Blueprint for Education - Shetland Islands Council · Blueprint for Education in Shetland 1 ... (Service Manager, ... to go to statutory consultation on this proposed change to the

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Thursday 27 January 2011, The School Hall at Baltasound Junior High School

• Chairperson – Councillor Henderson • Lead Officer – Helen Budge (Head of Schools) and Audrey Edwards (Quality Improvement

Manager) • In Attendance – Janice Thomason (Management Accountant, Finance), Billy Thompson

(Service Manager, Transport), Heather Summers and Katie Kent (Note Takers) • Public Attendees – Approximately 79 • Councillors – Grains and Simpson

Good evening everyone and welcome to this public meeting. This public meeting is being held under the terms of the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010. Its purpose is to give interested parties the opportunity to ask questions and air their views on the Proposal to close Uyeasound Primary School and transfer Uyeasound pupils to Baltasound Junior High School Primary Department. Services Committee of Shetland Islands Council gave approval to go to statutory consultation on this proposed change to the school estate on 17 June 2010. My name is Councillor Henderson, and I will Chair tonight’s meeting. The others on the Panel are: Helen Budge, Head of Schools Service, Audrey Edwards, Quality Improvement Manager, Schools Service, Janice Thomason, Management Accountant, Finance Services and Billy Thompson, Service Manager, Transport Department. Tonight’s meeting will last for two hours and will open with a short presentation on the process we are engaged in, and an outline of the proposal for discussion. Thereafter the meeting will be opened to the floor for questions and views. As referred to in the Notice for this meeting, the proceedings at this public consultation meeting are being recorded both by note takers and by recording. The transcript of this meeting will be published in due course on the Council's website, and will form part of the Consultation Report. It would therefore be useful if, when you speak, you first give your name, if you feel comfortable doing that, and state what your relationship is with Baltasound Junior High School, for example, parent, pupil, grandparent, member of public, etc. Any questions on that?" I will now ask Helen Budge to give the short presentation [Please click here to read the presentation given by Helen Budge]

Blueprint for Education in Shetland Public Meeting

The Impact of Uyeasound Primary School Pupils

Attending Baltasound Junior High School Primary Department

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Question Number

Name of Speaker Note of Question Asked / Note of Reply

1 Matthew Cox Co-opted Member of Baltasound Parent Council

Will there be specialist secondary teachers teaching primary classes under this Proposal? Audrey Edwards: What we have been asked to do through the Blueprint is to put forward a future for education in Shetland that is financially and educationally sustainable. One of the key things the Schools Service has to consider is how we do this in the fairest and most equitable way as well as meeting the requirement for education in Shetland to cost less. The Schools Service is being asked to save £5m in the Service over the next financial year. What the Schools Service has been able to say is if we are able to take forward what we have put in front of everybody in the Blueprint it could be achieved over a three year period. One of the things in that is how secondary specialists are used in primary and what we have said about that is we would maintain the expressive arts input into primary classes that currently all pupils in Shetland enjoy. That would be sufficient to cover the current required non contact time for primary class teachers.

2 Derek Jamieson Parent of Uyeasound Children

You speak about fairness and equity. You are saying that all the schools throughout Shetland we will have the same provision for secondary school teachers and get the same expressive arts and nothing other. Where is the fairness and equity there when you have bairns up here in Unst, Yell or any other out lying places where they cannot access the facilities that they have on the mainland – The new Mareel, Bonhoga Gallery, Clickimin and things like that. We are denied these things up here. Helen Budge: What we would have to say is that we have very good Leisure Centres throughout all our islands and we have a level of provision in our islands in respect of leisure centres that no other local authority has across the whole of Scotland. In respect of Mareel – well we await the opening of it. As far as the Schools Service is aware most of the schools access The Bonhoga Gallery at one point or another throughout the year. We could check what that is but I don’t think some schools go there a lot more as what the schools from the North Isles go because they have to pay their own transport to get there as well. It is a case that the Schools Service has to try to have some more fairness and equality that we have at the moment. We have a number of secondary teachers that can go into the primaries here and we do not have that across the rest of Shetland.

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It’s not so much about the educational benefits, as bairns can go outside of school time to things like that. I am not meaning so much in educational terms what the department provides, so I think there is a difference there.

3 Tim Holt Parent

I would like to address this equality issue as well. The whole of the Blueprint, I believe, is based on equality. Your equality is based on distribution of your financial resources. Not recognising that we are at a geographical disadvantage. An urban central belt school has easy access to excellent educational resources offered by the Museum which puts on a lot of free courses for young children and adults. Numerous venues for the Expressive Arts and soon the Mareel Centre. At present we could be seen to have smaller class sizes and marginally higher per capital costs, but this goes someway to addressing the inequality. Have you thought about these issues and do you recognise there is an inequality here? Helen Budge; We have information from our Cultural Co-ordinator of which schools use facilities in the other areas. As far as I have said before we do recognise across Shetland everything cannot always be absolutely equal. Foula and Fair Isle are in a different situation again. What we would like to think is that where we do have different projects, for example, the Scottish Opera was actually here in Uyeasound and Baltasound. Where the Schools Service does have folk coming up and working with our schools there does seem to be opportunities. The Schools Service does not only keep events in the central belt of Shetland, I think was the terminology used. In respect of attending different things, there are a variety of activities that have been ongoing and Baltasound and Uyeasound have both participated in a number of these events. From January 2008 through to 2010 the schools have attended Time Slip, Corella, Valerie Watt’s Storybook Telling, Catherine Wheels, Frank Connel Dance, Piano Workshop, Playbox and a variety of different things and for Baltasound the total number of times they attended was eight. This does not seem to address the imbalance of what’s accessible by the remote schools in Shetland. At present we can be seen to have smaller class sizes which allows us to access the limited resources available here, mainly the local community and the natural environment. That means because of the small class sizes here and in Uyeasound the teachers there can take groups out to the beach or to old people’s homes, and get them out in the environment to study

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that which can’t be done by larger class sizes down on the Mainland. There is a significant difference between these small schools in the remote areas than the schools in Mainland Shetland and this does not seem to be recognised. Helen Budge: I think that you will find that out schools on Mainland Shetland do actually get out in the community as well. They do go on trips and similar types of visits to the shoreline and to places of interest in their community.

4 Caroline Massie Teacher at Baltasound Junior High School

Going back to what Audrey Edwards said about primary staff still having the chance to get their non contact time with specialist staff being able to take their classes. When you look at page 50 of the Proposal then visiting staff in Music and PE, their time is being cut therefore they are not going to get the same non contact time they have been so it does not seem like you are maintaining the status quo. Audrey Edwards: The Schools Service is maintaining the status quo. If the Uyeasound bairns were to come to Baltasound, if that was the way that things were to go, there would still be two classes and each class would get two fifty minute blocks of PE, one fifty minute block of Music and Art according to how they are divided up into twenties because we have treated Art as practical subject. Helen Budge: You are looking at Proposal One, teaching non-contact cover rather than having it separate eked out under Music and PE because you would be attributed to the school and not all our visiting staff budget.

