Tag: consultation

REVEALED: The date of the Cabinet meeting to discuss the Lyndale School closure consultation

REVEALED: The date of the Cabinet meeting to discuss the Lyndale School closure consultation

REVEALED: The date of the Cabinet meeting to discuss the Lyndale School closure consultation

                            

Councillor Phil Davies at Wirral Council's Cabinet meeting of the 19th June 2014 making announcements (including one on Lyndale School)
Councillor Phil Davies (on the right) at Wirral Council’s Cabinet meeting of the 19th June 2014 making announcements (including one on Lyndale School)

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The announcement on the date of the Cabinet meeting to discuss the outcome of the consultation on closure of Lyndale School appears at 0:16 in the video above. Apologies for the poor sound quality.

Councillor Phil Davies (Leader of the Council and Chair of Cabinet) had this to say at the Cabinet meeting about the Lyndale School closure consultation (which had originally been on the agenda for a Cabinet meeting in July).

He said, “I’d like to suggest a special Cabinet meeting on the 4th September and that will be to consider the outcome of the consultation on Lyndale School. So if we could just make sure that’s in everybody’s diaries and give the relevant notice to the public et cetera, I’d be grateful. So, a special Cabinet meeting 4th September.”

The consultation on closure of Lyndale School closes on the 25th June. There are more details about how to respond to the consultation on Wirral Council’s website.

A report on the first hour of the last of the consultation meetings held on Monday 16th June is on this blog at found at Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall explains why Wirral Council are consulting on closure (Part 1), Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: David Armstrong explains why there’s a consultation and questions begin (Part 2), Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about banding, outdoor space and Stanley School (Part 3), Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about Stanley, Elleray, Foxfield & the educational psychologist (Part 4) and Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about the sensory garden, resources, Elleray Park and Stanley (Part 5).

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Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about Stanley, Elleray, Foxfield & the educational psychologist (Part 4)

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about Stanley, Elleray, Foxfield & the educational psychologist (Part 4)

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about Stanley, Elleray, Foxfield & the educational psychologist (Part 4)

                               

Continues from Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about banding, outdoor space and Stanley School (Part 3).

The person asked a question referred to the one to one care that children were receiving at Lyndale School. Julia Hassall replied that that was part of the reason behind getting up to date assessments of each child was to ensure that if they had to transfer to a different school they would get exactly the same care that they get at Lyndale.

A parent said that since the last meeting they had visited Stanley School. She said, “The facilities there don’t get me wrong are absolutely fabulous, but I’d just like you to know I would be absolutely petrified to leave Scott there. I’m absolutely petrified.” and “my child would definitely not go to Elleray so the only other choice would be Stanley and it would be a massive, massive risks for Scott to go to that school.”

Phil Ward thanked her for her point.

The next question was about if anyone had spoken to the pediatricians of children at Lyndale. She said that there were children on hospital wards that might be suitable for Lyndale School but that nobody seemed to have asked the paediatricians or specialists if these children could go to Lyndale School.

Phil Ward answered, “Sorry I can’t speak for paediatricians, but surely the point..” was interrupted by the questioner asking again if anyone had asked the paediatricians to which he replied, “No, they have not, no is the answer to that.”

The next questioner referred to Julia Hassall’s statement earlier that there was a growing number of children with complex learning difficulties and referred to something that Andrew Roberts said at the call in. She asked what would happen when they can’t get into Stanley School? She said that the parents were categorically telling you that they don’t want to send their children to those schools.

Phil Ward asked if her first question was about how they’d respond to growing numbers? He said the question had come up a number of times and the answer was that Wirral Council has a responsibility on specialist provision. When there was evidence that the numbers were growing in any particular category then they would start discussions with schools to plan places.

The next questioner said that if they were providing up to two hundred and thirty places across Stanley and Elleray Park and those places were taken up by children transferring from Lyndale then wouldn’t there not be room for the expected increase in children with complex learning difficulties?

Phil Ward said that it was an ongoing process, as children were leaving for secondary school at the same time as children joining primary school the balance was shifting and changing all the time.

