Bad news for parents in North Lanarkshire.

Four primary schools are likely to close under plans drawn up by North Lanarkshire Council.

The move would save the local authority almost £1m annually, but is expected to spark community protests and cause splits in the local Labour party.

The schools under threat are Belvidere Primary, Bellshill, St Francis of Assisi, Cumbernauld, St Matthew’s in Wishaw, and Gartsherrie in Coatbridge.

The proposals will be discussed at an emergency meeting next week.

The council has cited the schools’ falling rolls and the state of some of the accommodation as reasons for the closures.

It emerged last month that the local authority faced a budget shortfall of £60m over the next three years.

Some councillors from the ruling Labour group have expressed opposition to the school proposals.

More the BBC.

Getgoglasgow Codesign video for Wyndford

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Glasgow Schools Closure Gaffe, Politicians admit to getting sums wrong

Steven Purcell - Leader of Glasgow City Council

Wyndford pitch – Community fix-up

From http://citystrolls.com/

If you know of any other activities across Glasgow that you would like to be highlighted, please email sosglasgow@gmail.com.

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A group of students from the Glasgow School of Art have chosen Wyndford as the location for a project they’re working on.

“As a collective we are known as getgo glasgow. We are working in the Maryhill area of Glasgow until January to identify a problem in the community and work with them to create a solution which is sustainable.”

If the council won’t do it…

The parents in Wyndford have decided to do the councils’ work for them.

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Dear All

As you may be aware the old football pitch at the bottom of the Wyndford has been badly neglected over the years by the city council and left in a poor state. The pitch is now badly over grown with weeds covering most of it and is completely of no use to anyone.

A group of us are meeting on Saturday 24th October 2009 at 10.00am at the pitch to dig it up, rake it and try and inject some life into the soil much to the embarrassment of our City Council. There will be equipment available such as a rotovator, lawn mowers etc. The city council have been informed and whether they agree or not this will be going ahead.  At some point, once football teams from our community are up and running, this pitch will be invaluable.

Please, if you can spare any time, come down at help up kick start the Wyndford regeneration and pass this on to anyone you think may be interested in helping.

Many thanks.

Allison

The pitch which the residents are working on. Every Saturday from 10am onwards.

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As a result of the fight put up by parents and carer’s, the council has promised to regenerate the area via the ‘Wyndford Task Group’.

However, seeing as trusting the council is about as wise as loaning money to a bank these days, the residents will be keeping an eye on them

.

The parents and residents have also set up:

Wyndford Community Council.

Inaugural meeting

Tuesday, the 3^rd of November, 7:30 pm.

Shakespeare Street Youth Club.

95 Shakespeare St.

Glasgow Schools Closure Gaffe, Politicians admit to getting sums wrong

From GlasgowGuide.co.uk

In an embarrassing gaffe by members of Glasgow City Council, revealed over the weekend, it was shown that the principal reason put forward for the closure of nearly two dozen schools in the city earlier this year could not now be supported by official statistics. In April this year leading Labour politicians within the country’s largest local authority revealed that they intended to close a significant number of city schools because of “falling school rolls”.

However, it has since been found that school rolls in Glasgow are actually on the increase, although city council planners and politicians claim that the rising number of children attending schools in the city has taken them by surprise.

Councillor Stephen Curran, the politician responsible for overseeing service reform within the council, confirmed the rise in pupil numbers when he said that there were “more children in Glasgow than we had been expecting.” In an added development the councillor intimated that the rise in school rolls would now mean that politicians would have to make an extra £2million in cuts to the city’s education budget to accommodate for the increased number of pupils in city classrooms.

Although pupil numbers are on the rise, the council has appeared to rule out any possibility of a reversal of the controversial, and deeply unpopular, closure of 20 city schools earlier this year. In a number of cases – as with Barmulloch Primary School in Glasgow North East (shown below) – the school has already been demolished, despite the fact that the term has only recently started.

Goodbye, safe, friendly community based schools…

Quoted from East Dumbartonshire SSP blog.

Monday, 21 September 2009

Today, the Wyndford Primary School was bulldozed to the ground.

Quite symbolic really as the Government look for further cuts…

We have paid for this crisis with OUR tax money to plug the hole left by greedy bankers. We are paying through job losses; wage freezes and low pay.

Our children are also being made to pay.

Hands Off Lewisham Bridge (London) – Press Releas

Victory! Together We Are Strong!

On 30th July the Department of Culture Media and Sport rang to let us know that the English Heritage decision to list Lewisham Bridge would not be overturned.

Hands Off Lewisham Bridge has decided to end the rooftop protest in light of the mayor’s decision to return the children to the school on 7th November. Enormous disruption and distress was caused to parents and our children by the decision to decant and the bussing to the Mornington Centre. It is unfortunate that the Mayor did not make his decision as soon as he was informed of the decision to retain the listing; nevertheless we are all happy that we are to return to our much-loved school. We have vacated the site as of Monday 7th September.

