Monthly Meeting with Michael Wood Executive Director of Children and Familes Service

Yesterday morning I had my regular meeting with Michael Wood, Executive Director of Children and Families' Service, along with my colleague, Councillor Georgia Cruickshank. 

This is an opportunity to have a briefing on the Agenda Items for the Children and Families' Service Committee meeting next Monday 28 November 2016.

In our meeting in Michael's office, we discussed each item but we paid most attention to the items about the Attainment Challenge Update and the Teacher Numbers in Dundee Schools. 

The Attainment Challenge Update is essentially a progress report on Dundee school projects funded by £4 million from the Scottish Attainment Challenge. As this update is reporting on the first full year of this programme, the report maps out more about the additional staff appointed and the arrangements in place for future evaluation of 'closing the attainment gap' rather than detailing rising attainment.

Th item on Teacher Numbers in Dundee Schools reports to the Committee and the general public on the number of teachers in post in our primary and secondary schools in the designated census week in September 2016. These figures are meticulously reported to the Scottish Government. Additionally I think the figures should be reported more widely, thus my insistence at an earlier meeting of the former Education Committee that these details should be reported annually in the Autumn. This year the report records a creeping up of the pupil teacher ratio. While the report refers to some indicators of improvement in the recruitment and selection of teachers, it continues to be a shortage of teachers. While we should be vigilant in tracking the number of teachers in our schools, we should also be concerned about the learning outcomes achieved from this investment.

Commenting on Serious Lapse in Council's Duty of Care When Nursery School Pupil Was Left Stranded on School Bus

I was very concerned by the news that last week a three year old nursery pupil with additional support needs, who attends the Francis Wright Nursery, had been left unattended on their school bus. Apparently this young boy was left alone on a minibus which had delivered the other children to the nursery and then was returned to the contractor's garage. The wee lad apparently remained strapped into his seat and undetected for a number of hours until a driver returned to take the bus back to the nursery for the return journeys.

This was a very serious lapse in the Council's duty of care to one of our youngest children at nursery.

I have been in immediate contact with, Michael Wood, The Director of Children and Families' Service, who has assured me that an inquiry has already been launched. I made it clear that we need to know how it was that this child was left on the bus and how he was not missed when he did not turn up at the nursery. Clearly parents and carers and Councillors, who are corporate parents, need to be reassured that such a serious lapse in child protection procedures will be avoided in the future.

Education Meetings Wednesday 20 April 2016

Earlier today I had a series of three meetings about education in Dundee. 

The day began with a briefing I had requested about the financing of the building of the replacement Baldragon Academy currently under construction. The funding is referred to as DBFM which stands for Design, Build, Finance and Maintain. This is on the agenda of the Policy and Resources Committee next Monday evening.

The second meeting was with Mrs MacGregor the Head Teacher at Forthill Primary School. Now in her second term at the helm, Mrs MacGregor was formerly Head Teacher at Victoria Park Primary School, Blackness Road. We had a wide ranging discussion including Curriculum for Excellence, Read Write Inc phonics based literacy programme, numeracy developments and computer coding. I also had a conducted tour of the school. While I was there one of the year groups were enjoying an African Drumming workshop. 

The third meeting was back in Dundee House to meet Michael Wood, Executive Director of Children and Families' Service for a briefing about his reports coming up at the first meeting of the integrated Children and Families' Service Committee on Monday next. This new committee replaces the former Education and Social Work Committees. 

This is an important monthly meeting which helps to inform my role as Labour Education Spokesperson in the city. More specifically it will help inform how I, and my colleagues in the Labour group, might respond to the important issues that will be raised for decision at both the Children and Families' Service and Policy and Resources Committees next Monday evening.

All three meetings help to keep me informed about the policy and practice issues for our schools in the city in general and of course more specifically in The Ferry. There is a lot going on and it's important to keep abreast of it.

Commenting on the Addition of Modular Classrooms at Claypotts Castle Primary School

I have been advised that the Council will be adding temporary modular classrooms at Claypotts Castle Primary School over the summer. This was surprising because it's one of our new schools that only opened its doors in June 2008. I understand the extra classrooms are required to accommodate the increasing number of children who live in the school's catchment area. 

It is positive that the extra accommodation is to provided, because the alternative would mean improvising use of other areas within the school which would constrain the curriculum for our pupils. It is however very disappointing that a school that is just eight years old is too small. How did Council staff get their calculations so wrong? 

This is unfortunately not the first time that our new schools have proved to be too small. Craigowl Primary School was oversubscribed from the start and eventually the Council brought forward a restriction on the catchment area for Craigowl . 

Both examples call into question the reliability of the population projections that have informed decisions that the Council have made about replacing schools.  More worrying is that the same population projections have been used to justify the closure of Menzieshill High School this summer and the size of the proposed new primary school in Menzieshill. I think the new Children and Families' Committee (replacing the Education Committee) needs to be given the opportunity to discuss this at it's next meeting. 

We need to get it right for every child and avoid expensive mistakes like this.