James Gillespie’s High School Parent Council response to City of Edinburgh Council budget consultation

December 2015

James Gillespie’s High School Parent Council recognises that the Council requires to make substantial savings, but we do not support the following proposals.

CO/ST12 Corporate Operations - Business Support: The proposal to cut business support substantiallyis deeply concerning, and the suggestion that “[support numbers … to ratios against pupil numbers] will need to be reviewed”. As Parent Council, we observe at first hand that senior staff in the school already have a heavy workload. Coming on top of the cuts in 2012, when Bursars, Assistant Head Teachers and half of Principal Teachers were removed, adding this further burden of additional administration is likely to make the situation unsustainable. Our current business manager deals with many administrative tasks such as HR matters, finance and SQA liaison. While these are of course important to the running of the school, they should not be allowed to distract highly experienced senior teachers from working directly with pupils, the job for which they are qualified and best suited. The Council will be aware that it can already prove difficult to attract suitable candidates into Head Teacher and Depute HT vacancies, and adding a heavy workload of additional paperwork is likely to make this situation worse.

CF/SP4 Redesign of Music Instructor Service: We are extremely concerned about this proposal, to cut the budget for music secondary school instrumental teaching by 75%. While we note that the Council propose to make "a contribution for music tuition based on the ability to pay" and "consideration would be given to those following SQA courses", such a drastic cut is likely to mean many pupils miss out on learning an instrument. It is our view that every pupil from primary school upwards should have the opportunity to play an instrument if they have the enthusiasm and commitment to do so.

Our concerns can be summarised as follows:

  • There is no clear indication of how "ability to pay" will work in practice and how off-putting this might be, and many families who do not qualify under criteria such as free school meals may still lack the spare cash to pay for music lessons.
  • Sometimes children who have other problems mental or physical can gain enormous benefits from the joy and self-confidence that making music can bring. Children with difficulties in social interaction or in academic subjects can often excel at music, e.g. severely dyslexic or autistic children.
  • As many better-off families already have private music lessons, these proposals are likely to have a disproportionate effect on the less well-off.
  • If there is not a critical mass of pupils learning instruments, school ensembles such as orchestras and wind bands may not be viable, and if parents are required to pay, there will be a strong bias towards lower cost instruments (e.g. flute and violin), and very few will be in a position to learn more expensive instruments (e.g. cello or bassoon). This will mean that state schools will not be able to put an orchestra together, which for a city that is renowned for its culture and international Festival, seems to be a great loss, and will mean that only pupils at private schools have the opportunity to take part in such groups.
  • Fewer pupils may take SQA music courses (it would be almost impossible for a pupil to reach the required standard if they have not learned an instrument before S3), leading to a whole generation missing out on learning an instrument.
  • The proposals mention job losses of 4 full time staff amongst instrumental teachers. We understand from correspondence that this figure is an error and the number may be lower, but if few families are able to pay for lessons and demand is low under the new proposed model, these job losses could equally be higher.

No other subject is expected to become self-funding in this way, and there are many alternative ways in which the costs could be covered, such as a tourist tax, or a small ticket levy on the large commercial operators of some Fringe venues, as most customers of the world’s largest arts event would probably be happy to make a small contribution to support development of the arts at a local level.

CF/EFF2 Closure of Panmure School

We are concerned at this proposal, as it could lead to pupils being denied the specialist support that they require. While some may be accommodated in Gorgie Mills, we are not aware that there is any other “alternative SEBN provision” as mentioned in the proposal, and many mainstream schools may lack the facilities required to support these pupils. The proposal also suggests cutting the 27.5 posts, including 11 teachers, thus losing the specialist knowledge they possess (and presumably wasting the investment that has been made in training them). Even if the physical Panmure building is under capacity, these staff would be better transferred to the same facilitiesas the pupils, as most staff in mainstream schools will not have the necessary specialist skills and knowledge to support these pupils.

In the context of rising rolls, where capacity as a whole is going to be squeezed across the whole city, the closing of a facility seems a short-sighted move, as it may be required to be reopened in a short time, as well as incurring the ongoing costs of keeping a building empty (security).

CF/ST6Family Solutions review

We are very concerned at the proposal to reduce this support service for pupils excluded from school, and their families, by 14 FTEs. While the proposal is to focus on cases of highest risk of the child becoming looked after by the Council, there will be many pupils who lose support but are still at risk. Removing this vital support will reduce the chances of these pupils successfully returning to school and going on to a positive destination.

We therefore believe that this proposal is short-sighted and likely to result in higher costs in the long-run (e.g. higher unemployment, crime, substance dependency etc).