5 Louise Paul Chair Person Baltasound Parent Council and Parent

Why is there no note on how the attainment figures quoted are affected by the small numbers in the school and the high proportion of Additional Support Needs Pupils? Helen Budge: For those of you have copies of the Proposal Paper I will refer you to the pages that are being spoken about: Page 19, Paragraph 4.39 reads “Shetland Islands Council has a large proportion of very small schools in its estate, with very small numbers of pupils where it is not meaningful or helpful to make judgments about the quality of education provided based solely on attainment results.” That is okay for Shetland schools but we are speaking about Baltasound and Uyeasound. It does not clearly refer to Baltasound or Uyeasound.

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Helen Budge: This information is included here because when the Schools Service went to a public meeting at a previous statutory consultation there was a call from the public meeting to put every individual child’s secondary qualifications into the Consultation Report. We are not happy to identify and highlight individual pupils in that way so we chose to put in the trends over a period of time. On page 20, you can see that it sets out from 2006 through to 2010. We did not want to leave out the attainment results because when we did that we were heavily criticised at the public meeting for not letting everybody know what the results were. If we did not put them in, somebody would bring them up. I totally appreciate that we are looking at very small numbers in virtually all our schools. There are only two schools which are classed big enough to be able to work with attainment in the way which you can actually take trends from, which is why the Schools Service rolled it all up together in this way and put in the statements in this way in the different aspects. I appreciate that some people perhaps feel that we do not highlight this enough and we will take that back as part of this process. It is very difficult to strike the balance when folk are very clear they want it published but actually don’t think it’s to the child’s benefit to publish individual information about each individual child.

6 Dougal Fraser Parent with bairns at both Schools

Is there a Standards and Quality Report available for either or both schools at any one time that parents could examine? Helen Budge: Standard and Quality Reports are issued on an annual basis. Nowadays they are usually on the websites of the individual schools as well having hard copies should they be requested. It is the Improvement Plan which is actually part of the Statutory Legislation from the Scotland in Schools Act 2000, which sets out that each school has to have a Development Plan and as part of the Development Plan each school has to have a Standards and Quality Report on an annual basis. If a prospective parent came to a school could they request the Standards and Quality Report and would that give you an accurate reflection of what’s been happening in that year in that school? Helen Budge: Yes that would give you an accurate reflection of what’s been happening in that year in that school. The Improvement Plan looks forward and the Standards and Quality Report records what’s happened for the year. That information is available either on the website or they can

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produce hard copies as well.

7 Cameron Ferguson Member of the Parent Council and parent

I know the other night we spoke about transport but I would like to know has there actually been a detailed transport analysis made out of the scenario we have up here. I know we spoke about children perhaps needing individual taxis or cars. I think this should actually be done before these figures were plucked out of the air for transport costs.

1. Has a detailed analysis been done regarding all the possible options?

2. If so, is there actually infrastructure on this Island to cope with all these transport options? The transport at the minute is fairly heavily used by various taxis and buses. The Proposal speaks about probably putting a larger bus on to bring the children up from Uyeasound which is going to double as a service bus which really means that there could be three large buses needed for school transport, plus any trips away to Lerwick, Mareel, Museum. Has this been considered and are these things in place on this Island or would they need to be hired in?

Audrey Edwards: What was said on Monday night and what I said this afternoon when Janice and I were speaking to the Uyeasound Parent Council is that we heard the concerns on Monday night and what we put in the Proposal Paper is just what is based around where the bairns stay currently. What I said on Monday night and this afternoon is that we will take this on board and do a more detailed piece of work in time for the Consultation Report which will look at potentially where bairns could turn up in the catchment area and what the implications are of that. I have also asked Derek if he will also help the Schools Service with this piece of work and he has agreed to do so.

8 Cheryl Jamieson Parent

It says in the Proposal Paper that if Uyeasound School was to shut you would ask the Community Workers to come in and help regenerate the area and provide support. Can you see what a nonsense that is to remove a very successful enterprise that provides work for six folk and attracts folks to Unst and plays a very active part in the community and is nationally recognised as doing a very good job. If you take that away and then you ask your Council employees to come and try and replace it. Like saying to Fetlar for about £140,000 a year we could give you a place that’s going to have folk coming to see and employment for six folk. If you

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are looking at fragile areas, it seems nonsense to take away something that works very, very well and then expect some folk to have to come and try to figure out how the hell to put it back and fill that gap. (Applause)

9 Dougal Fraser Parent

Just to follow up some of Cheryl’s point. You are proposing to take away the most essential tool in regeneration in any rural area - that is a primary school. You are proposing to take that away and then try to regenerate the area. It does not make sense. This goes against several Council policies, all quoted at Monday night’s meeting. (Applause)


Do you have an answer to that? Helen Budge: What we have been asked to do is to look at the school estate and look at education for across the whole of Shetland. In doing that the Schools Service came out to the Informal Consultation stage with various options. We took back what folks said about those various options and we put together different levels of change to Councillors. The first proposal involved closing no schools but actually looked at reducing staffing. The second proposal is the one which we are pursuing as well just know which is for some closures, and then there were more radical closures and finally there were more closures still. The Schools Service has to look at the sustainability of education. I appreciate what you are saying about the socio-economic studies and I appreciate what you are saying about the providing work and all that kinds of things but the Schools Service Department, our section of the Council, is about education and we have to consider education for across the whole of Shetland. We put forward their views and part of that is looking at the likely effects on the local community and on the wider community, it is then for the Councillors’ to make their decisions, whether they make them on education grounds or whether they make them on economic grounds we have to look at what is best for sustaining a system for across the whole of Shetland. At the moment with 33, nearly 34 schools, the Schools Service cannot afford to continue with everything we have and cut £5M out of out budgets. Can I ask what the Councillors in the room make of that statement? Why are you taking away something that is doing a very good job in the community that leaves a great big hole that the council has to try and fill again?

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Councillor Henderson: Regarding closing schools, I will give you my views on it and the other Councillors can do likewise. My view is that it is all very well to close schools but we need to look at everything that is available to us before we go down that road because closing a school is not everything to save money to the Council. There is a whole bigger, wider picture. There are certain Councillors that would be happy to close most schools and we only have a certain amount of voting power out of the North Isles Councillors and that is the difficulty that we face at the Council table. The difficulty is to drum up enough support to throw out the idea of closing schools. From my point of view I will certainly not be voting to close any school in Shetland, let alone one of the North Isles schools. Would Councillor Grains like to answer the question too? Councillor Grains: I will make up my mind when all the consultations are in. Councillor Simpson: I think I made it very clear to you when I stood to represent you on the Council, and I have not changed my mind. I am not going to show my hand tonight. I do not think I want Helen to see my hand and what I am going to play.

