School Budget Consultation

Just under 90 parent/carers were able to join senior school staff on Monday at our extraordinary Parent Forum Meeting.  The focus of the meeting was on the impact of the Midlothian Council budget, set on 12/02/19, on the school.  Thanks to all who were able to attend.

Lindsey McGregor, Parent Council Co-Chair, welcomed the parents/carers.  Thereafter Mr Hornell outlined how the school is allocated teaching staff, the saving required for next session as well as the rationale and nine recommendations to achieve our expected savings.  In total the number of full time equivalent (fte) teachers the school has been allocated is reduced by almost 4 with an overall expected allocation of just under 108 fte teachers.   Mr Hornell outlined 9 recommendations to achieve this saving.

General questions for clarification were followed by parents/carers working in groups to give written feedback on the recommendations.  Senior staff were available for further explanation and clarification as required. One group commented,  ‘Thank you for being so transparent with regards implications of budget cuts.  And thank you for asking our opinions.’

Initial analysis of the feedback gathered shows clear trends emerging from the parent/carer group; they are as follows

• overwhelming support for the potential removal of Registration
• overwhelming concern at the potential reduction in English sections in the BGEd
• a acknowledgement that a limited adjustment to Senior Phase courses offered, the number of associated sections/classes being reduced and that the ‘threshold’ of what is a viable class size is being increased is not desirable but in the circumstances inevitable
• teaching S1/2 classes that by law can be taught as ‘teaching;’ rather than ‘practical’ class size should be progressed
• our recommendation for Advanced Higher provision was mixed; there was some relief that we anticipate offering 12 AHs next session but some concern around  a reduction to three periods of direct teaching and concern that some AHs may not run; others saw an opportunity for a different type of experience more akin to university for AH students around independent learning and opportunities for mentoring

These emerging themes will be considered along with staff and student feedback by our senior staff week beginning 04/03/19.   Our intention is to update parents week beginning 11/03/18 with detail on how our ‘listening’ phase as affected our plans to move forward as a school.