Falkirk’s Education Funding Proposals 30m to be cut over 5 years

[cazzyg]

Anyone else in the Falkirk Council area here. This seems crazy when education is already cut to the bone here.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.tes.com/news/heads-told-drive-search-huge-savings%3famp

Particularly cynical is the way it’s being passed to headteachers. Who would want to be a head here when they get to be the bad guys making people redundant and cutting back services.

Our school is having their meeting this week. We are a small village school and feel completely exposed to be honest. I agree with a PP that the timing of this is more than a little suspect given the teachers' pay issue. In terms of cuts, I can't see where the HT can make any. We already have very little additional clubs or activities, we are part of a 'learning community' with another rural school and so already share school trips etc. It's worrying.

I’m not sure what the underlying politics are here. Seating between trying to make sure there’s no sympathy for teachers trying to get a decent pay rise, trying to get more money out of the government or something else.

The council now seem to be saying the headteachers got it wrong and are blaming the director of education as the council leader has had to backtrack and issue a statement that no individuals will lose their jobs. That will leave the HTs with very little scope to find savings within their school as do much of their budgets are staff costs.

It’s a shambles really.

@hohosnow DD goes to one of the largest primary schools in the area so her school is safe and the HT does very well using the school’s staff and parents to provide clubs including art and sports. Even so swimming was stopped a while back and there isn’t sufficient grit/salt to cover more than one main route into school.

Closing/merging small schools is on the table as an option. I’d be worried too in your position.

@cazzyg we have the bigger of the two intakes (and the bigger building), not sure if that makes us more or less vulnerable tbh. We have some external funding (unrelated to the council) that has paid for after school clubs, transportation to events etc so no savings to be made there either. We have had the same issue with the grit, our caretaker advised he had been told to ration the grit during that bad spell of cold weather earlier this year! It just seems like such a bleak picture, and the fact that the council are making such a farce of the whole situation doesn't inspire confidence in them to make the right decisions.

I don't undestand why the letter wasn't signed by Robert Nylor, then, as we NOW know it was he who sent it and NOT the individual HT.
It does look rather suspiciously as if he wanted to embarass the council and in so doing he pretty much used the general public creating this frenzy.
As far as I am concerned, this has been a very bad plan. He could have written a letter explaining what was going on, instead of writing something that pretty much asked the public to become some kind of lynch mob towards the council, which duly happened. Now the most likely outcome is that nothing will happen really and once the storm has passed the cuts will go ahead as planned.

I listened to the council meeting recording this morning. My understanding is that the only way that children’s services can achieve the level of savings is by cutting staff and breaking the teacher ratios.

Maybe not managed particularly well but it’s a fair point.

Cuts will either have to come from elsewhere or income needs to rise.

I actually think across Scotland, councils are going to have to start to work together to share services to deliver the level of savings that are expected now.

the only way that children’s services can achieve the level of savings is by cutting staff and breaking the teacher ratios.

Just a reminder for everyone that these are
1: 25 in P1 and in composite classes
1:30 in P2 (and maybe p3)
1: 33 above that.

I was under the impression that classes which are bigger than this are illegal, although apparently the council can allow them in 'exceptional' circumstances, which is perfectly woolly.

The problem from a teaching POV is that teaching 40 well behaved NT children is just manageable- but you have them in rows, you stand at the front and you teach and they get on with it.

This was the case when I started teaching but it isn't the case now- too many ASNs, behaviour, discipline and parental supporter is much poorer and HMIe and other educational bodies are promoting a completely different style of teaching.

I don't know where the cuts can possibly be made. Some people are suggesting that McCrone time (teachers are entitled to planning and preparation time) may be cut, and therefore no extra cover is needed. Cutting that would be extremely unpopular with teachers to say the least.

Will they try to reduce school hours again? This possibly is a more obvious saving in high school where they may be using part-time teachers or class cover and can reduce roles that way - obviously not great for anyone :( However, i'm not clued up enough to see how that would work in a primary scenario. Are are schools sticking to class sizes at the moment? I wouldn't have thought so so that is only going to get worse. Just as well education is the no1 priority.

This just baffles me. And by that I mean how they (our government) are getting away with this. The education system is failing. We can all see that. Standards are slipping, class sizes are increasing and yet the SNP are still parroting on about our wonderful education system. Schools in our area are literally falling down but there’s no money to pay for desperately-needed replacements. High school curriculums are shrinking because they can’t afford to run subjects with a low uptake in S3+. Primary schools are bursting at the seams and yet the house building continues - where are the pupils moving into these houses expected to go? To school, to the doctors, to the dentist? (And yes to the PP who said don’t get me started on the trains...!)

But we’re not allowed to question it because it’s the wonderful SNP and they’ll fix it. Only, we can’t do it til we’re independent. Naw. Bollocks to that. Start fixing it now please.

PiffPaff, actual headline quoted on tv news the other day was something like "The SNP say we should stop criticising them and start focusing on Westminster" Now, I am not the biggest (or any) fan of the SNP, but the role of the party in power is to run the country, no matter who is in power or what they do, they will face critisism, that's sort of how it's supposed to work. There would be something far wrong if everyone was happy with everything that the people in power do, it's the challenge and critisism that keeps everything in some sort of balance. I am also aware that there are areas where their hands are tied and they are within their rights to point that out to an extent. However it all seems to smack of "a big boy done it and ran away" and poor us we have no power to do anything and it's all about pointing the finger elsewhere.

