Education blueprint to be reviewed again

SHETLAND Islands Council has two months to re-examine all options for the future of education in the isles, after councillors backed away from making any decisions this week.

Consultants are to be hired in to study the full range of options for meeting the savings target of £3.27 million over the next three years.

On Wednesday councillors were to decide on taking fourth year pupils out of the junior high schools on Whalsay, Yell and Unst and how they would find the extra £1 million this would cost.

However an informal consultation over the summer received so many responses, education and families committee chairwoman Vaila Wishart proposed allowing more time for the suggestions to be explored. 

As a result education staff will examine: 

• the original proposal last September to close junior high schools in Aith, Sandwick, Symbister and Skerries, as well as primaries in Sandness, Olnafirth, Urafirth, North Roe and Burravoe;
• the “next steps” proposal to change Symbister, Mid Yell and Baltasound junior highs to three year secondaries; 
• the feasibility of distance learning through video conferencing, now known as “telepresence”; 
• a “hub and spoke” model with either one or two hubs in Lerwick and Brae; and
• the implications of keeping things as they are. 

Legal advice suggests that the suggestion of having English-style federated schools would not be allowed in Scotland.

The consultants will look at how the various models of secondary education can fit into the Curriculum for Excellence.

They will also compare the education service in Shetland with that provided by other Scottish local authorities, particularly Orkney and the Western Isles.

Children’s services director Helen Budge emphasised the timeline remains extremely tight for such a workload, but insisted consultants would be paid for out of the existing budget. The extra work is designed to leave “no stone unturned” in the quest for an affordable education system, she said.

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Work commences immediately on research, information gathering and drafting up the detail of the options to be ready by 1 October, with the various options being finalised by 6 October.

Informal consultation will take place on those options with parent councils, young people, teachers, teaching unions and at two public meetings between 7 and 11 October.

The report for councillors to debate will be finalised by 31 October ready for the education and families committee meeting on 13 November.

Meanwhile the statutory consultation into closing Olnafirth primary school and Skerries secondary school will come before the committee on 10 October.

Consultation on closing Bressay primary school, which has been reduced to just four pupils, will begin on 30 September.

Our live feed from Wednesday’s council meetings discussing education can be found here.