Bid for shorter school week on verge of being dumped
Council’s officials oppose move
Published:
ABERDEEN parents were today celebrating after controversial proposals to shift to a four-and-a-half day school week moved a step closer to being dumped by councillors.
The move came as the closures of two more Aberdeen schools have been recommended.
Councillors have been asked to press ahead with plans to shut Bucksburn and Newhills primary schools following a public consultation.
Councillors voted in September to consult on a plan to merge the two primaries into one new school, and officials have advised members to give the amalgamation the go-ahead next week.
A petition with 336 names opposed plans to build the school on the Newhills site.
The location of the new school will be decided after a feasibility study of the two school sites, if councillors approve the merger at next week’s education committee meeting.
Plans to change catchment areas for the schools in Bucksburn, as well as moves to rezone New Grandholm Village, are likely to be shelved at the meeting to allow for a major review of all catchment areas in the city later this year.
Aberdeen education bosses had also raised the four-and-a-half day week proposals.
As revealed in later editions of yesterday’s Evening Express, council officials have recommended that any further work on the plans is cut short after mass objections were revealed in a city-wide consultation.
and only 20% of those who responded backed the proposals.
The rejection was in line with the independent Evening Express poll which revealed 76.4% of readers were against the move.
Parents had hit out at the plans.
St Machar primary mum Lesley Thomson, mother to Evan, 9, and 15-year-old Teila, said: “It is fantastic news.
“I thought the plans were ridiculous.
“The job I am in would allow a Friday off but I was worried that if I changed job, another employer could discriminate against people with children who had to have a half-day off.
“If the plans are scrapped, it will save a lot of people being stressed about their jobs.”
Many teachers were also against the plans.
Grant Bruce, from teaching union the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS), said: “From the first mention of the plans, the response was that schools were not interested.”
And he is pleased the council is recommended to abandon the scheme.
“At the education committee in June we tried to say that schools were not for this and there was to great desire for it,” he said.
“The results show that we were quite justified with what we said.”
Council bosses had previously estimated savings of £440,000 would be made by cutting the school week.
This was to be achieved by teachers carrying out development work on the half-day afternoon.
But a report before councillors, to be considered at next Wednesday’s meeting, said the forecast saving would “not be achievable in full”.
Mr Bruce said the budget for this development work had been cut to a total of £160,00 so the £440,000 estimate had been “completely inflated”.
The report said: “As a result of the consultation process and in light of the views expressed, no further work on the proposal to reconfigure the school week is to be undertaken.”
Council education spokeswoman Kirsty West said: “The officers have taken account of the responses in the consultation and I am sure councillors will do so too.”