11 Louise Paul Member of Parent Council and Parent

I have seen you trying to take steps to cut schools and reduce your budget but apart from the schools you are trying to shut what steps are you taking to those who are staying open and don’t have any threat of closure. Helen Budge: In the schools that are staying open, we have a package of reductions. We are looking at reducing the support staff, the classroom assistants, supervisory assistants, janitorial staff, and the cleaning. We are also looking to reducing the specialists to the two and a half hours non-contact time, so that it will not be any more than that, as is the case in some classes currently. We are looking at going to the National Staffing Levels. At the moment we are 6% above that, so that out class sizes in schools will rise. We are looking at a review of the Additional Support Needs staffing and less use of Shetland Recreational Trust facilities, reducing swimming provision. As you know already we are discontinuing knitting instruction, resizing promoted jobs, and looking at a review of the Central Service. Those proposals have been agreed by Committee already and we are looking at beginning to progress those forward over the next few

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months. Is that keeping the standard of teaching or reducing it? Helen Budge: If you take the only part about the teachers, if that is what you are asking about is to do with National Staffing Levels. If you are asking about the support given by Clerical Assistants, Classroom Assistants, Supervisory Assistants and Janitorial then yes that is reducing the number of hours they are in schools. Teachers will not reduce the number of hours they are in schools but we may reduce the numbers that are in schools. We have been working 6% above the National Staffing Level. Our primary school rolls have been falling for quite a number of years across Shetland we have reduced staff in a lot of our schools over the past five years. If the numbers were increasing obviously we would be increasing our teaching staff. We have a number of schools where the rolls fall further so there will be a reduction in some of our staff because we will go to National Staffing Levels.

12 Ruth Granger Parent

About the joined up working, I would say that this whole Consultation and the way that it has been led and the way it has been proposed for you to do by Councillors is a classic example of how not to do joined up working. There are a lot of areas in the Council that is very good at it but this is certainly not one of them. If you are looking at reducing services or anything else in areas where you would then have pour money into regenerate them, it is just crazy. I would also like to say for the record that the whole Consultation to my mind is flawed and as a result of that I do not think you should petition for any closure of any school in Shetland. I find that they are full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the figures and it is ill thought out and to be honest I have lost all faith in the leadership of the education system in Shetland. (Applause)

13 Duncan Gray Parent

You said you were going to cut down on the Janitorial costs, how are you going to do that without altering the hours that the school is open? Helen Budge: In some schools we have Janitors who work overtime and we would look at a shift system rather than pay overtime to schools that are open at different times not just through the day but also at night. Not all our schools have Janitors; in fact very few do, less than half have them. Where

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we do have them, do we need them for as long as we actually have them for? The schools that do not have Janitors have key holders and cleaners in charge so there are different ways that a school is opened and closed.

14 Fraser Paul Parent and Janitor

I would like to ask you why I had to see the proposal for cuts in my wages and a drop in a pay grade in a public paper? When were you going to actually tell me personally about this Proposal? (Applause) Helen Budge: The Schools Service shared the proposals with the Head Teachers at a Head Teachers meeting before they actually went to Committee. All Head Teachers knew about these proposals are they were being worked up. It would be for Head Teachers to share the information with their staff and our understanding was that this happened as the proposal went through Committee. It became a public document when it went to Committee and anyone could access it from the COINS [Shetland Islands Council Intranet - Committee Information Pages] system from there on. Is every Janitor in Shetland going down graded the same way and is it legal to do that? Helen Budge: I don’t think I was saying down graded, I was said reduced hours. On page 50, it says downgraded, it goes down a whole grade. It goes from a G2 to a F2. Helen Budge: We will have to look into that.

15 Murray Brown Parent

What effect will this have on the staffing levels at Baltasound if you close Uyeasound? Helen Budge: In respect of teaching staff within primary, there are two classes currently and the pupils would be able to go into those classes without the Schools Service needing to add an extra teacher, if that is what you mean by that question. In respect of the support staff, there may be some support staff required if there was a need for Additional Support Needs. Those types of things would have to be looked at individually as they came into the school because Additional Support Needs are not included in this Proposal Paper. We do not include the Additional Supports Needs in the Proposal Paper at all.

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16 Tim Holt Parent

At present Baltasound has a deservedly good reputation in delivering special needs support. We acknowledge the value and support from Helen Budge. The school draws on matrix of resources available, Additional Support Needs staff, specialist subject teachers and Classroom Assistants, but it has to be said that these resources are at full stretch. Proposal One will make cuts to Classroom Assistants and will remove specialist subject teachers, this will impact on what is delivered to these Baltasound children. Additional children from Uyeasound will make this situation even worse. Has this been considered? Helen Budge: When we looked at our Classroom Assistants - they were put in a few years ago, previous to that we did not have Classroom Assistants. Some other local authorities across Scotland have had to cut out Classroom Assistants completely. We at least just want to reduce the service that they provide. We do recognise the value of Classroom Assistants to our schools and as you mention the other support areas as well but cannot afford to continue with everything which we have and this way the Schools Service still maintain the Classroom Assistant but on a reduced hours. In respect to the specialist teachers we have covered that before. There will still be the Expressive Art specialists but the specialists which I think you are speaking about - the Modern Language specialists and some of the other secondary staff we are looking to make it more equal across schools and we are looking at those staff teaching in secondary not in primary.

17 Karen Smith Parent

I was just looking at page 50 and I am a bit confused as to what cuts and specifically what jobs are affected by Proposal One. Could you just go through the list and explain it please. Could you also explain about the Janitor as well? Audrey Edwards: Going back through our Consultations on these Proposals: Before they were put to Committee we put forward proposals and consulted on them with our Head Teachers about moving towards a Hub model. One of the things which was very clear and a direct message which came form Head Teachers was that they wanted to see the Service retain Head Teachers and Depute Head Teachers in Junior Highs. Going back to Helen’s point, the Schools Service is being asked to spend less money on education in Shetland. One of the things therefore we have done is to kept the Head Teachers and Depute Head Teachers in the Junior Highs but where there is the equivalent number of classes, there are two classes in Baltasound, we would have a Depute Head who

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has a teaching commitment in the same way that a two teacher primary school would have a teaching commitment. If you go to the table on page 50 which is about how money is allocated to the Primary Department. What we did in costing this is look at not including Nursery costs in this table, and not include costs that were in the Secondary Department in this table. This is a projection into the future. There is time for the Head Teacher in the table, which is a proportion of the Head Teacher’s time. There is the Depute Head Teacher there, that takes account of the fact that there is time there that is allocated to the Nursery, and some Management time and responsibilities for Fetlar because that is still in the established arrangement. There would then be one other class, so there is a class teacher there and an element of management time for the Depute Head Teacher. The next line has been discussed already because Caroline asked me and we have it as non contact cover, that is your Expressive Arts time. There is Classroom Assistant time there and if you look at the table above that – showing what is currently provided there is a small reduction in Classroom Assistant’s time allocated to the primary. Similarly there is a reduction in Clerical time which is allocated to the Primary. There is a proportion of the Janitor that does not mean that Fraser Paul or all of them is not here, it’s a proportion to the primary and a reduction in Supervisory Assistant’s time. We have visiting staff in Music and PE under zero because they are rolled up into the teacher non-contact cover.

