Scottish Boys' Brigade Battle of the Bands Caird Hall Saturday 12 March

Opening of Kingspark School - Credit Where Credit is Due

I attended the official opening of the new replacement Kingspark School on Friday 18 February.

Michael Russell, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning unveiled the opening plaque. The real stars of the event were the children who performed in a concert for the assembled invited guests, parents and a majority of the pupils. The programme was introduced by Mrs Laura Smith, the Head Teacher. It included spirited performances by the Kingspark choir and instrumental groups. I particularly enjoyed their singing of Calendonia as well as their rendition of Mhairi's Wedding that accompanied children dancing on the stage.

The children's performances gave some indication to the remarkable capabilities and life skills that the school nurtures amongst pupils with a range of disabilities and learning difficulties. After the ceremony, guests were taken on a conducted tour of the school. The positivity of the school 's ethos permeated all that I observed.

I am proud to have been the Education Convener when the planning of this school was undertaken and sanctioned by the Council. This is another one of the legacy achievements of the then Labour led administration of the City Council that built six new Primary Schools and two new secondary schools under the auspices of its PPP building programme. Kingspark was in the next part of the Labour led council's ambitious capital plan which also included the replacement Whitfield Primary School and the two new twin campus primary schools in the Westend and Lochee/Charleston.

When delivering his speech, Mike Russell, suffered from political amnesia counting the new Kingspark School as though it was part of the SNP's school building programme. The school was in fact built with a mixture of local funding and prudential borrowing by the City Council.

So while celebrating another success of our Administration's legacy of new school building and school refurbishment in the city, it's difficult to identify the SNP school building legacy apart from Harris Academy whose construction is projected to begin in 2012/13. I hope for the sake of children being educated in unimproved schools that the SNP administration will indeed will indeed conjure up a school building programme, as they promised in May 2007, 'to match Labour's PPP programme brick for brick'.

SNP Councillors vote down £379,000 for Dundee Schools they had cut by £4.1 M

At the Council's Budget meeting on Thursday 10 February, the SNP group of fourteen Councillors, with the support of the Lord Provost, voted down the Labour amendment. We proposed to use savings we had identified, to restore more than a third of a million pounds to the Education budget.

Our proposals would have have made this a better budget by ensuring that:

• no class lacks a supply teacher when a teacher is absent and when a school's budget for supply cover is exhausted;

• curriculum for excellence developments will not be held back by reductions in the school's classroom expenses budget and

• no pupil is denied access to an examination as a result of the cut in SQA examination fees for dual presentations because two examination certificates are better than the risk of none.

We believed that the best way to achieve our priorities was to pass these funds to the discretionary budgets of our head teachers so that they might have spent this on the most important priorities in their schools. In this way, teaching and learning in our schools would have been protected from the most damaging effects of the SNPs programmes of more than £4 million cuts.

Unfortunately, our school children and their schools will have to suffer because the SNP insisted on protecting the budget for two civic cars and not one as we proposed. They also voted to protect money for beer and sandwiches for hospitality. They also voted to retain an unallocated bus route development fund. Why we would want to invest more money from the council tax to boost the profits of the bus company in Dundee beats me. I think most council taxpayers in Dundee would think this would be throwing good money after bad given the recent botched reorganisation of bus routes in the city.

So as the dust settles after our prolonged budget meeting, why does our SNP led Council prefer to retain the £379,000 savings we had identified and not shore up the Education budget they had raided? Why are beer and sandwiches and civic cars on the council tax more important than the Education of our children?

Dundee nursery, primary and secondary schools deserve better.

Budget Cuts in Education: Councillor Fordyce in Not for Turning

The committee papers for the budget setting meeting on Thursday 10 February were issued on Thursday 3 February. I have examined the papers about Schooling in Dundee and notice that they contain exactly the same budget cuts which our SNP led council announced just before Christmas. This is despite the submission of a considerable volume of public, professional and political representations about the shortcomings in these proposals.

