Council / Parents ‘disgusted’ by plans to use Aith school cupboards for ASN pupils
Lack of consultation and changing facility move also strongly criticised
STORAGE cupboards could be turned into rooms for children with additional support needs (ASN) at Aith Junior High School in plans that have been slammed by parents.
Emily Jamieson says she feels like Shetland Islands Council (SIC) is trying to force her son Hunter out of the school so he can be cared for at home instead.
It comes amid fury from Aith parents this week about the SIC’s plans for a £1.3 million “enhanced provision” hub in the West Mainland.
The move would see a quiet area, time out and sensory rooms mixed into the middle of the Aith Junior High School, next to secondary classrooms.
The SIC had heralded the proposal as allowing people with the most complex needs “to meet their full potential” last December.
But Jamieson and fellow Aith parent Duncan Fraser spoke out this week to heavily criticise the final plans, with Jamieson calling them “devastating”.
Among the criticisms of the plans are:
- No consultation between the SIC and parents
- Plans to move some ASN children into windowless rooms “barely 1.5 metres wide”
- Changing facilities being located at the end of a social area for secondary pupils
- Work potentially starting on the changes this summer
Jamieson said she was “disgusted, but not surprised” when she saw the council’s proposal – and said there had been no consultation with parents or service users before they were unveiled.
Fraser called what has been put forward a “poorly conceived, deeply flawed proposal – approved without scrutiny and destined, if not stopped, to do much more harm than good”.
“We have been fed a proposal that has been created behind closed doors,” Jamieson told Shetland News.
“When we heard news that the councillors had voted for ASN provision equal to Lerwick, and that they were going to spend £1.3m on it, we just thought incredible – that sounds great.
“But we were also very dubious given the council’s past record on this.
“When we saw the plans we were disgusted, but not surprised. Nobody expected them to repurpose the cupboards, they’re literally storage cupboards.
“We couldn’t believe they were trying to fit this into the footprint of the existing school, which is already bursting at the seams.”
Jamieson and fellow parents Lella Catlin and Cheryl Manson are calling for the SIC to scrap the current plans and to go back to the drawing board.
She said the SIC has been “disconnected” from discussions, and claimed it had ignored all of Aith Junior High School parent council’s requests for a meeting.
“They’re not interested in sharing anything with the community that are actually receiving the changes,” she said.
SIC children’s services director Sam Flaws said in response this week that a meeting with representatives from the Aith parent council was “in the pipeline”.
Hunter will be one of the children using the new ASN facilities, and Jamieson has raised serious concerns about the changes being proposed.
A “learning plaza” and social area are set to be created at the front door, which will link the school together and lead pupils to both the main ASN areas and secondary classes.
But the changing facilities for ASN pupils is located away from the main ASN area – and Jamieson is worried children like Hunter will have to be “herded” through groups of children to get to these.
“Those spaces are chock-a-block just now,” she said.
“[The changes] will distress children, it will exacerbate their behaviour and then that behaviour will be classed as challenging for staff.
“This inclusion policy is going to create exclusion.”
She believes she has spent “hundreds of hours’ worth of meetings and phone calls” to the SIC over the last eight years about Hunter’s care.
Now she believes that it would be easier for the SIC if he was not at school.
“I don’t think the council want him,” she told Shetland News.
“I think they want to push me to a point where I keep him at home and home school him.
“But I can’t, because when Hunter is at school it’s the only respite I get in my care.
“It makes me mad but it also leaves me very upset. It’s devastating.
“We have been pushed to this point. I’m not sure how much of my son’s life I want to share, or how much of my vulnerability I want to share, but we’re now at a point where that is the only thing that we can do.”
The first phase of the changes are expected to start this summer, Jamieson said, which leaves parents little time to stop the work.
She said the SIC “know what a proper inclusive hub looks like” – because “they built one at the AHS [Anderson High School]”.
Catlin has been trying to get a placement for her 12-year-old son in Lerwick, because she did not want to send him to Aith over concerns for his safety at the school.
But Jamieson said Hayfield House “haven’t supported it in any way possible” and assured her Aith is safe for her son.
She added the SIC had told Catlin that transferring her son to Lerwick would mean “putting one more car on the road” at a time when the council is trying to encourage less people to drive.
Fraser was similarly heavily critical of the plans on social media this week, calling them “completely nonsensical”.
“Several proposed ASN rooms are, quite literally, converted broom cupboards, windowless boxes – raising obvious questions about functionality, dignity, and basic suitability,” he said.
“No thought has been put into things such as toilet facilities, with some ASN rooms the entire length of the school from the school’s accessible changing room.
“The idea that a history classroom can be sacrificed, or that storage rooms can be converted into ASN spaces, is not a plan – it’s desperate.
“This proposal has been developed with not an ounce of community engagement.”
He accused senior council officials of “actively avoiding questions and scrutiny”.
SIC education director Flaws told Shetland News that the council was “committed to ensuring the needs of all our children and young people are met, as far as possible, within their local communities”.
“Our aspiration, through our learning estates strategy, is for there to be at least one enhanced provision facility within each school cluster area across Shetland,” she added.
“The improvements to identified schools, in line with our agreed accessibility design brief, will ensure that there are high quality, fully accessible facilities, to meet varying needs of children and young people now and in to the future.
“This improves our ability to meet a wider range of needs within local areas.”
She said some of the Aith works included in a business justification case approved by councillors in December were accessible walkways, paths and ramps, outdoor furniture, play equipment and a dedicated ASN base.
The SIC said also planned are “dedicated spaces for all needs including sensory space, physio/movement space, breakout space, time out facilities and life skills area”.
Flaws said they would also make “spaces appropriate listening environments with acoustic panels and pods”, and “dedicated space for all needs”.
“These plans ensure that the best use is made of the existing space at Aith Junior High School which will be of benefit pupils.
“It makes sense to repurpose the existing spaces to best effect, rather than build an extension, which does not preclude the improvements required across the remaining school as detailed above.”
She said there were no plans to use the vacant Skeld Primary School as a West Mainland ASN hub instead.
“It is mothballed and it may reopen again in the future, so it does not form part of our planning in these discussions,” Flaws added.
Shetland West councillor Liz Peterson said it was clear from the council’s plans that they do not meet the additional support needs of the pupils concerned.
“The plan indicates that current cupboards, (some without windows or access to fresh air) will be used as spaces to teach bairns with additional support needs,” she said.
“This is not acceptable by anyone’s standards, and is certainly not the best thing for the bairns.
“With a view to finding an acceptable, alternative solution for the families involved, I have emailed the chair of the education and families committee, to see if this project can be paused, until proper discussion with parents can take place, and all their concerns have been addressed.”
Education and families committee chairman Davie Sandison told Shetland News he would be meeting with Flaws on Thursday.
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