18 Catriona Waddington Parent

I am sorry but I still do not understand the teacher’s issue. On page 46 in note one, it says there will be a reduction of 1.58 Full Time Equivalent teachers. It is currently a two class school so my brain tells me that should be two teachers. If one and a half of them go and it’s still going to be a two class school, is the proposal that one and a half teachers go from Baltasound Primary? And this is at a time when in paragraph 4.37 you say that Baltasound is growing quite substantially even without Uyeasound children. How can Baltasound lose one and a half teachers? Helen Budge: If you go back to what Audrey Edwards spoke about on page 50. There is Modern Foreign Languages teachers that is 0.15 that is attributed to the primary department because they teach in there, plus an Art teacher 0.18 and then there is a visiting Music teacher 0.24 and visiting PE 0.2. This will be reduced because we are not

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going to have all of the secondary specialists (six in total) coming into the primary as they are currently. They will teach in the secondary department in their secondary subjects. The Expressive Arts will cover the 2 ½ hours that is non-contact time for teachers because at the moment class teachers can only teach 22 ½ hours of a week and the other 2 ½ hours of the week is covered by other teachers. It is just in some schools the class teachers have more time without the bairns because there is other specialists going in. We are tidying it up so that it comes to be an overall reduction of 1.58 but that is not taking out what you would class as your primary class teacher. It is the other teachers who are coming in to support that teacher to deliver other subjects and things in primary. When numbers grow beyond 50 which would be the total for two teachers and when it gets to 51, the Schools Service would put a third teacher in. A third teacher would not be put in just now because there are not enough pupils and that is what we were talking about going to the National Staffing Levels. For a two-teacher school, it would be up to 50 pupils. Once it became 51 the school would get a third teacher. So when the roll went beyond that then that is when a new teacher would be put in. As the roll either falls or grows we put teachers in and out.

19 Parent I would like some clarification. I have three children here in Baltasound and two of them have special educational needs. I am concerned about a reduction in support staff particularly CALMS trained staff or staff who can deal with special educational needs. My son every day requires two escorts as well as two Additional Supports Needs Auxiliaries. If anyone from Uyeasound School has additional needs then the gentleman’s earlier point on transport and escorts and support staff that training again and I think that is an issue. Is there any clarification on that? Helen Budge: I apologise if this was not clear before. When I spoke about support staff I did not mention Additional Support Needs Auxiliaries or Additional Support Needs Teachers. They are not included in the support staff that I spoke about. The support staff which I refer to were the Cleaners, the Janitors, the Clerical, the Supervisory Assistants and the Classroom Assistants, not the types of staff whom I think you are referring to which are the Escorts, Additional Support Needs Auxiliaries and Additional Support Needs Teachers. None of the costs for the staff that is under the Additional Support Needs budgets comes under any of our schools.

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That is completely separate and is to ensure that there are right resources in the right places when it is needed. The Additional Support Staff budget is completely different and it is looked at completely differently. There is an audit which is done for that area so that each school has to appropriate staff. I hope that reassures you.

20 Margaret Pennington Additional Support Needs Teacher

I am one of the Additional Support Needs Teachers here in the primary. We have been recognised at putting a lot of work into the Additional Support Needs and we try very hard to be an inclusive school. I have to give credit to the specialist teachers in this school. It is not just a case of Additional Support Needs Teacher and Additional Support Needs Auxiliary, the fantastic work that our specialist teachers do with our pupils who have Additional Support Needs means that they sometimes have to work one-to-one with that pupil, maybe with an Auxiliary or in small groups. I am very, very concerned that if you cut our specialist teachers down to covering the 2 ½ hours which primary teachers get. I would like a guarantee that we have a level playing field continued Baltasound for all our pupils, especially our pupils with additional support needs, that they are still going to get their specialist teachers, and not just in Expressive Arts but in all the subjects that they get just now because that is what makes the lives so varied and interesting and it is what really makes this an inclusive school because they are getting all the subjects. You can’t just say that pupil is in this group of children because they frequently need one to one with a specialist teacher in small groups. Helen Budge: Are you speaking about primary or secondary Margaret? I teach in primary Helen. (Applause) Helen Budge: That is what I thought Margaret. We have noted your comments. There are no guarantees here tonight. This is a public meeting and it is about listening to your views and that is what we are certainly doing. We have not included the Additional Support Needs in this. There is an Additional Support Needs audit as you well know which is submitted on an annual basis and that detail is looked at on an annual basis and that will continue to be the case. Just to continue, what we want here is a level playing field and can I just say to the Councillors and anyone else who is counting the figures - please take into consideration what it

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would cost you to house, look after children 24/7 if the parents of these children felt that they were not getting sufficient all round education in Baltasound and requested that they went to the Anderson High School which has a very, very good supply of nearly everything. It would cost the Council an absolute fortune, on transport, on keeping children at night, on every other thing they could possibly have that would really cost the Council a lot of money. Not to mention the stress on the parents and children who feel they maybe have to go further away from home. You have to take all of these figures into consideration. It is not just a case of one or the other you have to take the whole picture in. I think as a community in Unst we do a real good job of being inclusive and I do think if you do your figures you will find we are saving you a lot of money doing it that way. (Applause)

21 Parent Child with Additional Support Needs

I would just like to support what Mrs Pennington has said. I am a parent with two special needs children who are educated in Baltasound. One of whom, if he had to be educated in Lerwick, would require 24/7 attention. He is able to be educated here and cared for at home with the 24/7 support which he needs within our own community which would not be the case if he was in Lerwick. If he was in Lerwick he would need 24/7 specialist staff to care for him around the clock to make sure that he stayed safe and other people around him were able to stay safe. Councillor Henderson: Taken on board.

22 Ruth Granger Parent

Bells Brae has 7% of their bairns with additional support needs where as Baltasound Primary has 14% (I think).

23 Belle Spence Grandmother

There are a lot of cuts being spoken about. Is there any cuts in the management in the Education Department. (Applause) Helen Budge: Yes, is the very short answer. The Schools Service used to have six Quality Improvement Officers and we now have four. We used to have what used to be classed as Assistant Advisors in 5 – 14 of Secondary which we don’t have now. The Schools Service is looking for further cuts within this report, £70,000 of further cuts within the Management of Hayfield House. Hayfield House will always get slimmer.

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24 Tim Holt Parent

How much did that save? Helen Budge: The two Quality Improvement Officers salaries are about £50,000 each, but you have to add on costs to that. In total it saved around £120,000.

25 Cameron Ferguson Member of Parent Council and Parent

You spoke earlier about these teachers or the equivalents you are taking out of primary that supported the Foreign Languages and the Art Teacher. You reduced them from 0.15 to 0.18. These teachers are already in this school in the Secondary Department I presume and are helping out in the Primary Department. Can you tell me now, if these two teachers are not going to help in the Primary Department, what are they going to be employed in this school for during that amount of time? Helen Budge: What we employ our secondary teachers to do is to teach secondary pupils. In some of our Junior Highs we have the situation where they have spare capacities because they do not have the number of pupils that some of our other Junior High Schools have. It used to be the case that we tried to employ them on a part-time basis. It was felt after that it was very difficult to get staff attracted to particular areas. It was then agreed that we would employ full time members of staff in the Junior High Schools and they would (as you said help) teach in the primary sector their specialist area at an appropriate level for primary pupils. We recognise is that we cannot maintain that level of staffing. We also have difficulty in attracting some secondary staff specialist areas to come to Shetland as well and what we will look to do with the Hub model is to share staff across our secondary schools and use them more efficiently rather than having them going into the primary departments.