Someone asked what special arrangements that Wirral Council were making to gather the views of the children, almost all of whom had no conventional language whatsoever. He said that there were issues about friendships, relationships, their sense of place and security. As well as these there were issues about a safe environment to do with children with behavioural problems being mixed in with children who were very vulnerable with poor hand eye coordination and couldn’t protect themselves and anticipate danger. He said to find out what the children themselves would need special skills and special arrangements.

Julia Hassall responded, “This is why we’ve got our principal educational psychologist pulling together a group of meetings with the key staff involved with each child, the parents, any health professionals to really understand each individual child but also how the children interact with each other.”

The same person asked when that report would be available? Julia Hassall replied, “What will, they’re very specific to individual named children these meetings to get an update. So I think it would be breaching the confidentiality of the individual children but in terms of using that information to apply this SEN Improvement Test. That’s something we will absolutely make sure the needs of the children are put at the heart of that and this independent person Lynn Wright (I’m not sure of the exact spelling of this person’s name) will absolutely make sure that the needs of the children drive the future provision.”

Councillor Chris Carubia said that he was his understanding that if Lyndale was closed then the children would go to Elleray and Stanley, however nobody had mentioned Foxfield before?

Phil Ward answered, “In relation to, so, should a final decision be made about closure of the school”… “the children have got to go somewhere else. In terms of the legislation, we then would have a responsibility as a local authority then to engage in further conversations with each of the parents, not the parents as a group but each of the parents of each child that’s got a statement of special educational needs and that discussion will be had with each of the parents who may for their own reasons decide to express a preference potentially anywhere frankly. So there’s no presumption automatically that if the school were to close children would go to A, B or C. We’ve got to enter into that conversation.”

The next person referred to a visit to Stanley School and referred to it as a “brilliant building” but wasn’t sure whether it was “usable” and that it “felt like Manchester Airport”. A woman said that when she went to Stanley that it was a ninety place school but had a hundred children in it. She said that there were ten children at the school that were not funded and would this be sorted out if the Lyndale School children went to Stanley School? Andrew Roberts replied, “In terms of places at special schools, those decisions are taken annually. So the schools take it at a point in time, the decision taken in respect of Stanley was taken last November as a census. Clearly we need to be reviewing, as do the number of places at other special schools.” Phil Ward thanked him for his answer.

Continues at Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about the sensory garden, resources, Elleray Park and Stanley (Part 5).

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Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about banding, outdoor space and Stanley School (Part 3)

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about banding, outdoor space and Stanley School (Part 3)

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about banding, outdoor space and Stanley School (Part 3)

                          

Continues from Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: David Armstrong explains why there’s a consultation and questions begin (Part 2)

Julia Hassall said, “I think the point I was just going to raise is that we’ll make sure that the high level notes, I think it’s a very valuable suggestion looking at grouping them for each meeting to get a sense of the themes, are made public when we go to Cabinet with our report. So those will inform in part along with other things, the recommendations that are made to Cabinet.”

A member of the audience described the consultation document as “not worth the paper it’s written on” and “utterly deceiving”. Phil Ward replied with “point taken” and asked for any other questions?

A different member of the audience asked whether they would look at the banding system and see whether it was adequate? Phil Ward replied, “No, there is an intention for the work around the children, not n relation to costing but it was in relation to in the event of Cabinet agreeing to close the school and it finally does so, then we had captured the up to date information that we retain on the children so that we could begin, on an individual family basis, because we’re not talking about groups of children looking for one place or another, I have to speak up on an individual basis just to ensure that discussions with parents and discussions around the receiving schools and so forth we just had to give the fullest information. That was the purpose of that.”

David Armstrong said, “Just on the banding system, the banding system where we have five bands because of the special schools budget. Clearly, it’s new so it’s only been in place for a short while and I mentioned the Schools Forum before. We had an issue before to review that, clearly we’ve got to make it run for this financial year.” He referred to the Schools Forum and how questions about the banding feed into the Schools Forum.

