News / Radical school closure plans
RADICAL plans to close all but one of Shetland’s junior high schools over the next four years along with five primary schools will be discussed next week by the islands’ councillors.
Shetland Islands Council has been asked to save £6 million from its education budget over the next two years as part of a £30 million savings target to balance the books of Scotland’s only debt free local authority. In February the previous council agreed that half of those savings should come from redesigning the islands’ school estate.
This will be the fifth attempt in the past 12 years to close some of the smallest primary schools in Shetland, including Sandness, Olnafirth, Burravoe, Urafirth, North Roe.
The tiny Skerries secondary department, Scotland’s smallest with just three pupils, is fighting its fifth battle to stay open. Last year it escaped the axe after an economic analysis showed it would cost the council more to close the school than to keep it open.
However this time round councillors are being asked to consider getting rid of the junior highs in Aith, Baltasound, Whalsay and Sandwick, thus centralising secondary education at the brand new junior high on the isle of Yell, at Brae and in Lerwick.
The proposal (available here), which is to be debated at Wednesday’s education and families committee meeting, proposes a phased programme of school closures starting with a consultation next year on closing Aith, Skerries and Olnafirth next year with a view to close in August 2014.
Consultation on closing Baltasound, Burravoe, North Roe and Urafirth would take place in 2014, for closure the following August.
Finally Sandwick, Whalsay and Sandness would consulted in 2015 to close in August 2016, with the two junior highs’ fate depending on plans to build a new secondary in Lerwick being complete.
Children’s services director Helen Budge said the outline proposals had been presented to councillors on Monday, to head teachers and staff on Tuesday and to parent councils on Wednesday. They are to be published on the SIC website on Thursday.
Budge said that closing this number of schools was the only way her department could achieve the kind of savings the council is looking for without impacting on the quality of education in the isles.
“What this plan offers is the best chance of protecting the educational benefits that our children have in the schools in Shetland in the future,” she said.
“If we retain the number of establishments that we have, we couldn’t continue to provide the resources and staffing or be able to offer the best opportunities and experience for Curriculum for Excellence.”
She also warned that there was another £3 million to be saved over the next two years in the education budget, that would be looking at staffing levels in primary schools and nurseries.
Skerries parent Denise Anderson said she had just heard of the plans, but was not surprised the island’s secondary where she has two children was on the hit list once again.
“It just feels like it has become part of life. I think this is the fifth time we have faced this, but I’m losing count. We will be making the same comments as before and keep fighting,” she said.
Families and education committee chair Vaila Wishart is new to the council, but in her election manifesto she supported the closure of junior high schools. Scalloway junior high school, which was closed last year after considerable protest, is in her ward.
However she said she would resist closing the other primaries in her ward, saying that “small primaries provide a good start for children”.
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