Partners in learning
Council
New Members
21/01/2010 20:40
We are delighted to welcome three new members to the Parent Council.
Kate Gooding has joined the council and Sarah Barlow and Vikki Spence have joined as community members from Fort Primary.
The support and expertise of Sarah and Vikki will be very valuable in the next few months leading up to the transfer of the children from Fort to Trinity
Kate Gooding has joined the council and Sarah Barlow and Vikki Spence have joined as community members from Fort Primary.
The support and expertise of Sarah and Vikki will be very valuable in the next few months leading up to the transfer of the children from Fort to Trinity
Fort Closure
26/12/2009 20:57
The City of Edinburgh Council has voted to close Fort Primary School and offer all the Fort children a place at Trinity Primary School. Trinity’s Parent Council is very disappointed at the Council’s decision to merge Fort and Trinity. We strongly believe it is the wrong decision for all our children and was not taken in their best interests. It is very disappointing that all our Administration Councillors (Steve Cardownie, Elaine Morris, Marjorie Thomas and Rob Munn) chose not to vote in accordance with their constituents’ wishes but for their own political convenience. We are sure that parents will remember this.
However, this is not the time to go over the arguments again.
What this campaign has shown is what a strong parent body we have. You have helped to run an excellent campaign and we have worked hard to ensure that Trinity’s case was as objective as possible and backed by strong, independent research rather than misleading statistics, omissions and spurious comparisons. The letters and emails which you and Fort parents have written to the Council and local Councillors challenged the Council’s position and forced the politicians to take our concerns seriously. Many of you attended the public meeting at Trinity and witnessed the weakness of the Council’s position and were articulate and passionate in defending our children’s educational needs. We came very close to succeeding.
There will be some difficult times ahead; however if we all work together as we did during this campaign, Trinity will continue to be a successful school for all our children. Trinity will welcome all the Fort children who choose to come here. The staff of both schools will work hard to ensure the merger takes place as smoothly as possible and the children receive the best possible education. The two Parent Councils have worked closely throughout this campaign and will continue to work together to support the integration.
Thank you for your continuing support.
However, this is not the time to go over the arguments again.
What this campaign has shown is what a strong parent body we have. You have helped to run an excellent campaign and we have worked hard to ensure that Trinity’s case was as objective as possible and backed by strong, independent research rather than misleading statistics, omissions and spurious comparisons. The letters and emails which you and Fort parents have written to the Council and local Councillors challenged the Council’s position and forced the politicians to take our concerns seriously. Many of you attended the public meeting at Trinity and witnessed the weakness of the Council’s position and were articulate and passionate in defending our children’s educational needs. We came very close to succeeding.
There will be some difficult times ahead; however if we all work together as we did during this campaign, Trinity will continue to be a successful school for all our children. Trinity will welcome all the Fort children who choose to come here. The staff of both schools will work hard to ensure the merger takes place as smoothly as possible and the children receive the best possible education. The two Parent Councils have worked closely throughout this campaign and will continue to work together to support the integration.
Thank you for your continuing support.
Proposed Fort Closure
14/06/2009 20:36
Like all parents, we were surprised to receive a letter last week about plans to close Fort Primary School and for all pupils to be offered a place at Trinity. Details of the proposal are available at the Council website.
This has not come as a complete surprise as it has previously been proposed that Fort and Trinity should merge and Fort has been under capacity for some time. The previous proposal for a merger was dismissed as without any merit and there is a long history of the council proposing school closures and mergers in this area.
The council’s proposal is that they want to remove surplus capacity from the school estate to provide best value for money by closing those schools where the current role is significantly under the notional capacity and making savings by the sale of the land. They acknowledge that the school population will start to grow again in the future but that there will be pockets where there are too many school places.
It’s important to highlight that this is not the case with the proposed Trinity/Fort merger. The council’s own report anticipates that the school population in this area will grow by as many as 150 places due to developments in the harbour area and it is proposed that Fort is re-opened to accommodate this growth. This means there will be no capital raised from sale of the land and probably costs involved to convert the building to a Children and Families area office in north Edinburgh as proposed.
What would be the impact on Trinity?
It is proposed that all the children currently at the Fort will be offered a place at Trinity. This means that Trinity’s roll would increase from around 337 at present to around 438 on current numbers. Trinity’s notional capacity, on the Council’s own figures, has been 415 for a large number of years. In the Council’s recent paper on the closure, this has jumped up to 456, providing a further 41 notional “spaces” at Trinity.
How has this been achieved?
This would lead to Increasing class sizes to their maximum in most or all year groups including even larger classes with team teaching. Using the council’s own figures from 2008, if this proposal goes ahead Trinity will become the most overcrowded school in Edinburgh.
