News / School questionnaire triggers complaints
PARENT councils from two secondary departments in Shetland have submitted formal complaints against the local education authority over an informal consultation to close schools.
The parents are unhappy with a questionnaire recently handed out to pupils at Aith and Sandwick junior high schools, both of which have been earmarked for closure under the council’s controversial Blueprint for Education.
As well as submitting complaints to Shetland Islands Council’s children’s services department, they have written to the Scottish Children’s Commissioner with their concerns.
Sandwick parents council chairwoman Emilie Gray said the questionnaire was “poor” and issued in haste on a piece of work that was not yet council policy.
She also complained that the document appeared to set one closure-threatened school against another, with questions about whether other schools should be closed or not.
“It’s positive that Hayfield House is speaking to young people about what they think,” she said.
“It was the manner in which it was done in terms of the haste and the content of the document they were proposing to use that we took exception to.”
Aith parents council chairman Jeremy Sansom said they too had complained formally about the questionnaire being divisive and submitted in haste, with schools being informed just two days before education officials turned up with the documents.
Both parent councils believe the consultation was a knee jerk reaction to last month’s visit to Shetland by the Scottish children’s commissioner Tam Baillie, during which he stressed the importance of involving young people.
However children’s services director Helen Budge insisted the council always consulted with young people as a matter of course.
“Whether it’s an informal or a statutory consultation, we always try to get the views of young people, it’s really important we hear what young people think about things,” she said.
The informal consultation had been carried out partly in response to a request from the teaching unions to be given time to examine proposals to limit secondary education at the island schools on Yell, Unst and Whalsay to the first three years.
This proposal would save Whalsay’s secondary department from closure, leaving the schools in Aith, Sandwick and Skerries still facing the axe.
The council is also proposing to close primary schools at Sandness, Olnafirth, Urafirth, North Roe and Burravoe as part of an attempt to save £3 million a year from the highest per pupil education budget in Scotland.
The council has already closed Scalloway secondary and Uyeasound primary in a long running campaign to reduce the number of schools in the face of falling school rolls.
The council’s education and families committee will debate the proposals on Wednesday morning, with final decisions being made by the full council in the afternoon.
Shetland News will be reporting live from both meetings.
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