So what you are saying is rather than having staff here walking down the corridor and using their expertise to teach primary kids as they do just now (help out). I don’t see how that figures can be put on to your primary, because that is what you have just said, they help out. You would rather now have them travelling time rather than educate kids. You would rather have them travel to a different school rather than spending their training which we have all paid for through our taxes, and their own money getting through university and you are saying now that they cant teach kids down the corridor because at the end of the day they are going to have to travel for two hours to teach for half an hour.

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Helen Budge: While those secondary staff are in the primary classroom we are also paying the primary classroom teacher to be there also - apart from the 2½ hours that they have non contact time. We are double counting for those young people, two teachers for that period of time they are there. That is why the cost per pupil in some of our Junior High School primary departments are as high as they are. There are a lot of other areas which don’t have that double counting. They don’t have two teachers available to that class at one time.


The proposed closure of Uyeasound reduces the hours that some of the Baltasound secondary staff teach at the moment. Proposal One cuts the specialist staff even more for the primary and then you come into the whole Hub model and you are speaking about cutting their time even more. Helen Budge: That is built into Proposal One, but I know what you are meaning. There is a serious concern in this Island that we will lose some of our young teachers. They are folk who have moved into this community, are getting married, having families and building houses and making a big difference to committees and a huge difference to this community. There is a serious concern that we are going to lose them so can we request that you do a socio-economic impact study on Proposal One and on what the effect this is going to have on Unst. It is a completely different thing to lose a teacher from this school compared to Aith or Brae. Helen Budge: For those of you who maybe do not know we are doing a Social Economic Study on the effects of this Proposal. Will this study be on the whole of Unst? Helen Budge: A Social Economic Study will take everything into consideration but if I see it is not being taken into consideration, if I get it soon enough we can bring that in. I think that they will come to the Island and speak to the folk here so I will bring that up to them as well. The Hub model is not in this proposal document and that is going to have serious implications for this Island.

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Helen Budge: It is not in this Proposal Paper but it is in our overall savings. With the size of roll which you have in secondary which was 26 pupils in November 2010. With 26 pupils in a secondary department it is difficult to justify full time staff for that number of pupils in all subject areas. We have to look at - and we are back to equality and how much time each pupil gets for subject area across the whole of Shetland - how we can better use the resources which we have more efficiently and that is why we have to look at that. I totally take your point. It was really difficult recruiting part-time staff which was why full time staff, were recruited. If you think if that was a primary school there would only be two teachers. With this low number of pupils in a secondary department it is difficult to justify a large number of subject areas so they can get the whole subject range that other bairns are getting in other schools and also having that staff working full time. Will there be consideration given to when it becomes a Hub model, I know that we are moving on to secondary but the idea of keeping folk on the Island as appose to losing them. Do you acknowledge it makes a job less attractive in a place like this? It is hard enough before and this is making it worse and worse. Helen Budge: That is why we would be looking at sharing between Yell and Unst. I would not like to travel from Unst to Yell to Brae in a day, as that is virtually impossible to fit into a school day. We will try to look how that can be done. It might be that we have subject reduction. Across Scotland at the moment they are looking at reductions in Advanced Highers and a lot of the Higher courses because there are not the resources that used to be. When you read some of the national papers will see that there are schools that are not offering the range of courses that they were able to offer in the past because they are having to reduce their resources. I think that we are beginning to see some of that happening here too. Audrey Edwards: I would like to add that many folk in this room were at the Informal Consultation meeting that was held in Baltasound at the beginning of last year. I can also see folk in this room who were at the Community Council meeting, similarly for the Informal Consultation. One of the biggest, hugest messages we heard here, in Baltasound was that we have to have our Secondary Department. Another message we heard, which you will find if you look at the record of those meetings still on the website, is that suggestions on how we could save money and make that more viable included that we

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did more sharing of staff. We have listened to that.


Have you taken into consideration the travel costs that this Hub model will incur? Yes or No, it is as simple as that? Helen Budge: We have taken into account in the Hub model what the reduction in staff would be like. For travel: we have some travel we have to look at reducing because we have some peripatetic staff going all over the place and as part of that we have to look at what that means for other peripatetic staff so there is some balance in there which has to be done as well. We do not have detailed figures if that is what you are asking but we are conscious that travel will decrease as well as travel which will increase. As a parent and as a son of a Modern Languages teacher would you not agree that a lot of teachers and being teachers yourself, when kids are that size they soak up languages no bother at all and when they get older it’s a lot harder. Is that not the best age to start them and it makes the secondary teacher’s job a lot easier when they get to the other schools. This might reduce the need for Classroom Assistants etc because the kids have started at this size. I know it is maybe not your equality model as you are looking at it but it is certainly a point to bring up. If you are going to teach languages, start from the beginning, start young.

29 Duncan Gray We have been told here that we are going to be sharing teachers between Unst and Yell. We know that the ferry has no spare capacity. Is the Council being asked to put on any extra ferry runs? Councillor Henderson: No. We have not been asked to put on extra runs.

30 Gordon Thomson Teacher

One of the reasons for the consultation as far as I can see it is to allow parents in Uyeasound to see what like the education is going to be like for their bairns if they have to go to Baltasound. One of the problems that I have looking at the sheet and what some parents have as well is on page 50 you have class teacher Proposal One of 1.10 class teacher and you have a Depute Head Teacher of 0.47. If you add that together it comes to 1.57, can you explain where the other 0.43 for a teacher comes from please? Audrey Edwards: What I said about this and I will say it again

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to try and make myself clear. These tables are about presenting costs to the Primary Department of Baltasound Junior High School. When you look at the costs that are here for the Depute Head Teacher and the Class Teacher, we have acknowledged that some of the Depute Head Teacher’s management expertise is being used in Nursery and that is reflected as well as the information which comes back from the school estate exercise which is done with each Head Teacher. They allocate a proportion of the Depute Head primary costs to the Nursery. We did not put in the Nursery costs here nor did we put in the Secondary costs. It does not mean that the person is not there this is just about the cost that is allocated to the primary. Sorry but I still don’t understand. If you need two primary class teachers, how are they being provided under this system? Audrey Edwards: Because the Depute Head Teacher would have one class and would have an allocation of management time of 0.1 and the other class teacher would be the other 1.0

31 Parent This still does not add up to two. Audrey Edwards: I know that this does not add up to two. This is financial information and the Nursery allocation of that Depute Head Teachers expertise has been allocated to the Nursery costs. Helen Budge: They would actually be in a class teaching for more than 0.47. At the moment their allocation cost to the Nursery is higher than that.

32 Gordon Thomson

So you are charging them to the Nursery and they are teaching in Primary. Helen Budge: That is how it would look currently because that is the information which we took from the school estate. When it came into being I am sure there would be more cost allocated to the primary because they would be teaching in the primary but at the moment the cost on the estate has the nursery allocated quite a lot of the Depute Teacher’s time.