Representatives of our Primary School Head Teachers and Depute Head Teachers, have informed me that they have felt sidelined from consultation about the proposed cuts in their schools. More disappointing is that their alternative budget options do not seem to have influenced the Education Convener, Councillor Liz Fordyce. The lady is obviously not for turning!

Interestingly Councillor Fordyce made a point of publicising her visits to every one of the Primary Schools in the city after she was appointed. I wonder what it was that persuaded her to reinstate management standards in our schools from 1972. Little evidence here of Changing for the Future, more like Back to the Future.

Dundee deserves better.

Questions Remain About Transfer of Broughty Ferry Library

In Thursday's Evening Telegraph and Friday's Courier, I raised issues about the proposed transfer of management of our library in Broughty Ferry to an arms length, Leisure and Cultural Services Trust.

Please can the Leader of the Council, Ken Guild, respond to the issues I have raised and not deflect these as 'obscure political points'?

Firstly, why has his administration chosen not to set up a new arms length organisation specifically for libraries and museums? This arms length body will require a majority of independent and unpaid board
members. If it focuses just on Libraries and Museums it's not difficult to imagine appropriately qualified volunteers coming forward. But lumping in all of Dundee Leisure's empire of sports halls, pitches and swimming pools doesn't to my mind add up into a coherent set of activities. I think it will lead to a divided board between those with sports and those with cultural interests. The option of a stand alone charitable 'cultural organisation' to manage libraries, museums and the Caird Hall is dismissed in one paragraph (para 6.2 page 105) in the
Committee Report for the budget meeting next week. This is hardly an option appraisal.

Secondly, I am also worried that the external legal advice to be sought by the council is only to determine ensuring:
'(1) maximistation of financial savings to the council;
(2) protection for the staff being transferred.' (para 6.3 page 105)

What about the protection of book borrowing and reading provided 'free' at the point of use? This seems like another example of short term cuts and long term damage to local services.

Maybe Councillor Guild can whip his SNP group to vote this through at the Budget meeting on Thursday 10 February, but if won't mean he has won the argument in the Ferry. If he barges ahead, folk in the Ferry may want to examine the terms of the 1913 Boundaries Act. If, like me, they see their library under threat, they may want to use the law to push for another option that adequately protects their library for the future.

Broughty Ferry deserves better.

Budget Options for our Schools should be Scrutinised by the Education Committee

In yesterday’s Courier, the Education Convener, Councillor Liz Fordyce, denied that school closures and mergers were being considered. This denial was called into question by an email from the Director of Education received by Political Group Leaders yesterday morning. This confirmed that the Education Department had received detailed alternative budget savings put forward by Head Teachers and Depute Head Teachers in Dundee Schools forwarded by the Dundee Primary Head Teachers’ Association. The Director also confirmed that these had been submitted as part of their consultation on the budget cuts.

The Dundee Primary Head Teachers wrote:

‘In closing, as senior managers in schools ……. There remains a strong feeling that school rationalisation should have been and must be considered. We appreciate the proposed savings (we have identified) are Revenue budget savings but would suggest that some of these could be offset by Capital savings.’

Since one assumes that the views of these senior teachers' in our schools have been read and studied and weighed by the Directorate and the Education Convener, it follows that their options have been or are being considered.

Yesterday, the Education Convener once again resorted to personal insults in relation to the issues I had raised about the budget cuts in Dundee schools. I think that people who resort to lashing out like that have lost the argument. Another technique she has used to shut down debate is to deny opportunities for the Education Committee of the council to discuss her cuts before they are presented to the Budget meeting next Thursday

I have consistently claimed in the council chamber and the press for an opportunity for the Education Committee to examine the SNP's budget reductions in Education. The Education Committee should be the place where these issues are scrutinised by Councillors alongside members of the Committee drawn from the teaching profession and religious leaders in the city.

Why is the Convener afraid to present her budget proposals to the Education Committee? What has she got to hide?"

Still Time for a Rethink on Budget Cuts in Education?

