School closures

[Ghostrider]

Who was the Councillor/Hired help who announced after the decision to close Scalloway, that there was "no stomach for further closures" or words to that effect.

 

They've soon gotten over their "stomach" surely.

[shetlandpeat]

a glorified babysitting service - and what has changed now, apart from the fact they have put things like "must play with water, must play with sand" onto the curriculum? Starting school early doesn't necessarily equate to good, basic reading, writing and mathematical skills.

.

 

It is not quite like that really. Anyone who does care about the start they want to give children will know it is far more detailed and there is more of a structure than the over simplistic and dismissive view in the quote above.

 

Starting school early can benefit in a number of ways, for a start, there are all the wonderful bugs and infections that are caught and dealt with at an early age. There is then the social intercourse between children, their development in social awareness and the like,

 

Some reading for you...

 

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/framework-for-regulation-of-provision-early-years-register

 

http://www.deni.gov.uk/preschool_curricular-2.pdf

 

As you can see when you read these documents, the UK Gov think that even at after school clubs, there should be guidlines.

 

Even your class room assistant has to have training.

 

As for musical instruments and lessons, I have said before, if there is going to be a struggle to get sufficient instruction, and the child is dedicated, perhaps a local businesses can stick their hands in their pockets, even private individuals, musical instruments are reasonably cheap nowadays, and good for starters, though, as music is one of the reliable exports of Shetland, perhaps more effort could be put to obtaining funding either by petition of grant.

[Spinner72]

The charging for school transport might happen faster than you think. The Infrastructure dept have apparantly told councillors that if school transport costs increases then they will reduce public transport to pay for it.

 

I noticed this one time before - are there still places where the school busses are free?

 

I know they were when I went to school but wir lass has always paid, I assumed this was the case everywhere. If not, then why the difference?

 

Also, it makes sense that if the transport dept has to pay for extra school transport (which is strange, as surely thats an education dept responsibility) that they will have to cut other services to pay for it.

 

On that subject, I do have some sympathy for the education dept in these times. All other departments can simply cut services. It may not be popular, but they can do it, even social care can just cut services and leave people to fend for themselves. However education can't.

[Ghostrider]

....I do have some sympathy for the education dept in these times. All other departments can simply cut services. It may not be popular, but they can do it, even social care can just cut services and leave people to fend for themselves. However education can't.

 

No? Is everything financed by education a statutory obligation, I realise times and rules change, but in times past not everything that was provided was a statutory obligation. If its still the same, the non-mandatory provision can be hacked away.

[Silvercloud]

If the council shuts certain schools and therefore forcing your children to take school transport to another school to get education how do they have the right to force cost on the parents by charging for transport at a later date that parents have no say in the matter and no choice.

It's like another tax by the back door, you do not have a choice, you have to pay and you didn't choose to send your child to that particular school.

 

Should the council be forced to reveal their hand as to whether they are going to charge in the future and if not prepared put in writing they are not going to do this?

 

What happens to any family that cannot afford any possible future transport cost fine or jail parents for not sending them to school or will it be means tested although this could still hit hard parents on the bordreline.

[trowie246]

 

I noticed this one time before - are there still places where the school busses are free?

 

I know they were when I went to school but wir lass has always paid, I assumed this was the case everywhere. If not, then why the difference?

 

 

Your child shouldn't be paying for school transport unless it is the case that you live within 2 miles (for primary age) of the school and a bus/car that takes bairns from further away has a spare seat can pick up your bairn on the way to school.

[shetlandcars]

I have no problems whatsoever with a classroom assistant leading a pre-school class; in fact, amazed they haven't earlier. Years ago, attending nursery school before infants school was basically a glorified babysitting service - and what has changed now, apart from the fact they have put things like "must play with water, must play with sand" onto the curriculum? Starting school early doesn't necessarily equate to good, basic reading, writing and mathematical skills.

.

 

You really do post some utter tosh

[trowie246]

I have no problems whatsoever with a classroom assistant leading a pre-school class; in fact, amazed they haven't earlier. Years ago, attending nursery school before infants school was basically a glorified babysitting service - and what has changed now, apart from the fact they have put things like "must play with water, must play with sand" onto the curriculum? Starting school early doesn't necessarily equate to good, basic reading, writing and mathematical skills.

.

 

You really do post some utter tosh

 

I actually think unlinked has a point.

 

Here in Shetland pre-school children went to play-group. I'm sure it was led by very capable people and I never heard of any complaints from anyone. Children were encouraged to learn their letters and write their name before they went to school. Then, in their wisdom, the education dept decided to put in primary teachers and change the name to Nursery School. All very good and well but by putting in qualified teachers it has cost the SIC a small fortune.

