion. In the first instance I had a need to "step back" mentally, from the crowd to lose the overwhelming sensation of fighting for air, but failing and disappearing in to the mutal grayness, and from there it became one simple and easy step, as far as the law would allow, to live my life as completely outwith the circle of events and individuals I associated with the school enviornment. The following illustrates me point exactly:

 

They closed the smaller schools in bigton, robins brae, quendale, and virkie and amalgamated them to make the Dunrossness primary school back at the end of the 60's start of the 70's(no quite sure of the date) having always attended a large school I wouldnt know what the difference between a small single teacher school and a larger one in terms of development and social interaction would be,

but the wife attended one of the smaller schools listed for closure, and she states that she thinks dat wir bairn has more opportunity for developement at Dunrossness primary than she feels she had at the peerie school.

 

I started school at one of the above named small schools, single teacher, roll circa 20+, I then moved to Dunrossness with a circa 100 roll when it opened. While I respect your wife's opinion concerning Dunrossness, I 100% disagree with it, for me at least the move to Dunrossness and the "attempted" integration of the five smaller schools, coupled with dealing with a 500% increase of people to deal with all day every day, was a very negative and damaging experience.

 

Granted this is now 35 years later, a different world and different people, and as I meantioned earlier, every individual is unique, so it's pointless to either try and predict how things might have been different, had previous school closures/merger not occured, and rash to try and predict just what changes any future closures and mergers may create. It should just always be remembered that while a bigger school may be aiding the personal development of some, there are most certainly some out there, who will have their personal development damaged, in some cases severely, by the exact same thing.

[Rasmie]

being in a small class in primary is not the end of the world, though certainly as the only boy it probably made me a bit of a loner, but not lonely, and possibly more independent. However when going to a larger secondary (AHS) i found it a breath of fresh air. From knowing nobody outside the parish I developed friendships from Unst to Fair Isle which will always be with me. Streaming on the whole meant that at least you were among like minded people. The quandary now is whether to defend your local school for the obvious economic benefits to a country community or try and get your child to the AHS as quickly as possible. I think that it is the childs best interests in secondary at least to be in a larger community than say Skerries. It is the parents responsibilty to reside where it is best for their kids. The parents will have to accept the consequences in the long run if they get it wrong and not try and blame the council. While on that subject the politicians should accept when they are responsible for decisions and support their staff by not trying to pass the buck back to them.

[JustMe]

Does anyone know the legal position with the school on Papa Stour. Is the SIC obliged to open up the school every time someone with kids moves there and to close it again when the family leaves......or decides they do not like the teacher. Would there be a way for the council to tell the next lot of incomers that the islands residents are responsible for getting their children to school on the Shetland mainland.

[jz]

Does anyone know the legal position with the school on Papa Stour. Is the SIC obliged to open up the school every time someone with kids moves there and to close it again when the family leaves......or decides they do not like the teacher. Would there be a way for the council to tell the next lot of incomers that the islands residents are responsible for getting their children to school on the Shetland mainland.

 

My understanding is the council has an obligation to provide an education to those of schoolage. If the children are of primary age on Papa Stour then the Primary School there would have to re-open. Anyone know otherwise?

[Sam]

Does anyone know the legal position with the school on Papa Stour. Is the SIC obliged to open up the school every time someone with kids moves there and to close it again when the family leaves......or decides they do not like the teacher. Would there be a way for the council to tell the next lot of incomers that the islands residents are responsible for getting their children to school on the Shetland mainland.

 

My understanding is the council has an obligation to provide an education to those of schoolage. If the children are of primary age on Papa Stour then the Primary School there would have to re-open. Anyone know otherwise?

 

the council offers schooling for everyarea in shetland - the parents have to put there children to school, however everyone has teh right to teach their children at home - as long as they follow the basics then they can do that.

 

no one has the right to have a school next door to there house, however if the school is more then 2 or 3 miles (not sure of the number) from there home the child has a right for free transport to and from school.

[JustMe]

The reason I raised this was not to be nasty to the Residents of Papa Stour but because I have some sort of memory of the council stating that they would not provide any services if someone was to move onto one of the islands off Scalloway.

 

And I do wish that whenever Shetland is highlighted as having the most expensive educational cost per child in Scotland the same people would also highlight the high quality of the education and the difficulties in serving such a scattered population.

 

Perhaps this ought to be considered alongside school closures.....getting the Scottish executive to come up with more money so the high quality service continues.

[shetlander]

Whether smaller or bigger schools are better for pupils’ development and education is probably something that could be argued until the cows come home.

 

What needs to be remembered here though is that children from the primaries earmarked for closure aren’t going to be sent to deprived, overcrowded inner city schools but to primaries which themselves are relatively small and have higher teacher to pupil ratios than most in Scotland. If the closures do go ahead the biggest merged school on the primary side would probably be Mid Yell with around 70 pupils – a medium sized school in the local context but still considerably smaller than say Bells Brae and Sound which I’m sure offer a very high standard of education.

