King’s Meadow Primary School

Once again we were fortunate to have Provost Richardson attend this part of the meeting. The discussion was focussed around the You pay, you say consultation document from the council. The council propose to cut Education’s share of the budget by 1.5% over the next three years. This is on top of the efficiency savings that schools are currently implementing (6.5 % spread over 3 years).

King’s Meadow currently spends 95% of its budget on staff, so it seems impossible to see how these cuts can be met. Bear in mind that three out of the four year groups have maximum or near maximum class sizes. We are one depute teacher down, putting significantly extra work on Mr McGillivray and Mr Smith. In the last four out of five years the average class size has gone up, whilst the resource available per pupil has gone down.

Where could the savings come from?

Support for learning - by reducing the provision so that only the children most in need receive any kind of help? It is an acknowledged fact that though that 20% of children will require some additional support for learning help at some time in the school career.

Educational supplies budget - could this be scrapped, with no new books, jotters, pencils etc? This is only sustainable for a year at the most.

Heating - is not cheap and costs are most likely to go up. Do we send our kids to school in thicker jumpers?

Non filling of staff vacancies as they arise - this has already happening with the non-replacement of depute Mrs Martin, however, it could also extend to a reduction of school admin/clerical staff and and auxiliaries.

Contradiction?

These cuts will affect the life chances of all our children, and it seems inevitable that they will have greatest impact on the most vulnerable pupils. It is ironic that, in just June of this year, East Lothian Council made these specific commitments for our children:

• We are better educated, more skilled and more successful
• Our children have the best start in life and are ready to succeed
• We have improved the life chances for children

Single Outcome Agreement

It is hard to see how continual cuts to the budget help King’s Meadow to fulfil any of these promises.

Action

At our meeting and as part of the You pay, you say consultation Provost Richardson asked for feedback on which services we value and where we felt cuts could be made. The parent council will be putting together a response that we will circulate to parents. If you agree with our response we ask that you sign it and return it to East Lothian Council. If you wish you can also add your comment directly to the council via the You Pay, You Say web site. The more support we can get from parents the more weight we have as parent forum to get our concerns taken seriously. We aim to get a letter to you via pupil mail for the end of the month.

From King’s Meadow parent council meeting – Wed 19th Nov 08

The parent council now has its own email address: parentcouncil@kingsmeadow.elcschool.org.uk
If you have any queries, or wish to have an item raised at a meeting then you can contact us using this address.

The new school website is gradually taking shape, and a growing number of parents are requesting email alerts for King’s Meadow postings. There are plans to have pages for each year group, with the opportunity for pupils to upload and share their work.

From King’s Meadow parent council meeting – Wed 19th Nov 08

The response from these new-style meetings has been positive. Parents have welcomed the flexibility of dates, and both teachers and parents have appreciated the extra time available for each meeting. Staff do recognise that there have been problems in managing the bulge of requests for some teachers on particular nights. There will be an review of how everything has gone at the end of the session, but with a view to maintain the more flexible format.

From King’s Meadow parent council meeting – Wed 19th Nov 08

Here’s the agenda for our next parent council meeting on Wednesday.
agenda 19th Nov 2008

Our next meeting will be Wednesday 19th November. If you would like any issues raised please speak to any parent council member.

Who we are

East Lothian Council have just issued a public consultation document, You Pay, You Say, describing education cuts for the next three years. Unfortunately this is not the current round of cuts, (sometimes referred to as efficiency savings) but new and further cuts. The council is now proposing to progressively reduce Education’s share of the county budget, year on year from 41.3% to 39.8%. Taking inflation into account, these cuts are real.

This will obviously have a major impact on our school. As a parent council we are concerned as to the effect yet more cut backs will have on our children.

The consultation closes on 19th December. We would really encourage everyone to look at the document and make your views known. This can be done directly to East Lothian Council, or through the King’s Meadow parent council blog (just add a comment to this post), or by speaking to a parent council member. Your support is invaluable - as a parent council we have far more impact if we can show we have the weight of opinion on our side.

http://edubuzz.org/blogs/haveyoursay