It’s in three parts, the first is an overview, the 2nd(Bucksburn) and 3rd(Newhills) concentrate on the individual sites(yes, only 2 sites were considered, yes I know we weren’t involved despite promises that we would be…*rolls eyes*).

Part 1 (.doc[4.1MB] | .pdf[549kB])
Part 2 (.doc[11.5MB])
Part 3 (.doc[10.1MB])

There are no pdf versions of 2 & 3 because they become insanely huge(over 60MB each)

Because these are fairly large documents I’ve converted them to html and put them on this site so you can read them online, direct access at

http://bucksburn.info/FR

but please note some formatting is lost in the automatic conversion.

Happy reading, comments below!

All parents should note that it is no longer acceptable to park in the Police Office car park because of inconsiderate drivers. The Police offered the use of their car park during drop off and uplift times over the last couple of years to alleviate congestion on Howes Road and reduce the danger to our children. Incidents by parents have caused this kind offer to be retracted, to the shame of the people involved. Please do not use the Police car park even if there is no more room on Howes Road. Find somewhere else to park.

In a similar vain and in order to ensure the continuing safety of the children forced to cross at Howes Road drivers should note that the Police will be enforcing the double-yellow lines with tickets given out for dangerous parking. Any parking on the double yellows in this area will be considered dangerous parking as there have already been incidents of collisions between car and child, so be warned! Thankfully so far this term there seems to be less congestion on the Howes Road so this should not be a problem.

It was also raised that there may be an unawareness of the upcoming September long weekend so the dates for your diary for that are the Friday/Monday of 25th and 28th of September. The parent council try to publish any dates of note in our Diary page, including the term times and holidays for 2010-2015, exclusive of in-service days I believe.

If Aberdeen City Council have their way it’s all going to change. Gone will be the green fields and country feel of the school setting as we will be shuffled off to a site up at Newhills. We continue to campaign to save the school in it’s current state so that future generations can be given the best possible rounded education available in Aberdeen and not pushed into larger classes in the middle of a housing scheme to make ACC’s figures add up.

I’m pleased to report mother and baby are doing well!

Our school has been placed in the firing line yet again with the announcement that PSA hours are to be cut. Another cut that will affect those who rely on it most. The information I received the other day verbally was something like 50% of our PSA hours will be lost. This will result in more work for teachers who will have to make up for the cut. That of course means that they will be teaching less!

There is massive condemnation of this by EVERY ACC school in Aberdeen, some of which I’ll publish here…

Comments or Questions are welcome below.

What other schools are saying…

Dear All,

At our Parent Council meeting last night the planned reduction in PSAs was discussed at length. We will lose 250 hours of PSA support a week. You may know that Cults Primary School has a special needs unit and at present we have 26 full-time equivalent PSAs and this will be reduced to 16 in August. This reduction probably contravenes the Education (additional support for learning) Act 2004. We are going to lobby the council and MSPs but before we do so, please could I test the water and see if other PCs are considering similar actions? There is probably greater strength in numbers.

I would be grateful if you could get back to me if you are interested in taking further action.

Many thanks and best wishes
Steve Turner – Cults Primary School PC

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the message. At Stoneywood the PSA reduction is from 157 hours to 67 hours (57%). It will have a devastating effect on school life. We fully support any action that you may take and we are also planning our own lobbying efforts.

Best regards
Bill Harrison – Stoneywood PC

Hi Steve,

At a meeting last week I raised this subject with Rhona Jarvis. Rhona assured us that if any school feels that, using the prescribed national formulae, (see below) they have been wrongly assessed, then an appeal can be lodged directly by the Head Teacher, to the Council.

Kind regards
Tony Rafferty – Airyhall PC

Here is the formula and the table showing Bucksburn and Newhills’ allocations.

Thanks Tony. Is it a coincidence that this national formula is being applied now or are budgetary pressures the sole driving force?

My sense is that a one-size-fits-all policy is being applied with more weighting on school roll and deprivation and relatively little weighting on individual needs. The fact that a child in group D is only eligible for 0.66 PSA is a surprise.