33 Mike Smith Parent

I am the Community Development Officer for the Unst Partnership. You are clearly put a lot of work into working out

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how much money this is going to save the Shetland Islands Council. I was wondering if the Economic Development Unit is putting together financial costings to see how much the regeneration of Unst after Uyeasound closes will cost Shetland Islands Council. What regeneration proposals are they thinking of putting forward? Helen Budge: What we had requested was a socio-economic study on the closure and in the study that we had previously done in Skerries this point perhaps was not as explored as what you have said. I am sure that you will be one of the folk that the consultants will speak to so I am sure that is the very point you could make to them as part of that socio-economic study. Is this study going ahead soon? Before you shut the school? Helen Budge: The study has been commissioned and I am hopeful we shall have the results before the end of the Statutory Consultation on the 13 March. The Skerries study was received in time to include it in the Consultation Report. We will include it in the Consultation Report. We hope to have it sooner than we did last time but we will certainly hope to have it for the Consultation Report and it will come out as part of that under the timescale. I was just wondering about travel from Unst to Yell or to Brae. I am concerned about any future possible closures of schools out there because they were obviously one of the proposals to send our kids to Brae or to Mid Yell. Helen Budge: I meant all three schools in a day because that could happen. We have teaching staff that go to two, three and sometimes four schools in a day. And would you still be happy to send them to Brae and back in a day? Helen Budge: That was one of the options - to send them to Brae.


I would like to ask the Councillors, since they are the ones who are going to have to make the decisions, we as parents and even some of these educated folk with degrees up at the top table are having a job making sense of these figures. Do the Councillors understand the figures? I am asking all three Councillors in turn, what do you make of these figures?

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Councillor Simpson: I have been to a lot of these meetings over the years and I am still not clear on the financial package that is sitting before us sometimes. May be it’s me, perhaps I’m a bit thick or something but a lot of the times they do not add up in my book. Going back to the point about the social and economic study that is being done, I am chair of the Development Committee who is going to have to undertake that and I can assure you that there will be a social and economic study done on the closure of Uyeasound School. I said to Helen tonight that I would guarantee it and I think that it is a very important part of this exercise. As far as the financial figures go, I would be wrong to say that I am clear in my mind about them. It just worries me that the Councillors are the ones who are going to have to make the decisions and we have already heard from one Councillor that is not entirely clear and they are making the decisions on the figures which they do not understand or are presented improperly.

35 Parent Can we get it said here tonight because it has not been said yet, that it says in writing here the per annum saving for closing Uyeasound School is £215,000 and is said at least twice in the Proposal but the actual figure in the Proposal is £97,000. This is a very important thing for Councillors and the general public to be aware of.

36 Caroline Nelson Member of staff and Parent

You are proposing that specialist staff will have to travel to Brae. I have a one year old son. My husband works off the Island, in fact off Shetland for a number of months at a time. I relocated from Mainland Scotland to Unst. I came here to a permanent full time post. What happens to my son when the weather changes and I have been sent to Brae to work with no child provision here because I have no family here and the crèche is open between 9 – 5? I might have to leave Unst at 7am in the morning. (Applause) Helen Budge: Any decision on snow closure is made 6.00am in the morning. All the media is informed at 6.30am and before 7.00am all the schools are made aware of the situation. When I gave the example of the possibility of a staff member possibly going to Baltasound, Yell and Brae in one day, was only an example. I am not telling you here tonight that every member of staff is going to be travelling to Brae on a daily basis. Please note that. My sincere apologies if you have

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taken that message from what I was saying. We will have to look at how we share staff. I am not proposing to send every member of staff from here to Brae.

37 Melanie Scott Ex Pupil

I have received an excellent quality of education here and as far as I can tell by sharing teachers across schools you are doing nothing towards the quality of education which pupils will be receiving here. The teachers, as far as I know, are stretched quite a lot and by sharing teachers and tidying up their working hours you will be decreasing the amount of time that they have to plan lessons and look at the curriculum. As far as I know the Council strives to improve the quality of education that is presumably why they spend £220,000 on Quality Improvement Officers. I am wondering, how exactly you think this is going to improve the quality of education. (Applause) Helen Budge: In respect of the number of pupils that are here: we are not suggesting that all the staff will be moved. The staff will be here to teach the pupils their subjects that they require for the secondary setting. There is a quality of education for the secondary section and that will certainly continue to be here.

38 Tim Holt Parent

There seems to be an awful lot of travelling around and moving resources of teachers especially within the Hub system. Will those teachers be fully paid for their travelling time and waiting around at ferries etc at the taxpayers’ expense? Helen Budge: The time which our current peripatetic staff spend travelling is part of their teaching commitment. So they won’t be paid for their travelling time and waiting time? Helen Budge: They are paid for that – as a teacher.


To quickly follow up on Caroline’s point, it is not necessarily snow closures but you do not even have to go to Brae to be in trouble with the ferries. You can just go as far a Gutcher and the tide turns and that is you stuck, we have all been there. As you are aware Bluemull Sound has the fastest tidal run in Britain. It is a nasty piece of water and you do not have to go very far to be stuck with the ferries and maybe with you being

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on the Mainland Shetland you are not aware of this. This is quite a big concern for anyone going across in the winter, you are very, very aware if you are going to get home again at night and it might be a fine day when you leave.

40 Matthew Cox Co-opted Parent Council Member

Closing a school is a last resort and there should be educational benefits for the pupils who have to move. If Proposal One and the Uyeasound closure happen the educational experience of all primary pupils in Unst would be advisably affected. Where is the equality? Helen Budge: The educational benefits are set out in the Proposal Paper on page 22 and looks at the different areas that we have to look at and ends on page 32. This sets out the summary for the Uyeasound pupils and also the benefits for the pupils in Shetland.

41 Christopher Ritch Parent

I would like to ask Helen of the benefits listed on pages 23, 24, and 25 what would you say is the most important benefit to the Uyeasound bairns. Helen Budge: Well some of this is about across the whole of Shetland as well as Uyeasound. But I am asking specifically for the children of Uyeasound. What would you consider to be the greatest benefit? Helen Budge: That is a really good question. This information is listed under the educational benefit statements and we have set out in legislation the different things that we have to consider under this. We do have to look broader than just specifically for the educational benefits. We have to look at travel; finance, IT, and we have to look at the broader educational benefits for Shetland as well. That is why I was trying to explain to Colva why it is not just about education in this section. It is about other things which as well. You conclude that there is no educational detriment. I do not actually see any benefits in these three pages of supposed benefits. Helen Budge: I think that it is the terminology and I know exactly what you are meaning. What you are looking at is the direct education in learning and teaching. Educational benefits are broader than just learning and teaching. We have to take on other things too.

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42 Tim Holt Parent

You are prepared to look at the broader picture for educational advantage but not the broader picture of educational disadvantage. Helen Budge: We have to look at the broader picture for educational disadvantage as well because at the moment there are some children across Shetland who do not receive the level of secondary support that we have here in Baltasound currently - as in six secondary teachers going into primary. So they are educationally disadvantaged in that respect - if you were to say that we have secondary specialist staff going in all our primary schools across the whole of Shetland. That is why we have to look at both sides of that.

43 Janet Holt Parent

We are educationally disadvantaged by geography. Okay you could mention a few trips but there is no comparison to the access that people within a reasonable catchment area have to all the facilities which we have mentioned earlier. I believe there are possibilities of late ferries being cut which will make us even further disadvantaged. These extra snippets that we get, smaller class sizes, and teachers surely must be considered. Helen Budge: This is what we are here tonight to listen to - your views about your children coming to Baltasound from Uyeasound. That is the exactly sort of comment which we want to hear tonight. You can also add it into your written response form.