I am not completely against independence, but we as a country have to accept that there is no running back to Mummy when things don't work out. We need to accept that the price of that might be hard times, lack of services or higher taxes but the potential benefits may outweigh that for people. A bit like Brexit I guess. I will however not vote SNP in their current guise. I have no party at the moment that adequately represent my own views though so it's a case the least worst option at the moment as far as I'm concerned, but I digress...

Totally agree Wax. And we’re the ones they should be convincing on the independence front, but instead they just point the finger everywhere but at them.

It’s an oft repeated opinion at the moment and I am no Tory or Theresa May fan but I do have a grudging admiration for the PM who currently seems to have made the decision that it is her job to grab the very shitty stick and do something with it, probably at the expense of her career, when she very easily could blame the big boy who literally did do it and run away - yes I’m looking at you Mr Cameron.

I just want someone up here to DO something rather than throw blame around. That’s not helping our young people.

SNP blame Westminster, Labour and Tories blame SNP. I just wish they’d all stop blaming each other and get in with fixing things without damaging the education system even more.

After the outcry over school hours a few years ago, the hours were protected as well as days. So this should no longer be an option. The savings in primary were going to come from McCrone cover - Teachers would get their McCrone time on a Friday afternoon

Yes, there is something very wrong happening and it's our DC that are at the shitty end of the stick. Mine are at the end of their school education now, one just left and the other in 6th year. We were just chatting the other day and my DS who we now think could be Dyspraxic was talking about primary school and how he was top group/top of the class all the way through primary and how he is now sitting with without enough to get into Uni after attending one of the top academic schools in the country. We've had to push for any support and beyond getting to type his exams, we've had none. Obviously he spends time at home as well as at school so I'm not absolving myself of failing to notice here, but my experience of these things is surely less than education professionals. Now we are stuck between a rock and hard place as at 17 he is really too old to be referred to CAHMs for assessment but he isn't deemed old enough for the adult service either. Educational support within schools has been cut and cut and obviously they need to prioritise their resource but we are failing a bit failed here. How does a child who had a reading age of 15 at age 10 and who won a regional maths competition in P7 end up struggling to get enough highers to get into Uni without any discipline issues or anything like that and in a school with low levels of LLD or disciplinary issues and no-one care or listen to (or act upon) concerns from parents about poor performance? It's only going to get worse. There are lots of dedicated staff (and like any other work place, some that under perform and go through the motions) but something is just not working for anyone.

So, a 4.5 day week then cazzy? and yes, everyone just passing the blame. I knew the hours thing had been stopped but I wasn't sure what had happened after that. We aren't in Falkirk although I have friends with DC in school in the council area.

What was proposed in Falkirk was cutting 2.5 hrs per week - Friday afternoon session. Obviously that would mean losing a fair chunk of time at school. Other areas have longer days to compensate, I went to school in West Lothian a very long time ago and we did have Wednesday afternoons off at secondary school for “sport”.

Falkirk’s making a real hash of it - DH and I are both educated to postgrad level therefore we can supplement a lot at home. The attainment gap that the government are allegedly so keen to close is only going to get worse, unless things slip across the board. I’m pretty sure closing the gap by having fewer achieve well is not the outcome that anyone is aiming for. At this rate though, seems the most likely!

That's precisely what's happening though I think cazzy. I'm sure there are many DC doing really well and some schools doing well for their cohort, but nationally I don't think the picture is very bright and I think closing the gap is really about pulling down those at the top.

Off topic but I went to school in West Lothian too and our Weds afternoons were for getting on the train to Falkirk, nipping to Woolies for sweets, being interrogated by the shop assistant about why we weren’t at school and going to the old cinema!

I suspect we might need to start looking at private for secondary.

It’s been the policy in this area for new build houses to be put into the catchment area for the schools that have the worst performance, with the aim of improving the school. All that’s happened is the parents all put placing requests in and hardly any children go to the catchment school.

I wish the politicians both locally and nationally get their fingers out and sort out this mess. I have very little faith though.

Yes, I know they have half day Friday in the Lothian schools but thought the other days were a bit longer to make up for that. In my days at school in Edinburgh we did a 39 period week (40 minute periods) so we finished one period early on a Wednesday. My DC do/did 32 periods of 50 minutes so broadly the same really.

I can't blame you for looking elsewhere, the private provision isn't that great either locally.

Yes other areas have longer days to compensate.

I wouldn’t look locally. DH works in Glasgow and I’m in Edinburgh so we would consider both cities.

That'll give you plenty of choice then. Maybe that's actually the plan? Get as many parents as possible to go private and that'll take more DC out of the schools and they can then combine classes/close schools etc much more easily. If you think how many DC there are in private schools in Edinburgh, can you imagine if places needed to be found at council schools for them all?

Ds' old school (Glasgow) had 2 long days (to 3.50) and 3 short days (to 3pm)

I think they were/are investigating dropping the 10 minutes Registration time but can't remember if that was so that they would close earlier on a Friday.

Ds' experience was good and the school appears to be well resourced and gets good results (above its "virtual comparator" )

Not sure how much of that is due to good senior management and/or the extra PEF funding it gets because of the high proportion of SIMD1&2 within its catchment. But the staff do generally seem motivated and caring and go the extra mile - so that must be due to a large part to the SMT and the ethos it encourages.