Class Sizes and Reclassification
The Parent Council heard about the likely changes to class sizes and configurations at its meeting in April 08.
After hearing about the likely reprecussions, the Parent Council agreed a set of actions which can be seen by clicking here.
The Parent Council explored the matter with the ERC Director of Education who indicated that the action being taken in relation to the Netherlee budget was because the number of primary school age children in the catchment was reducing while the catchment of other schools in the region was increasing. The Parent Council made a case for Netherlee receiving resources in addition to those initially proposed in order to help with the transition from 2007/08 stafiing to that proposed for 2008/09. A copy of a letter sent to ERC Director of Education can see by clicking here
The result of this dialogue was that ERC provided Netherlee with two fully-funded and two part-funded Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) for 2008/09 ; that is two more than was previously expected. This additional resource enabled the Netherlee Headteacher to avoid a number of the changes to classes that had been proposed but, unfortunately, not all of them. However, it has meant that the school will have more resource than initially feared for 2008 09.
Looking ahead to future years, the Parent Council will wish to keep an eye on resources for the school because NQT posts are only provided for one year.If Netherlee is not allocated four NQT posts for 2009 -10 then further reclassification is likely.
The Parent Council is also interested in campaigning for class sizes to be reduced.This needs to be carried out at national level because ERC is currently operating within the existing class size guidelines which permit class sizes of 33 pupils from P4.
As we anticipate that this issue may occur again in future school years, the Parent Council will continue to moniter the position
We are still keen to hear your views and the ways in which you believe the change above may affect your children.