BBC newsround – “Life after school closures”

Click picture to view coverage

Imagine being forced to leave your school, split up from your mates and having to travel somewhere totally new for classes.

That’s what’s happened to loads of kids in Glasgow after their primary schools were closed at the end of last term.

Leah’s been finding out more…

SAVE OUR SCHOOLS CAMPAIGNERS CALL ON MSPs TO VOTE FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY PETITION

Parents at Holyrood earlier this year

Parents, carers and community campaigners who fought the closure of schools and nurseries by Glasgow city council throughout this year are appealing to MSPs to back their Petition to the parliament calling for a public inquiry into the impact of closures. The petition will be considered by the 9 MSPS who make up the Public Petitions Committee at their meeting tomorrow, 8^th Sept.

Richie Venton, Glasgow Save Our Schools Campaign organiser, who drafted and lodged the parliamentary petition, today said:

“We hope the MSPs on this parliamentary Committee put aside jockeying for party political advantage and live up to the claims made for the Public Petitions Committee – to give the public access to the parliament with their concerns.

“This petition – which calls on the parliament to initiate a full public inquiry into the impact of closures on kids’ education, class sizes, staff jobs, children’s health and safety, and indeed the whole system of public consultation – is of national importance. And that is reflected in the numbers who have co-signed it. It is one of the most popular online petitions to the parliament in the last couple of years, and that’s as nothing compared with the tens of thousands who have signed petitions supporting its demands on the streets and at schools meetings.

“The impact of 22 closures in Glasgow has already been proven to be catastrophic.

“Kids are crammed into classes of 28 and more where they previously enjoyed classes of 21 in the schools closed down.

“Long and often dangerous journeys to school have also led to some parents having to give up their jobs, to juggle childcare with work.

“Over 200 Glasgow teachers only heard which school they were working in the day before the new term started!

“And councils in the rest of Scotland are set to carry out similar savage closures unless they are stopped – even before the weekend revelations about 5 per cent cuts being planned across Scotland’s public services.

“We need a thorough investigation of the impact of closures on kids and communities before any more crazed cuts in the style of Glasgow 2009 are carried out – with parents, teachers and pupils amongst the witnesses called to give first-hand evidence.

“The Scottish parliament boasts that it is more open to the public; they have the chance to prove that by voting in favour of this Petition, widely backed by the public.”

For more info contact Richie Venton on 07828 278 093 or email richieventon@hotmail.com

SAVE OUR SCHOOLS CAMPAIGNERS CELEBRATE RESIGNATION OF EDUCATION CHIEF MARGARET DORAN (Press release)

Margaret Doran meets pupils from Victoria Primary and Nursery

The Glasgow Save Our Schools Campaign, which led the mass movement against school and nursery closures since January, is delighted at the resignation of Margaret Dorarn, chief education officer for the Labour council, given her central role in the closures.

Richie Venton, Glasgow Save Our Schools Campaign organiser, today said:

“The resignation of Margaret Doran from her £120,000-a-year job is a victory for those of us who fought the vicious closures of primaries and nurseries that she was at the heart of.

“The parents, carers and communities of 2,000 children who have been uprooted and dumped in bigger classes, further from home, will have a very simple response to Ms Doran’s departure: ‘good riddance to bad rubbish!’.

“The statement announcing her decision talks of ‘financial challenges facing the council’. Are the thieves falling out?

“Margaret Doran was a critical player in drafting the butchery of our kids’ education and community facilities – but under orders from the Chief Axe-man himself, Labour Council leader Stephen Purcell.

“Far from hinting at any disagreement with the elected Labour politicians’ closures package, Ms Doran was a strident advocate and defender of them. But the ferocious opposition of parents, carers and communities, led by the Glasgow Save Our Schools Campaign, undoubtedly caused private divisions amongst council leaders and officers on how best to cope with the public fury.

“So when Labour councillors sing hymns of praise for her ‘leaving a tremendous legacy’ for Glasgow kids’ education, it’s enough to make you vomit.

“Her ‘legacy’ includes chaos in the first week of school term, with kids packed into far bigger classes, many of them travelling dangerous and long routes, some teaching staff only hearing where they were to work a week before the new term started, and many parents facing loss of their jobs because they can’t juggle between childcare arrangements and working times.

“We celebrate the departure of one butcher of kids’ education – the unelected £120,000-a-year bureaucrat – but intend to work for the removal of the bigger butchers – the Labour councillors who rode roughshod over people’s needs and wishes.”

For more info contact Richie Venton on 07828 278 093 or email richieventon@hotmail.com

Scottish Parliament e-petition