 

Pupils from the schools earmarked for closure already attend neighbouring schools at nursery stage and for the likes of PE lessons and sporting events so the chances are they are already familiar with the schools themselves and know other pupils there. I’m not convinced that in this case any primary pupils are going to feel swamped if they have to move to a marginally bigger neighbouring school.

 

Obviously it will be a big change for the secondary pupils from Skerries but then again, no more so than for those from Fetlar, Fair Isle, Foula and Papa Stour who already have to move to the AHS for their secondary education.

 

In the past, these kind of common sense arguments have been swamped by the emotional ones when the issue has being debated. The fact that closures keep on resurfacing should be an indication to those communities affected that there really is no other way for the Council to save the kind of money it needs to in the education budget and that retaining so many small schools with such big overheads just isn’t sustainable.

[righter]

just a pedantic note to add....you have the right to home school your child..but you don`t even have to teach the "basics". there are no rules,set down. the eduucation act says something like ...efficient education suitable for the ability of the child.

 

I was a home educator for several years.

[Frances144]

"Mr Galbraith who has extensive experience of strategic and high level management in the public sector will have to find savings in Shetland's £35 million education budget. He will be paid £600 a day plus expenses." - Shetland News October 2005

 

That is a lot of money - he was paid from October 2005 to June 2006 = 273 days at £600 per day (plus expenses!) = £163,800 (plus expenses) in 273 days.

 

Gee whizz!

[Ghostrider]

just a pedantic note to add....you have the right to home school your child..but you don`t even have to teach the "basics". there are no rules,set down. the eduucation act says something like ...efficient education suitable for the ability of the child.

 

I was a home educator for several years.

 

Hopefully the passage of 30 years has seen a radical shift in the attitudes in certain sections of council hired help, who feel it their role to become involved in matters of home schooling.

 

My own personal experience of home schooling at that time, was, from some of the then employees, one of disbelief, strong discouragement, and dissuadary tactics which came across to me, as designed to prevent home schooling being an option at any and all costs.

[shetlander]

I hope the schools are closed as the ammount spent by the SIC on education is crazy.

 

they could do with a clear out in hayfeild house first though!

 

Staff at Hayfield House are always going to be an easy target when it comes to discussing cuts in education – they aren’t the public face of the Council, they are generally paid better and most people either don’t know what they do or don’t see how their work contributes to the day to day education of bairns. On the other hand you have teachers, other staff working directly with pupils and the likes of cooks, cleaners or janitors who may more commonly have worked in the education service for years or are our relatives, friends or neighbours. Nobody is going to stand up and say that their numbers should be curtailed.

 

For all I know, slimming down the staff complement in Hayfield House to half its size may very well have no impact on the delivery of the education service in Shetland – I certainly advocate the Council making savings in its back office operations before looking at cutting frontline services/jobs. However unnecessary we think red tape might be, I suspect though that most of them have to be there as a direct result of the increased emphasis everywhere in the country on monitoring, evaluation, training, pupil guidance and so on. Even if there is scope to reduce staffing levels at Hayfield House, I’m not sure that would gain the kind of savings the Council are looking to make here.

 

On a slightly different cant, I like your suggestion NewMagnie about the adaptive re-use of the buildings for decentralised offices if the schools are indeed closed. At the very least it would be sending out the right message that rather than (literally) turning off the lights and closing the door the Council are showing some kind of commitment to putting something back into the communities affected.

[Pooks]

Was talking to a couple of folk this afternoon about this. Can't remember how it came up but it did. Anyway, it brought back something I thought about when the last round of threatening to close schools came about. Why, when the council are so determined to close rural schools, did they decide to build a brand new one in Nesting? At the time I believe that Nesting had around 20 pupils on its books. Not a lot of people for a brand new school when you are threatening to close others is it?

[skellister]

Was talking to a couple of folk this afternoon about this. Can't remember how it came up but it did. Anyway, it brought back something I thought about when the last round of threatening to close schools came about. Why, when the council are so determined to close rural schools, did they decide to build a brand new one in Nesting? At the time I believe that Nesting had around 20 pupils on its books. Not a lot of people for a brand new school when you are threatening to close others is it?

 

I attended nesting primary in the early 80s and I can say that I don't think I received much of a educational foundation there and when I first attended Scalloway JHS I felt that I was behind other pupils coming in from various primary schools. Although we had a high pupil/teacher ratio at nesting, something was lacking.

 

It is interesting to know that a new school was built. While I was there, there were 2 teachers (primary 1-4 and Primary 5-7 in separate porta-cabins), and 1 full time cook. One teacher in particular was more interested in music than teaching maths, english, and science.

[Pooks]

I should point out that I have nothing against them building a new school it just seems a bit daft. It's like buying lots of new shiny things for your house the day before the bailiffs are due to come around and take all your possessions away.

[skellister]

I understand what you're saying pooks. I never thought they would build a new school in nesting myself. I am sure the population hasn't grown enough there to warrant a new building. If anything I thought the school would be closed down by now due to lack of students.