In the last week, Councillors and the Education Directorate have received numerous written representations about the proposed education cuts. This has included communications from Head Teachers and Depute Head Teachers in the City, representatives of the Church, Teacher Unions and parents.

These people and organisations have without exception been registering their grave concerns about the package of savings proposed for our schools in Dundee.

It seems from my mailbox that the Education Convener, Councillor Liz Fordyce, is the only person in Dundee who thinks that the SNP’s programme of £4.1 million cuts will improve education in the city.

One recurring issue from the representations I have received is about the unfairness of the impact of the proposed changes in education. There is concern that about where the impact of these cuts will be hardest felt. It seems likely that it is in the areas of the city with the highest levels of poverty and unemployment that the proposed cuts will bite hardest, especially by reducing the number of teachers in local primary schools.

The Head Teachers and Depute Head Teachers have not only identified their concerns but also have identified their own alternative budget savings including merging smaller primary schools and moving smaller primary schools to share premises with a local secondary school.

I understand that the Administration is currently considering these alternative savings and has not ruled out school closures and mergers. While Labour would not support school closures, I think parents, teachers and members of the Education Committee should be allowed to discuss the Education cuts and potential alternatives before they are adopted in a block at the Budget meeting next week. If that means a delay in the budget process, so be it. I think the public would expect their politicians should leave no stone unturned in finding the least damaging reductions in Education in the city.

Broughty Library - Is Transfer of Management Legal and Wise?

As part of the SNP's budget cuts,the well used and much loved Broughty Ferry Library will be set to managed by an arms length body, a not for profit organisation, rather than directly by the Council. While this is claimed to save money, is it legal and is the proposed form of management the best option?

Our Broughty Ferry library was one of the incentives provided by the then City Council to entice the former Broughty Ferry Borough Council to throw in their lot with Dundee. The 1913 Act of Parliament that annexed Broughty Ferry to Dundee made it clear that Dundee Council would provide and maintain a library in Broughty Ferry within five years of the annexation. This was duly provided. I am querying now how how this commitment stands. Can the council claim that it meeting this historic obligation while passing it on to an arms length body not under the direct control of the council?

Whether or not it is legally feasible, and I am sure legal officers will report on this, I am not convinced that the proposed successor body is the best solution for our library in the Ferry. The SNP led council's solution is to pass our library on to a reconstituted and expanded Dundee Leisure Trust along with all the other libraries in Dundee and the museums. I think at the very least a separate trust should be considered for Museums and Libraries in the city.

Do swimming pools, gyms, libraries and museums hang together? I notice that leading private sector leisure companies, such as David Lloyd Leisure and Bannantine Leisure Clubs don't also run museums and libraries. Will the independent directors of the proposed company have broad enough interests to focus on libraries and community learning as well as aerobics, swimming and hockey?

I think Councillor Ken Guild, Leader of the Council, should think again about the wisdom of the changes to library management his administration is proposing for Broughty Ferry.

Link to story in The Dundee Courier

First Click Courses in Broughty Ferry & Dundee

Using computers and the internet is easier than you think. You can join a beginners' course and have a go using a computer for yourself.

Free short courses are starting soon at libraries in Dundee.

To find out about courses available ring:

Freephone 08000 150 950

8am to 10pm, 7 days a week

To book a place in Broughty Ferry community library, drop into the library or ring the library 01382 436919

Council Should Revive Plans for Extension and Improvement of Barnhill Primary School

With confirmed pressure on school places a growing issue in the north of Broughty Ferry and especially in the catchment area of Barnhill Primary School, it makes sense for the council to revive its plans to refurbish and extend the school in a manner similar to the development of Forthill Primary School. This could not only expand the school from two to three form entry but also move the nursery out of the temporary huts where it is currently located.

In fact the council applied for and received outline planning consent for such a development in Spring 2002.

I think parents should expect that the council must now revive these plans as a matter of urgency. I shall be looking for this to be included in the revised capital plan which the council will be bringing forward soon.

