[ukag0972]

My wee village school is on the councils list for closure, Please can you help by joining the facebook page and signing our epetition. Your help would be much appreciated, if it closes then our children will have a 30 minute bus ride to school!

Save Clachan Primary School

www.clachan258.epetitions.net


Thank you xx
Lee

[ambriel]

Best of luck, Lee. We used to live in Carradale until a couple of years ago. Do you know Eleanor Sloan?

[Rosemary]

Soory, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg with the cuts now facing the public sector. I know it's hard for those directly affected and losing a rural school is a blow, but it may be less damaging overall than alternative cuts.

[doganjo]

We saved Old Rayne Primary a few years back by badgering the local Councillors and proving that with all the new housing in the area and the head count of children ready to come up to school age their percentages were rubbish.  Only problem is we were underestimating a local Architect's ideas for expanding the village and now the School is bursting at the seams.

[Rosemary]

I suspect that we're in a different ballpark now. Clackmanannshire should be closing a few schools but it's very hard for Councillors as there's always a lot of emotion around school rationalisation, and the SNP are signed up to oppose school closures no matter how daft it is to keep the school open.

I used to go to a national education forum (in a previous life) and Moray Council was forced to keep a rural school open that had two childern attending - and they were siblings. Apart from the genuine difficulty in providing a good educational experience for these kids, it cost a fortune to keep the school open. Sorry, as a council tax payer, schools aren't sacrosanct and sometimes closing schools is a lesser of two evils and sometimes positively beneficial, once the dust settles.

[Hardfeather]

Our school has been threatened with closure at least three times now, and each time we have fought and kept it open.

You need to carefully inspect all costings by the council, as they have a tendency to warp the truth.

There were several leading lights in our campaigns, all of whom have lots of experience. They have been to the Scottish Parliament and on the radio and tv over this. If you want to get in touch with any of them, PM me and I'll give you contact details.

Facebook may or may not help you in getting a petition together, but it's really down to those who are to be affected by the closure.

Personally, I didn't like the alternatives being proposed for the education of my two children. They are at a small rural school and the council proposals would have meant that they would have to travel several miles to a town school.

[northfifeduckling]

been there and although a few year ago now it still brings up hard feelings.
I don't think you have much chance and a lot depends on the number of children which live in the school's catchment area and go to the school in question, not including those children from another catchment who choose to go to the school. This does not work the other way round, if catchment pupils leave to choose another school they are counted as lost! The plan of the Scottish parliament is to close all schools under 50 pupils within the next 15 years or so but the process might be speeded up in light of recent and coming cuts.
I represented the parents going to the Council meeting when the decision was taken and it was an utter farce. There actually were Council members who had no idea where the school actually was they were supposed to decide on. The whole process was very upsetting for teachers, parents and pupils alike. The council's school mercinary actually had barged into the school and said to the head teacher "I will have you closed by Christmas" ! To counteract protests later he dangled the carrot of a new school which was supposed to be built to cover the catchment area of the 3 village schools in the area - which years on of course never materialized - surprise. One of the schools next in line merged with another under the same head teacher, only on of the 3 schools is still open and safe, as they have over 50 children in the catchment are, which now is much larger, of course. Trouble is that once the rumours are out parents will take their kids elsewhere which will make it even harder to keep a school safe...
you have all my sympathies and I wish you success in your fight!

[Rosemary]

What's a school mercinary spp.?

[northfifeduckling]

I forgot what his official job title was...employed to kill off small schools without too much collateral damage

[doganjo]

And everyone knows that you get a far better eduction at a small rural school.

We were told it was a stated aim to relocate pupils from as many of the old granite built schools in Aberdeenshire as they could so they could sell the buildings.  Our local press were very helpful too.

[Rosemary]

I forgot what his official job title was...employed to kill off small schools without too much collateral damage

Ah, that used to be part of my job in Clackmannanshire.

[Rosemary]

And everyone knows that you get a far better eduction at a small rural school.

Not so, I'm afraid. There is evidence to support both large schools and small schools in terms of educational outcomes. Parents tend to like small schools if they are used to them and they are often more convenient. So while there's a belief that they are necessarily better, but no definitive evidence to support that. Two of the best schools in Clackmannanshire had rolls of well in excess of 300, which was big in local terms but not national ones.

[bloomer]

not on the subject of small rural schools but on schools in general

over the next 5 years however much people scream and shout schools will be streamlined even in built up areas if schools have surplus capacity they will be encouraged (forced) to merge to get costs down, its not just the costs of staff etc but also of maintaining a lot of unnecessary premises.

for bigger schools federation will also be a necessary option to look at this will cut senior management posts and more importantly increase the buying power of the federated schools enabeling them to operate more efficiently on effectively reduced budgets.

i have spent a great deal of time looking into this and talking with professionals involved and no school is going to have easy decisions to make in the next 5 years there will need to be changes made to the way schools are structured to meet the current and future needs of everyone.

[northfifeduckling]

Rosemary, I'm sure you had better manners than the "gentleman" in Fife at the time - and you did not resort to telling lies like that to keep parents quiet. We all knew the Council would have not had any money whatsoever to build a new school "in exchange" for 3 village schools.

Experience here tells that most kids from our village school do very well at High School. And as a parent I can only say that it was the best start my kids could have had for their school life. They were known individually by the teachers, inside out, and were much better prepared for moving on and were on higher levels than most of their peers from the town's primary schools. Nothing to do with "being used to them", Rosemary! And forgive me for doubting the official line on "evidence" - I speak from indiviual experience and nobody asked my opinion on the benefits for my children. The school is many times the last thing that keeps a small community together, no shops, no post office, no pubs left. Only commuters. The village is a dead place now, but who cares...

[northfifeduckling]

forgot to say - we were always aware and grateful that our school was a luxury we could enjoy as long as possible- and that it all boils down to money...
keep fighting, Lee, you might hold them off for a year or 2