Law Nursery School Consultation - Letter to Education Convener

Copy of my letter to Councillor Fordyce, Education Convener, (email dated 13 March 2011) calling for an early date for the consultation about the Law Nursery School:

Dear Liz,

In the Council's press release, 'Law Nursery Informal Consultation', issued on Monday afternoon 28 February, prior to the Education Committee the same evening, you were quoted as follows:

Education convener Cllr Liz Fordyce said

"I asked that this report was withdrawn to allow more time so that we can consult informally with parents and carers of children attending Law Nursery.This will be an extra consultation exercise that will help to inform any report that goes back to committee recommending formal consultation on a relocation proposal."

Please can you advise on the timescale for and form of this consultation? I hope that as Education Spokesperson for the major opposition group on the Council, I should be invited to attend any consultation event along with the local Councillors.

Although you also said that,

"This means that any move (for Law Nursery School) for August this year is no longer an option."

I think you will be aware that this still means there is uncertainty beyond school year 2011/12. Many children spend two years in nursery education prior to transferring to primary school. It follows that parents and carers making choices about their three year old children entering Law Nursery School this year can have little confidence that it will still be operating on its current site from August 2012. This continuing uncertainty is corrosive and risks undermining what, according to the School Inspectors is an outstanding Nursery School. Accordingly, I urge you therefore to organise your consultation event before the Easter holidays so that your proposal can then be scrutinised by the Education Committee at the April meeting.

I hope that in any further contact with parents or press statements, neither you, nor any member of the SNP group, will raise any more misleading claims that there are health and safety issues at Law Nursery School. I have now read the Electrical Services Condition Survey Report on the School dated October 2009. Comments such as under Kitchen Installations "Very small kitchen" (which is only a servery for meals that are supplied from the School Meals service) does not suggest to me that a complete refurbishment of the kitchen area is justified or necessary. Of course I am only a lay person with no qualifications in health and safety. But I assume that since the Education Department have had this report for over sixteen months, were there any significant health and safety hazards, you would have taken immediate steps to protect our children and staff. I am sure you need no reminding of our responsibility as corporate parents for the children of Dundee and of course our responsibility as an authority for health and safety and environmental health.

I remain of the opinion that you and the Education Directorate have not advanced a convincing educational case for uprooting and undermining a successful Nursery School nor that there are significant real savings to be found in so doing.

Finally, I have copied this email to the press.

Withdrawal of Law Nursery School Proposal from Education Committee Agenda

Confusion and exasperation were evident at the Education Committee last night. when the Committee were due to consider 'Item 3 Proposed Relocation of Law Nursery into Rosebank Primary School'.

The Education Convener, Councillor Liz Fordyce, curtly announced that the item had been withdrawn and immediately moved onto the next item on the agenda. She offered no word of explanation and declined to make any statement. Despite requests to the contrary from opposition councillors, the convener insisted on moving the meeting on and ruled out of order any intervention to bring the meeting back to this item.

This was a humiliating climb down by the SNP administration. But it was also an insult to the many parents and carers who have arrived to have their say in deputations to the Education Committee. Through her action, Convener Fordyce denied the democratic opportunity of these parents to address the Education Committee directly about their concerns about her flawed proposal to downgrade and move their nursery school to the Hilltown.

I think parents connected to Law Nursery and the valued nursery staff deserve an early statement from the SNP led Administration if not their Education Convener to clarify what happens next.

Any prolonged delay will lead to uncertainty. Whether the Law Nursery School will be on its current site in Lawside Road or downgraded to a nursery class and relocated over a mile away at Rosebank Primary School in August is of real importance to parents and ultimately the pre-school education of their children.

So Councillor Fordyce should officially make it clear that she has withdrawn her misguided plans for Law Nursery, not just withdrawn this item from the agenda of a meeting. She needs to make it clear that this is not just a pause while she and her SNP colleagues work out how to outwit parental opposition and get their way.

But the Education Convener should be clear, the weight of public opinion councillors have encountered in support of Law Nursery School as it stands has been considerable. I don't think these parents will be put off by Liz Fordyce's political manoeuvring if she was only playing for time last night.