Someone in the audience said that even if the school was full, that this didn’t matter as what mattered was whether they were adequately funded because without that they couldn’t stay open. Phil Ward replied to that and Councillor Dave Mitchell referred to a petition to Council five years ago about Lyndale School and a presentation. He referred to bullet points from the agreed notice of motion and other issues presented at that time. He asked if that would be presented to Cabinet?

David Armstrong replied, “The Cabinet report will have to include the history of all the previous reports that have gone over the last couple of…”

Councillor Dave Mitchell asked, “Will that include the decisions made by Council which were fully supported by all parties?” David Armstrong answered, “No, it would just include references to previous reports.” Councillor Dave Mitchell replied, “I think that’s a very important issue, it should be actually highlighted. It was a notice of motion to Council and it was fully supported by the local authority at that time.” Julia Hassall said, “We did make very clear reference to that to my recollection at the call in.” Phil Ward thanked Councillor Dave Mitchell for his point.

Someone from the audience said they wanted to raise a point about outdoor space at the three schools (Lyndale, Elleray Park and Stanley). She said she thought it was where it’s going to fall down on the SEN [Improvement] Test. Lyndale School was described as “it’s an absolutely fabulous site, it’s got established gardens, it’s got established trees, we take children out into the garden, we take lessons in the garden, we take children at a lunchtime”. She said, “the idea of squashing people in is not conducive to a good education”. Phil Ward replied, “Thank you for that point.”

The next question was about Stanley School. David Armstrong replied, “The school’s brand new and what we learnt when the Lyndale School was built was looking at primary schools. We built them absolutely tight on the existing campus. We found that the schools became more popular and also you’re building something for fifty or sixty years. We’re building something for fifty or sixty years, so we’re building to a generous standard and the new style that was built to a generous standard.

The school, the school that we’re building had a capacity of ninety pupils. The new building is capable of taking a hundred and ten and the reason for that is that we’ll be building to the maximum standards in place, we’re building some spare capacity because we’re investing several million pounds for the next couple of years.”

The next question was if there were any children with profound and multiple learning disabilities at Stanley School? David Armstrong answered, “The school was built to take the full range of pmld [profound and multiple learning disabilities]. The same questioner asked, “Are there any there at the moment?” followed by asking that if you put four or five from Lyndale into the school surely it would fail the SEN [Improvement] test as Lyndale provided one to one care in a school that catered for their complex needs? Phil Ward replied, but people started talking over each other again.

Julia Hassall said that she’d talked about the children with profound and multiple learning disabilities not growing in size, but that there had been an increase in children with complex learning difficulties, the questioner referred to the numbers over the last five years. Julia Hassall replied, “In terms of how we meet the SEN Improvement Test we are confident that the staff at the Stanley School…” and then was then interrupted.

Continues at Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about Stanley, Elleray, Foxfield, the educational psychologist (Part 4).

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Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: David Armstrong explains why there’s a consultation and questions begin (Part 2)

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: David Armstrong explains why there’s a consultation and questions begin (Part 2)

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: David Armstrong explains why there’s a consultation and questions begin (Part 2)

                      

Continues from Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall explains why Wirral Council are consulting on closure (Part 1).

David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) said, “OK, thank you. Apologies to those of you who’ve heard this five times before. This is the last time for you. I wanted to just set out the bones of how the school is funded and set out some information requested by staff and I’m responsible for the two budgets and I’ll come back to those and I’m also responsible for school assets and school buildings and I have been responsible for those back in fact to the days when it was relocated from Clatterbridge.

I look after two budgets, a £80 million budget for the Children and Young Peoples Department budget which pays for things like fostering, adoption and a whole host of the other none related schools services. We also have a £240 million budget which is the schools budget. It comes with the title of Dedicated Schools Grant, it comes from government summarised as DSG, it comes into the Council it has to be passed onto schools.

So as Julia [Hassall] said, it’s not about the Council somehow undertaking some of that money and treating it as a saving. It’s about the long term financial security of the school. The DSG when it comes in covers four areas, early years, primary, secondary and special.

(drowned out by someone’s mobile phone)

It goes through a formula, a local formula and that is distributed into schools.”