44 Derek Jamieson Parent

You were speaking about the broader picture and not just education and that is what is missing here if you take it down to the same level as everything else it is a disadvantage as far as I am concerned. Another thing that reads through this Proposal; the Proposal Paper says that education would cease if this goes ahead just before the October holidays. It is not at the end of a school year, so my three bairns would have their summer holidays, start a new term at Uyeasound and then come the start of the next term have to go into a different class after being ripped out of their school with no transition at all. You do say about a group transition but that would never ever make up for seven years building up towards a transition. If this is for the benefit of our bairns, I cannot see it at all. Helen Budge: That is a really good point to note as part of this Proposal Paper. As I have said, this is a proposal. The date is set at October and not the summer time because if you look

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at the timescale, we are not yet clear about the committee structure for May and we cannot set the date we would be able to take it forward to Shetland Islands Council. Once we are clear about what that date is we will be clearer about our time scale. If it is a late date in May and then there has to be a six-week period we would like that six-week period still to be in the school term so then we would know if the Ministers were going to call it in before the Summer holidays. I do not think that it is fair to have the date before the summer holidays because of the uncertainty around whether the Minister would make a decision or not and then maybe have to come back to a new school after the summer holidays when they left the old school not knowing whether they were going back there or not. For these reasons we moved it to October so that it is not going to be an issue for the timescale and by summer time we should know whether the Minister has called it in or not. The Minister does not have a time scale on how long he takes to make his decision, so that bit we cannot predict. At least that would give us time to say to the Minister that we will have the six week summer holiday and then we have a term could you please make the decision within that period of time if possible. There is no guarantee how long that takes but that would give us enough time to make that decision through that first term. Your point is really well made and it will be noted and you could also put that in your response form as well.

45 Hazel Spence Parent

Have you looked into given the individual schools a bit more control of their own budget? Looking in to renewable energy to heat these buildings, not just Unst but all over Shetland. Just saving money in other ways apart from shutting vital schools in a community like Uyeasound. (applause) Janice Thomason: Head Teachers have the same budget responsibility as all the other Budget Responsible Officers in the Council. They hold an operational budget. With regard to the renewable energies that would be something they would take up through Capital Planning.


You state that the capacity of Uyeasound school is 55 bairns. By my calculations 55 bairns require three teachers. Is that correct and does that require three classrooms? Helen Budge: Yes, 55 bairns require three teachers. Audrey Edwards: It does not require three classrooms. I have been in a school in Dumfries where they had huge classrooms

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and classes and they had 46 primary ones in that space and they had two teachers in it. We don’t have huge classrooms. Audrey Edwards: I am saying you can have 26 bairns in a class and have two teachers in there. If it was a composite class and you had 26 bairns. Do you still stand by your figures that Uyeasound has a capacity of 55 Audrey Edwards: The figures were all worked out for all our schools in the same way during an exercise which was done by Capital Projects after 2006. The capacity of the classroom which is currently used is 65.3 square metres. We have 2.1 square metres per child which is more generous than a number of other local authorities, so that would be 31 in that classroom. So what about the other classroom. Are you counting it as a classroom or a social area? Helen Budge: It was counted as a classroom in the exercise that was done. Does it include the school office in the square meterage? (The cupboard as you call it). Helen Budge: We apologised for that. Yes it does.


Coming back to Hazel’s point. Janice Thomason I believe just stood up and said that any renewable energies or other savings would be for other departments to consider. You stood up on Monday night and told us that it does not matter what budget it comes out of as it is all Council money and I believe that is recorded. Janice Thomason: I did not say it did not matter or that it was all Council money. You did say it was Council money. Janice Thomason: I did not say tonight that it would not matter. I said that it would be other Council department that would look at that. Could they not be able to look at it holistically then so that all

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the departments are looking at it in one? The Development Department is looking at as well. If you are giving it with the right hand and taking it with the left hand it does not make sense. You need a bit of joined up thinking. (Applause)


We have been trying to figure out page 50 and what we think page 50 tells us is that now at Baltasound there is 3.18 teaching time which is the Status Quo for the current school year. After the cuts it is going to be 2.21 teaching time. It is going to be 2.21 teaching time whether the Uyeasound kids are here or not? We all know that class size is extremely important to children. How can I possibly as a parent of my Baltasound child or as a parent of a Uyeasound child possibly be expected to believe that this is in their educational benefit? There are fewer teachers and there are going to be half as many kids again. Helen Budge: That will be the case for a lot of schools across Shetland as more and more of these cuts come into being. The rural schools legislation says that parents have to be persuaded of the educational benefit if their school is to close. I have not seen an educational benefit. Audrey Edwards: I appreciate that tonight’s discussion seems to be dominated by finance but I would like to go back to one of the things I said earlier and to what Janice and I were speaking with the Uyeasound Parent Council about earlier today. The Schools Service is the largest spender of Council resources in Shetland Islands Council. Shetland Islands Council has generously resourced our schools for certainly all the time that I have been aware. You all appreciate, and that has been clear tonight, the benefits that has to the service your children get. What Helen, Janice and I have been involved in over the past few years because we have been asked to do it, is to, where we can, make savings in that revenue budget and for the financial year which is nearly finished 10/11, we have cut £356,000 out of operating costs for schools. We cannot cut back operating costs any further or some of our schools will not be able to function and to pay the basic things which they need for a school to work. That is the reason for some of the things that we have had to put forward in Proposal One - because we are being asked to make enormous savings for the next three years. If we are to retain, and that it clearly the message we are getting here tonight, we did not expect to hear anything else is that you do not want any fewer schools in this authority, the areas in

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Proposal One are the only places we have left to look as we cannot cut back anymore operating costs. Council has made it clear to us that we have to spend less money in Schools Service. Neither Helen nor I think that what we have got is not fantastic. What we are saying to you is that we cannot manage to keep it all at the level it has been at.

49 Margaret Hunter Ex Teacher

How many consultations has there been in the past twenty years. Has the whole process been costed? Helen Budge: I have been in the office for the past eleven years and in that time there have been four but previous to that there have probably been more. The earlier stages were not costed in anyway you could detail it out. Last time we were asked for costings and we costed what would be the previous Best Value, as it was called at that time. This time we are keeping a note of how much we are spending on the Blueprint as we go along. At the moment I could not give you a final figure as costs are ongoing for example, the cost of providing a crèche here tonight, but a final figure will be published. We do have a budget and we are spending out of it all the time just now but the final figures will be published at the end of the Blueprint exercise.


Correct me if I am wrong and I will stand corrected if I am wrong. I believe the legislation on rural schools closure states that you cannot close a school unless it is going to be a direct educational benefit to those children directly affected by the closure. As far as we can see in the Proposal Paper, you have outlined things that are not detrimental but the only educational benefit that you can come up with there is the fact that there is an outside football park at Baltasound and there is an inside toilet as well. Helen Budge: Going back to Catriona’s point earlier that she could not see any educational benefits in this Paper. I think the majority of people in this room tonight cannot see any educational benefit that is in this Paper. I think that is were we have had conversations previously on this. We set out the educational benefits on pages 22 – 32 in the Proposal Paper as we see it. We totally accept what you are saying and you have your viewpoints which you are expressing here tonight. That is why we are listening and we will take these back. You have the opportunity to put that in writing and we will look to further expand that in the Consultation Report.