I appreciate that Rhona is obliged to implement these cuts and she has to do as she is told from above but this seems drastic and not in the best interest of children with and without special educational needs.

Best wishes

Steve

Hi Steve,

This was part of budget cutbacks, first put to the committee for Policy and Strategy (Education) on 2nd December 2008

I agree with your rational totally, but the first step I guess is to measure it against the (very sad) formulae first and if that’s correct then action does need to be taken for the formulae to be revisited on a national level.

The following is the situation at Airyhall (Just received)

“Yes! We are going from 208 hours to 120 hours and, depending on our new structure, we will probably lose at least 3 PSAs and keep 6 on reduced hours – this is still being discussed but the allocation of 120 hours is set.

The formula was done on catchment area and numbers of children so schools in areas such as ours are badly hit. Numbers of children with Additional Support Needs in the school did not figure in the calculation.”

It is worth noting that the Aberdeen Parent Council Liaison Group will be hosting a meeting for all PCS in Aberdeen, at the beginning of March. Details will be out in a day or so. An ideal opportunity for us all to meet.

Kind regards

Tony.

We held our Parent Council meeting last night at Kincorth Academy and
were advised that our PSA’s will be reduced from 14 to 9. Effectively
from 408 to 245 hours per weeks which is approx 40%. As yourselves, we
will also be lobbying against this proposal and essentially questioning
the criteria set around the calculation for the reduction.

We’re happy to support a group effort.
Lois Duncan – Kincorth Academy

Many thanks Lois. We are going to contact MSPs on this issue since the local council is stuck between a rock and a hard place. We hope to set up an on-line petition.

I will be in touch

Best wishes

Steve

Many things can happen during the timescale.

However I believe both councils should turn attention to a more pressing matter That will directly effect the education of children.

The reduction of Psa Staff, both schools have been given the number of hours allocated for Psa per school.

Dependant on current number of staff and new hours allocated this will determine the staff reduction.

This action puts tremendous pressure on teaching staff to carry out their vocation in the professional way they trained for.

Some say this cut contravenes the contractual aspect of teaching.

I would say it infringes on the human rights of every child affected irrespective of ability to have the chance of an education.

Therefore as a Parent I ask Newhills Pc to look into this matter urgently and inform the Parent body of the risk and current status to newhills pupils and staff.

And I trust Bucksburn PC will follow suit.

Regards
Steve McCall – Newhills

Aberdeen City Council yesterday rejected our request to keep our school open. They decided to close both Newhills and Bucksburn schools. They are going to then place both school rolls into a building, not yet built, to continue their education.

There is no timescale set for this and no site has yet been chosen for this building.

Angela and Sarah (+1) will be (hopefully) going in front of the full council to present/appeal/plead/beg on our behalf.

There is no more we can do after this so it’s imperative that if you can possibly venture out in the (hopefully dry by Monday) weather please do.

We need to make absolutely sure we have a coherent argument for them to take us seriously. It’s the last gasp effort. Really.

Aberdeen City Council meet on 11th February at the Town Hall to make their final vote on the proposition as set out by the Culture and Learning, Neighbourhood Services (North) department of the council.

Public attendance at this meeting is offered if you turn up before 2PM. We are in the process of seeing if we can get a group of parents together to make a more formal representation to the council at this time before they vote. This really is the final opportunity to show the councillors that they need to disregard the case as produced and recommended by Culture & Learning, something that they are unlikely to do even with this representation.

Newhills PC have drawn up a petition which I encourage all parents to sign and I will endeavour to make this available to all parents ASAP. I would encourage parents at Bucksburn to communicate with Newhills at this time, we are both working very hard at achieving a common goal. Both schools serve their communities in the way required by those communities, neither favour the merger and the amalgamation will be the death knell of that special something which cannot be measured that I know Bucksburn, and am sure Newhills, has.

So this is it folks. Can we show the council that they need to listen to the huge public opinion on this matter and do what they were voted in to do – represent their constituents? OR, do we just let THEM tell US what’s going to happen instead?

It’s your school, YOU DECIDE!

Feel free to discuss in this forum thread.

If you still have one please return it to the school or dispose ASAP!

• This page on ACC’s Website
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• Right Here!

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