He explained how the Schools Forum decided on the formula and how it the Schools Forum comprised of volunteers representing the various types of schools. He said that when he was a head in the 1980s, he only managed two budgets in the school. One was books and paper and the second was whatever the school made selling photos. In 1990 there was a change and the big budgets that had been managed by councils were redistributed to schools.

Mr Armstrong said that to begin with each council had its own formula and that every council used different things to redistribute the schools budget. With special schools he said “it has always been slightly different”. He said that nationally that there was a movement at least in part to fund special schools by pupil and not just by place. David Armstrong said that the numbers at Lyndale School had fallen, making it difficult to run the school. In the last few years he said Andrew [Roberts] working with the school governors, the Schools Forum and the other special schools had funded Lyndale School for a number of empty places.

Looking forward, he said that Wirral Council would have to seek authorisation on whether they could do that from a national body called the Education Funding Agency. In his view the future was less certain because the EFA had said that they’d like Wirral Council to come to a point where they were funding per a pupil and not per a place. He said it was a question about the long term financial stability of the school and it wasn’t about making a quick saving by closing the school.

David Armstrong said that they’d been through this process with other primary schools and a secondary school and that the savings had been recycled into the formula. He was happy to take questions.

Phil Ward (chairing the meeting) thanked Mr. Armstrong and said that before they started the opportunity to ask questions and raise issues, he referred to an attendance sheet and asked people who hadn’t signed it to do so. He said, “A lot of people have lots of things to say with conviction and passion and we would ask they allow everybody a chance to speak and put forward to the meeting to hear what’s been said. So on that basis, are there any questions?” After twenty-five minutes (of a two hour consultation meeting) the people present finally got a chance to ask questions.

The first questioner introduced herself and asked if they could get a copy of the notes being taken? Interrupting the questioner before she’d had a chance to finish and talking over her, Phil Ward barked at the questioner in the tone of voice you’d usually reserve for someone who’d stood on your foot, “I’ve answered that one a few times! We’re not taking minutes of the meeting but high level notes and these notes will be used to capture some of the key points raised at the meetings and these notes will also be reported to elected members [councillors] of the Cabinet. They’re not for circulation. Is that clear?”

The same questioner replied with, “but this is a public consultation!”, Phil Ward again interrupted her and said, “It is a public”, she continued, “it should be for everyone”. Phil Ward replied, “I’ve answered that already but the high level notes, we will capture the views, as we have done for the last five meetings and those views, and those views will be reported to members of the Cabinet.”

Councillor Phil Gilchrist asked whether the notes would set out so that they could get a feel of what’s been raised at the consultation meetings? Phil Ward replied, “We can do it in a different way, we can collate all of the notes together and just do a summary report of the key points or alternatively we could choose to do a summary report on each of the individual meetings laying out if you like the issues raised and I think that’s what you’re alluding to in terms of about each meeting the way it seemed to be borne out with these issues, there are those with these issues so we’ll look at that.”

Another question was asked about the notes to which Phil Ward replied, “They’re notes recording the high level points raised at the meetings and importantly we will be reporting them to Cabinet.”

A different questioner stated that he thought the meetings should be fully minuted. He described himself as a support worker that worked full time over three fourteen hour shifts. He referred to previous meetings that people hadn’t turned up to. A meeting at Lyndale School had been arranged and only seven councillors had turned up to it.

He continued and said that despite working full-time, he had found the time to come to the meeting. Continuing, he said he had asked people if they were against the decision to consult on closing Lyndale School and said that a hundred percent of those he had contacted were against closure of Lyndale School. He referred to flaws in the consultation and that there had been “100% disapproval” on “ploughing ahead” when Wirral Council was there to serve the people of Wirral.

Phil Ward replied with, “Is that something which you’d like to submit to us?”. He replied, “Oh, yes” and Phil Ward said, “Just to remind you the consultation finishes on the 25th June.”

Continues at Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: questions about banding, outdoor space and Stanley School (Part 3).