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Thank you for that, but further to the point you have not even managed to express in that Paper a benefit. You have managed to say there is not a detriment but you have not managed to express that there is a benefit. Helen Budge: What we say in 5.63 is this is the summary providing the following benefits for Uyeasound Primary School and they are four points listed. There is four points, not four benefits. Helen Budge: Those four points are seen to be four benefits.

51 Parent We have already said the last point is not true for certain. Helen Budge: That is what we have said in the Proposal Paper. It was highlighted at the staff meeting that this was wrong - the same instrumental staff that came to Uyeasound as Baltasound. That will be corrected in the Consultation Report. What I am saying is that when the Proposal Paper was written these were the four educational benefits as a summary which was produced. Benefits as you see them.


Can you see how frustrating it is for parents of bairns that you are going to shut schools in areas all over Shetland, not just here in Unst? This is all about money and in the long run you have to save money. It has already cost over two million pounds for feasibility studies for the New Anderson High School and that could keep our schools open for years. (Applause) Helen Budge: That has obviously been noted as one of your comments and I totally accept it. What Audrey was trying to say earlier is exactly right. We do have less funding, but we also have less pupils. We do not have the same number of pupils in our schools that we did even ten years ago.


According to your figures the number of pupils in Unst is growing. Helen Budge: I am not disputing that, if you let me continue the sentence, it fall is across Shetland. If we were sitting with every school at full capacity I would be able to justify better the

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need for the continuing spend. What is happening is that across Shetland the pupil roll is falling and we are asking for more money and our cost for pupil in primary is increasing. That obviously cannot continue. If we had a lot more pupils, you are saying the roll is increasing here and when it comes to a stage when we need to put in another teacher, we will but at the moment we have capacity. Roughly across the whole of Shetland our schools are only half full. We have to maintain those buildings and maintain 100% of those costs. We do not have the money as Audrey said to carry on to do that. The Schools Service also has to look at, if we are going to continue the estate that we have, cuts across learning materials, further cuts across staffing and we will still have 33 nearly 34 schools to maintain. So for costs we have to look at how best we can use the money we get to make sure we deliver the best education benefits.


Why are they proposing to build a New Anderson High School for a capacity of nearly 2000 bairns when the role there is not even 1000 and you are already saying the school role is dropping? Helen Budge: My understanding is the New Anderson High School is being built for a capacity of 1000, I was not aware of it being built for 2000. I worked there up till two years ago and have seen the presentations and certainly the capacity was for more than 1000 because already the school roll was 996 when I left. Helen Budge: My understanding at the moment is the capacity that is being spoken about is 1000 for the New Anderson High School. It is certainly not 2000 and as far as I know not even more than 1000. You are right the roll has fallen over the past couple of years so that there are less than 1000 pupils there. When you build a new building you have to build in a peerie bit of spare capacity so you can’t just build it for that pupil roll. As you say the roll is increasing in Unst there is possibility where there are increases, maybe there will be more with migration as well. So the agreement as far as I know is the capacity is for 1000 but that may change. At this stage we just have a site, we do not have a brief, or anything worked up beyond the site that has been chosen and that is the process that has been done over the last few months and that will be worked up over the next six months.

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I appreciate time is rolling on so I would like to take the chance to sum up my personal feelings. As an Unst parent, a Shetland parent and indeed a Scottish parent we have heard you speaking about equality across Shetland and Scotland. I would like to ask the Schools Service and the Elected Members here and on the Council, are they all happy that they are now going to reduce the excellent education service that we have in Shetland down to an acceptable standard, the National Average, in fact thereby reducing the National Average standard of education in Scotland. (Applause) Helen Budge: Whilst we are speaking about reducing our resources we recognise we have extremely excellent staff across a lot of our schools. We have staff in our schools that are extremely dedicated to their area and to the bairns that they serve. We are not looking to make major changes to the number of staff. We are looking to reduce hours in places and we are looking at sharing staff but we still will have the quality of staff that we have at the moment. They will each provide us with the best education that they can within the resources that they have and I can guarantee you that.

56 Bethany Scott

You said before that you had cut down on the operational costs of schools as well and the next stage to save money was to close schools. I would like to know why the operational costs in Hayfield House are not the next thing to be looked at. (Applause) Helen Budge: As I have explained before we have had cuts in Hayfield House and we will continue to have further cuts in Hayfield House.

57 Duncan Are you aware that folk here in this room tonight are going to lose their jobs because of your proposal? Helen Budge: We are here to listen to what you have to tell us. If you are telling us that there are folk who are going to lose their jobs that will be recorded and you can put that on your written response and expand on that if necessary. There will also be the social economic consultants that come up and you can certainly make clear to them what jobs you see going in the Island of Unst that you are speaking about. You are telling us that you are going to reduce primary and secondary provision in Unst. Are you going to keep everybody that is employed in the education department in

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Unst employed? Helen Budge: I will not go into detail but there are different options for staff in respect of early retirement, in respect of voluntary redundancy and in respect of redeployment among staff that some folk may chose to take. I cannot say more than that at the moment about specific members of staff. What happens if nobody wants to leave? Helen Budge: Then we will have to look at that if we come to that.


So you do accept there will be folks who will lose their jobs then? Helen Budge: With the number of staff that we are speaking about there are two different things. One is Proposal One about the sharing of staff. What about the closure of Uyeasound school? Helen Budge: Speaking about that specifically we have a number of staff there and we would redeploy these staff and we would look at redundancy and we would look at retirement. Individual staff members I am not willing to discuss.

59 Tim Holt Parent

Would any staff from Uyeasound School be redeployed here in Baltasound? Helen Budge: There might be a possibility on that depending if there was an opportunity through other retirements etc.

60 Caroline Massie Teacher

Would staff be redeployed here in Unst and within Education? Helen Budge: It depends. It could be that somebody chooses to be redeployed in a different area. It is very much individual conversations we have had with folk because it is about folk’s preference as well. We have to offer them three employment opportunities and that might be in education but it might be that it is not if it is a support person. Would it be an opportunity in the community still? Helen Budge: It can be. If there are not opportunities within

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the community then we would have to look at other options.


Helen, you said before that one of your reasons for shutting Uyeasound school is so that you can redeploy the staff there. I think you are meaning Kate Coutts and to use her expertise so that more folk benefit. From what we have been told in the past three years the training Kate has delivered through her position at Uyeasound School, the number of teachers she has taught in leadership each having 25 bairns in their class means that 27,000 folk have benefited from Kate in the past three years. If you shut Uyeasound school and Kate decides to up and leave Shetland you have lost that. That resource has gone whereas if you can keep her and the school open and open it into a centre of excellence and keep Kate in the same kind of role she is in at the moment you can see where the benefit is there. Helen Budge: I am really not prepared to discuss individual members of staff. I take your point and it has been noted but I am unwilling to comment on that.

Councillor Henderson: I will now bring this meeting to a close but remind all you to get your written responses sent into the Schools Service soon. Thank You

Documents

Blueprint for Education - Shetland Islands Council · Blueprint for Education in Shetland 1 ... (Service Manager, ... to go to statutory consultation on this proposed change to the