Of course this will not provide an immediate solution to the lack of capacity this year but might reassure families living in the Barnhill Primary School catchment area that that the council have a satisfactory rather than makeshift longer term solution.

Barnhill Primary School Oversubscribed

Feedback from parents in the catchment area of Barnhill Primary School confirms that the Primary One intake beginning in August is already significantly oversubscribed.

This means that more parents who have a rising five child who live in the catchment area of the school have put their child's name down for entry to the school in Primary One than were accommodated last year when the Primary One classes were full. Unless more places are found in the school, some of the children who live in the Barnhill PS catchment area could be denied a place.

In addition children who are priority two might not get a look in at all. Priority two children are those who live outside the school's catchment area but already have an older brother or sister who attends the school.

This is a very serious issue, which may well require an adjustment to the Council's budget for next year if parents and their children are not to be denied a place at their local primary school. I don't think parents and children should suffer from the results of inadequate planning by the Education Department.

When I raised this issue last year in relation to the capacity of public services in Broughty Ferry to accommodate more housing developments, this was dismissed and it was claimed by the Education Convener that there was plenty of capacity in Broughty Ferry Schools. Well now, where is that spare capacity for parents living in the Barnhill Primary School catchment area?

SNP cuts will Undermine Improvements to Schooling in the City

Providing an Opportunity to Expose the SNP's Education Cuts in Dundee

I have requested an opportunity for the Education Committee to consider the SNP's Education Cuts on Monday evening so that the extent and effect of these can be exposed. Far from improving schooling in Dundee, I think the planned cuts will undermine the improvements Labour made in the City. I am very concerned that improvements in attainment in our schools will be stalled or put into reverse.

All but one Primary School in Dundee will lose teaching staff as result of the SNP's cuts

In fifteen schools with under 220 pupils, such as Park Place Primary (151 pupils) and St Vincent's Primary School (212 pupils) will lose their Deputy Head Teacher post and their Head Teacher will effectively have no one to delegate management responsibility to when they are out of school or absent. The removal of the deputy's post in these schools will result in a reduction of the overall staffing for these schools by one post. (15 full time equivalent teacher posts lost in the city)

In eleven primary schools with between 221 and 325 pupils, the schools will lose the equivalent of 0.3 (just under a third) of a member of staff. For example, Blackness Primary School (305 pupils) will find their Deputy Head Teacher with a 0.5 teaching commitment. This will be partly offset by the appointment of a Principal Teacher from amongst the existing staff with a 0.2 allocation of time for management. This will result in the loss of a 0.3 post equivalent. (3.3 full time equivalent teacher posts lost in the city)

In ten further, larger schools, in the city (326-500 pupils) such as Criagowl (491 pupils) and Clepington (432 pupils) there will be an increase in the teaching commitment of the two depute head teachers by 0.5. This will mean that these school will lose half of a teacher's post further down the school. (five full time equivalent teacher posts lost in the city)

Forthill Primary School in the Ferry (520 pupils) is our largest primary school and hasn't yet achieved its full capacity. As it's in the largest category, it will attract a third depute head teacher post. However, the combined teaching commitment of these three deputes has been increased to 2 full time equivalent class teachers. Perversely this will mean that despite the appointment of a third Depute Head Teacher, there will be no more management time available in Forthill than many smaller schools in the city. This increase in teaching time by deputes will also displace another teacher further down the school. (one full time equivalent teaching post lost and one management post gained)

Undermining School Management

Finally, Head Teachers and Depute Head Teachers are not back room staff who shuffle paper. As their titles imply they are teachers first an foremost with responsibilities to fulfil vital roles such as quality assurance of teaching and learning including conducting classroom observations and mentoring new staff. They also often cover short term absences in their schools. As the budget for buying in short term cover is being cut too, management in our schools and covering for absence will be more problematic. What for example, will happen in our schools with no Deputes at all?

Dundee's Successful Structure for Raising Attainment – Endorsed by HMiE

When HMiE reported on the progress of the Education Authority in March 2009, they commented that:

'2 Continuous improvement

The authority had made significant progress since the original inspection.