The newsletter also highlights a number of other potential areas that would be affected in addition to the level of overcrowding.
What can you do?
You will receive a newsletter containing more detail about this proposal from the parent council this week. Please make other parents aware that this is coming out (we would love it if everyone read this blog and subscribed to the mailing list but this isn’t the case) and take the time to read it.
This has not come as a complete surprise as it has previously been proposed that Fort and Trinity should merge and Fort has been under capacity for some time. The previous proposal for a merger was dismissed as without any merit and there is a long history of the council proposing school closures and mergers in this area.
The council’s proposal is that they want to remove surplus capacity from the school estate to provide best value for money by closing those schools where the current role is significantly under the notional capacity and making savings by the sale of the land. They acknowledge that the school population will start to grow again in the future but that there will be pockets where there are too many school places.
It’s important to highlight that this is not the case with the proposed Trinity/Fort merger. The council’s own report anticipates that the school population in this area will grow by as many as 150 places due to developments in the harbour area and it is proposed that Fort is re-opened to accommodate this growth. This means there will be no capital raised from sale of the land and probably costs involved to convert the building to a Children and Families area office in north Edinburgh as proposed.
What would be the impact on Trinity?
It is proposed that all the children currently at the Fort will be offered a place at Trinity. This means that Trinity’s roll would increase from around 337 at present to around 438 on current numbers. Trinity’s notional capacity, on the Council’s own figures, has been 415 for a large number of years. In the Council’s recent paper on the closure, this has jumped up to 456, providing a further 41 notional “spaces” at Trinity.
How has this been achieved?
- The Council has, while carrying out a survey for energy performance, reassessed Trinity and, without advising the school or Parent Council, decided that it can now accommodate 15 classrooms, rather than the previous 14 rooms
- This may mean losing the science room, support for learning room and current library and IT suite or the possibility of children being taught in temporary accommodation such as Portakabins.
- How has this been achieved with no investment at the school when both Trinity's and Fort's roll have increased since 2008.
This would lead to Increasing class sizes to their maximum in most or all year groups including even larger classes with team teaching. Using the council’s own figures from 2008, if this proposal goes ahead Trinity will become the most overcrowded school in Edinburgh.
The newsletter also highlights a number of other potential areas that would be affected in addition to the level of overcrowding.
What can you do?
You will receive a newsletter containing more detail about this proposal from the parent council this week. Please make other parents aware that this is coming out (we would love it if everyone read this blog and subscribed to the mailing list but this isn’t the case) and take the time to read it.
- There is a survey included in the newsletter to get feedback on this proposal. Please complete this and send it back to the Parent Council ℅ the school office. It you oppose this proposal it’s really important that we hear back from you.
- Please email or write to the local councillors and MPs. Contact details are available on the downloads page.
- Contact the parent council to let us have your views. A big response from parents would itself be a good message to send to Edinburgh Council.
Welcome
09/02/2009 18:24
This is the first post in a blog that will allow the Parent Council to provide more regular updates on parent council activities within the school and education matters effecting our children’s education. More formal material such as minutes of meetings and records of agendas is available already but this blog is intended to provide a less formal records of what is happening within the parent council.
The blog is also available as an RSS feed which means there is no need to check the page for updates - if you wish you can use an RSS reader and automatically see updates to this page. Subscribing to an RSS feed is simple. You may subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the RSS icon at the side of this page. This link allows you to create a new subscription fed into software normally called a 'RSS Reader', 'Feed Reader' or 'Aggregator'. Usually an RSS reader is free software program running on a PC, such as RSSBandit (Windows), FeedDemon (Windows), NetNewsWire (Mac) and Thunderbird. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds on the Internet using Google Reader.
Please do provide us with feedback or queries on the website or on the blog content. We welcome any comments, suggestions or criticism you may have.
There always has to be a first blog post and this is it!
The blog is also available as an RSS feed which means there is no need to check the page for updates - if you wish you can use an RSS reader and automatically see updates to this page. Subscribing to an RSS feed is simple. You may subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the RSS icon at the side of this page. This link allows you to create a new subscription fed into software normally called a 'RSS Reader', 'Feed Reader' or 'Aggregator'. Usually an RSS reader is free software program running on a PC, such as RSSBandit (Windows), FeedDemon (Windows), NetNewsWire (Mac) and Thunderbird. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds on the Internet using Google Reader.
Please do provide us with feedback or queries on the website or on the blog content. We welcome any comments, suggestions or criticism you may have.
There always has to be a first blog post and this is it!
Steve Hodgson