 

Now they are trying to revert back to the old system. Unfortunately for them the Scottish Government has brought in legislation that means nursery pupils have to have 2 or 3 sessions contact time in a week with a primary teacher.

[shetlandcars]

Here in Shetland pre-school children went to play-group. I'm sure it was led by very capable people and I never heard of any complaints from anyone. .

 

I assume by that you don't have a desire to give young children the best start in life at what is a crucial development stage?

Just bung em in a room with some sand, some 'capable' people and jobs a good un

[trowie246]

Some of those 'capable' people were registered child minders and went on to become youth workers.

 

Are you suggesting they aren't good enough?

[Russabell]

My bairns went to a partner provider rather than a school nursery. There are no qualified teachers in the partner provider settings (or at least there weren't any where my bairns were), but they received the equivalent service from the partner providers as they would have from a nursery, as they all have to deliver the same curriculum, all get inspected by HM Inspectors and so on (and the partner providers manage to deliver the equivalent service at a much lower cost, incidentally).

 

I don't feel my children were disadvantaged in any way by not having a qualified teacher for their pre-school years. If it comes down to a choice of cutting teachers from nursery settings, or cutting teachers from schools, I know which I would go for.

[unlinkedstudent]

Here in Shetland pre-school children went to play-group. I'm sure it was led by very capable people and I never heard of any complaints from anyone. .

 

I assume by that you don't have a desire to give young children the best start in life at what is a crucial development stage?

Just bung em in a room with some sand, some 'capable' people and jobs a good un

 

You're making the assumption that early education is the best start - if that's the case, then how come countries with better educated youngsters start education later in life ... wasn't there some research done that showed education before something like the age of 6 or 8 was a complete waste of time?

[Silvercloud]

I think your right unlink, some countries don't teach their children to read until after 6/7 yrs and then they seem to overtake and do better than those children that started a more formal structured education earlier,I iremeber reading an article somewhere.

 

I think nursery education is about learning through play with some or more structure than just a playgroup , how that is delivered and by whom seems to now be in question.

[trowie246]

Russabell - well said.

 

I also agree unlinked, that most 3 and 4 year olds will not respond to structured learning, in fact the Curriculum for Excellence suggests P1 should be more like nursery school ie. learning through play (which includes playing in sand)

 

I've had 3 children through nursery and in my experience apart from learning through play there appears to be a lot of emphasis on behaviour, ability to sit still, listen and concentrate and for the bairns to have appropriate social skills which prepares them for primary school.

 

As far as I am aware what is going to happen here in Shetland is that the bairns will have contact with a primary teacher for 2 or 3 sessions per week the other 2/3 will be led by the nursery nurse who works along side the teacher at the moment. The nursery nurse will have an assistant, although the qualifications of that person is unclear, it possibly may be another nursery nurse.

[MuckleJoannie]

I was looking online for confirmation that children in Norwy don't start school until 7 and came acroo this.

 

http://www.voxeu.org/article/effects-school-starting-age

 

An unintentional natural experiment by the Norwegian Army

 

To distinguish between the pure effect of age on tests and the effect of late-school starting, we rely on a natural experiment run unwittingly by the Norwegian army (Black et al., 2008). The administrative rule in Norway is that children must start school the year they turn seven. Children born on 31 December start school a year earlier than those born on 1 January – even though they are almost exactly the same age. This provides an exogenous separation between age and school-starting age. Our measure of performance is the military enrolment IQ test scores (when students are around age 18 ), which is taken by almost all children. This allows us to compare children of the same age but with different school starting ages.

 

To estimate the effect of age on IQ, we need children who have the same school starting age but different age at testing. In Norway, we have this, as there are cut-off dates for test-taking that are not the same as the cut-off dates for school starting age.

 

Results: Age matters but not school-starting age

 

We find evidence for a small positive effect of starting school younger on IQ scores measured at age 18. In contrast, we find evidence of much larger positive effects of age at test, and these results are very robust. The estimate implies that being one year older when taking the test increases the score by about one tenth of a standard deviation. On the other hand, accounting for age, starting school a year later reduces IQ scores by only about one fortieth of a standard deviation. Thus, it seems that school starting age has minimal impacts on test scores once one accounts for a person’s age when tested.

 

Our findings reject the usual result in the literature that school-starting age matters. For men, there appear to be no long-term effects on education or earnings, and the effects on military test scores are very small when one allows for age-at-test effects. For women, there is little evidence of large impacts on educational attainment.

 

Overall, there are no strong reasons for parents to hold their children out of school or to time the births of their children to influence school starting age.