Councillors, the Chief Executive, the Directors for Education and of Leisure and Communities articulated a clear vision for education in Dundee. They had taken the necessary strategic steps to develop appropriate structures and policy frameworks to help bring about improvements. The Education Department had been restructured to ensure a more focused approach to strategic management and quality assurance.

This had strengthened team work, provided more opportunities to share good practice and ensured a more consistent approach to support and challenge. The remits of the senior management team (SMT) had changed creating primary and secondary teams.

A new tier of management had been created which provided additional capacity in taking forward effectively the authority’s priorities. This included the implementation of the Learning and Teaching in Dundee (LTiD) and Improving Pupil Attainment and Achievement (IPAA) strategies.'

and

'Overall, the outcomes of HMIE follow-through inspections were positive. Schools, centres and community learning services had made sufficient progress to allow HMIE to disengage and make no further visits as a result of the original inspection.

The role of new education managers in overseeing the work of Quality Improvement Officers (QIOs) had made a positive contribution to improvements in schools and centres.'

Upsetting Dundee's Successful Structure for Raising Attainment

I think the £4.3 million cuts in the Education budget will result in putting at risk many of the gains which have been achieved in Dundee Schools. Dundee pupils, and their parents and carers deserve better.

Notes

HMIE

Follow-up to the Inspection of the Education Function of Local Authorities [PDF]
Published 09/03/2009

Public Consultation Exhibition in Dundee for Firth of Forth Offshore Windfarm

Seagreen Wind Energy Limited, a joint venture between Scottish & Southern Energy plc and Fluor Ltd is currently developing the Firth of Forth Zone, the largest wind farm development area off the Scottish coast. Their project team will be available to discuss the first phase of the development at the following event in Dundee:

Tuesday 25 January 12 noon - 8pm Discovery Point Dundee

This is part of Seagreen's community engagement which, along with consultation with statutory and non-statutory stakeholders, will help to inform the project design and allow for the identification of suitable mitigation measures. If you are unable to attend the public consultation exhibition, the materials will be available to download from their website after the event.

The Effect of Reduced Teacher Numbers on Children's Education in Dundee

I am very concerned about the negative effect on children's education of the £4.3 million cuts in Education that the SNP are introducing in their budget for Dundee Schools for April 2011 - March 2012.

By requesting this item is placed on the agenda of the Education Committee on Monday, I have provided the only opportunity for the Education Committee to consider the impact of these changes before they are considered at the Budget meeting of the Policy & Resources Committee in February.

I think the most likely effect of their package of cuts will be a end to the improving exam results in Dundee Schools, maybe some slipping back in performance. This is to be regretted , especially at a time when exam grades will be so important for school leavers as they compete for places at college and university or for their first job.

I hope the Education Committee, will send the Education Convener to think again.

Teacher Reductions in Dundee Primary Schools

SNP claims that their £4 million plus package of education cuts in Dundee will only affect back office functions and will not affect teaching and learning are inaccurate and misleading.

Coming to many Primary School in the City will be a reductions in the number of Depute Head Teachers and a general increase in the teaching duties of any remaining Depute Head Teachers. When these deputes do more classroom teaching they will replace other teachers currently in their schools. They will not be an additional teacher in their schools. Overall the number of teachers in most primary school will fall.

Not only that but as a consequence there will be less time for the remaining Deputes to undertake classroom monitoring and other work on enhancing teaching and learning in their their schools. This is a recipe for undermining recent improvements in attainment and achievement in schools in the city. It will also mean that the overall pupil teacher ratio in Dundee Primary Schools will get worse. This is another example of SNP broken promises on Education.

I have requested that reductions on teacher numbers in our schools will be placed on the agenda of the next Education Committee so that it is no longer a matter hidden behind the shroud of secrecy of the Changing for Future Board. I think that parents and carers in Dundee have a right to know what is really happening in our schools.