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Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall explains why Wirral Council are consulting on closure (Part 1)

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall explains why Wirral Council are consulting on closure (Part 1)

Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall explains why Wirral Council are consulting on closure (Part 1)

                            

The last of the meetings concerning the consultation on closing Lyndale School was held in the hall at Acre Lane Professional Excellence Centre. There to answer questions people had were David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive), Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services), Andrew Roberts and Phil Ward (who was chairing the meeting). There was also a sign language interpreter called Sue March, however Phil Ward sent the sign language interpreter away as there was no one present (from the twenty-five or so others present at the start of the meeting) that indicated they needed sign language interpretation.

Labour’s Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services Councillor Tony Smith arrived about five minutes late to the meeting. He sat with the three officers, but didn’t take a part in answering the questions people had.

Julia Hassall said she was “pleased to see so many people” and that there had been some people who had been to all six meetings. She was giving the same introduction at each one, which was drawn from the consultation document (copies of which were available for people at the meeting). She described Lyndale School as a special school in Eastham for children with complex learning disabilities whose viability was compromised by a falling roll and a small number of children.

It was at this point that Councillor Tony Smith arrived.

She repeated a point she had made at a previous meeting, that the consultation on closure was nothing to do with standards of education at the school as the last OFSTED inspection in November 2012 had concluded that the school was good with many outstanding aspects. However in her view Wirral Council needed to get future provision right and in her view two other schools (Elleray Park and Stanley) were able to provide good quality education and care.

Ms Hassall said that the closure proposal was not linked to Wirral Council’s need to save money as any money saved would be used elsewhere, however they were under a duty to make sure there were sufficient school places. She referred to the Children and Young Peoples Plan and the Children and Families Act 2014 c.6. She said that the new legislation would improve the partnership between education and health as the care plan would detail how both education and health would meet the children’s needs in a joined up way.

She referred to the report to the Cabinet meeting of the 16th January when they had agreed to start the consultation and the other options that were being consulted on (she went through the options some of which other than closure were becoming a 2-19 school, federating with another school, co locating with another school, becoming a free school or academy). The full list of options are detailed in an appendix to the Cabinet report. Julia Hassall said that during the consultation all options and any new ones were being considered.

Continuing she told those present that the Cabinet decision of the 16th January had been called in and looked at again by the Coordinating Committee on the 5th February and 27th February. She said that the Coordinating Committee had recommended that the consultation start, which had begun on the 2nd April.

Since the consultation had begun, there had been three meeting in April, two already in June with this meeting being the last of the six. Issues that had been brought up previously were referred to. She said that they had to apply the SEN Improvement Test as any alternative had to be as good as or better than the current provision. Julia Hassall said that they had agreed to engage an independent consultant Lynn Wright (Ed – I am unsure of the exact spelling of this person’s name however this was what it sounded like Julia Hassall said) to offer advice how how they looked at the eight options, any new options and to assess how they applied the SEN Improvement Test. She said that Lynn Wright was not known to the officers prior to this and would produce a separate report with an independent view that would be included when Cabinet decided whether to proceed for a formal proposal.

If Cabinet decided to proceed to the next stage, then there would be a four week statutory representations period and if Cabinet finally approved to close the school it would close at the end of the summer term in 2015 and children at Lyndale would be transferred in September 2015. She wanted to stress that no decision had been made and they would take everybody’s views into account. Ms Hassall referred to someone called Janice who was taking notes on the front row. She continued by saying that small schools could go into financial deficit whereas larger schools had more flexibility and could spend a higher proportion on teaching and meeting children’s needs.

Every January they took a census of pupil numbers. There were 401 children attending nursery with complex learning difficulties and within this 401, sixty-four had profound and multiple learning difficulties. However the number of children with profound and multiple learning difficulties had been similar over the past four years and wasn’t a growing trend. She referred to the number of places at Elleray Park and how through discussions with the school and building work they planned to increase the places there to 110. Stanley School had moved from its former site to a purpose built school and in her view they could add a further five to ten more children there without an extension but could extend it if needed to give sufficient places. She referred to a meeting between the Chief Executive (Graham Burgess) and three parent governors and how there would be a further meeting on Friday (20th June). She then handed over to David Armstrong.

Continues at Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: David Armstrong explains why there’s a consultation and questions begin (Part 2).

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