The Arbroath Schools Review: the educational benefit of a primary ‘superschool‘ of 500 pupils

Parents had real concerns that a 500-pupil ‘superschool’ was not educationally beneficial, that:http://forargyll.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=40642&action=edit&message=6

• their children would receive less individual attention
• have less chance to take part in school teams
• the new school would have much less space per child.

The Council denied all of this, saying that teacher contact would not be affected and the educational experience would improve.

They pointed to the HMIE who appeared to concur with the Council position.

We understand that the council withheld form HMIE its intention to reduce the number of teachers deployed to the proposed new school – as compared with those at the two schools to be merged.

This, to a degree, accounts for the instability of the HMIE report on the proposal.

FOI revelations

Of the projected £200K+ revenue savings (which in any case would vanish against a £700,000 annual loan repayment) – almost £100K, just under half of the total projected ‘saving’, was  shown to be coming from a reduction in teaching staff.

NOTE: Read the detail for yourself

The lead story, of which this is an investigation detail, is: Miles more on Myles: Angus Council, FOI and Arbroath Schools Review.

Choose which other parts of this investigation you wish to read in detail and in what order. Most are short – but for obvious reasons the piece on the FOI revelations on the two ‘public surveys” is more extensive.

• The Arbroath School Estate Review
• The scandal of the public opinion surveys
• Costs and funding of the proposed new school
• The educational benefit of a primary ‘superschool‘ of 500 pupils
• Cheaper and more cost effective alternatives
• Traffic risk to small children on the Westway town bypass
• Council determination to proceed with this project at all costs
• The political situation at Angus Council