The questions Wirral Council couldn’t, wouldn’t or didn’t answer about Lyndale: can you?

The questions Wirral Council couldn’t, wouldn’t or didn’t answer about Lyndale: can you?

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Childrens Services) talks at a meeting of Wirral Council's Cabinet about deciding to consult on closing Lyndale School (16th January 2014)
Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Childrens Services) talks at the meeting of Wirral Council’s Cabinet which decided to consult on closing Lyndale School (16th January 2014)

The questions Wirral Council couldn’t, wouldn’t or didn’t answer about Lyndale: can you?

                  

One of the (many) problems the parents have had with Wirral Council is they feel their legitimate questions relating to the Lyndale School closure consultation have remained unanswered (and in fact stated that at the last consultation meeting). This is despite public claims (made by very senior officers) at the call-in meeting back in February about openness, transparency and about how officers would do their best.

Below this are the questions. To be fair to Wirral Council, Wirral Council have (probably) sent what they regard (although obviously not what the parents regard) as answers. So how long has Wirral Council had to answer these? Well these questions have been around since March (which you have to take into account when reading them).

It does make you wonder at times whether some officers speak a completely different dialect of English to the rest of the Wirral population! Is it any wonder that the Cabinet decision and report on the next stage has now been put back to September (instead of what was planned which was July)? Wirral Council’s website has details on how you can respond to the consultation which closes on the 25th June. I’m not going to name the officer at Wirral Council given the task of answering these questions because that would have the effect of blaming one person for a decision-making process that over the last seven months has (and I’m being charitable here) fallen short of what the Wirral public deserve.

After all the politicians (who are supposed to hold the officers to account) and who’ve made the decisions so far have to accept some responsibility, as officers are only allowed to act within the agreed policy and budget framework (and yes I can imagine some readers laughing at this sentence).

Consultation RE: The Closure of The Lyndale School – March 2014

The following document is a list of the points that have been raised thus far by the parents of the children currently attending the Lyndale School.

The document contains a number of concerns and a list of questions that we would like to have answers to. A number of these questions have been asked in the past and we have received what have purported to be answers to them. We have considered the answers, and feel that they do not in any way address the points that have been raised. We have therefore prepared this document to clarify the questions that we would like answered as well as giving more detail for the avoidance of any doubt. As you are aware, we as parents, need to ensure that our children have the same standard of care and education as they have currently. We need to make sure that they have the same level of access to both inside and outside space, that they are safe at all times. We need to ensure that they enjoy the same freedoms and inclusion that they currently have. We do not believe that this is possible in any environment other than their current school. These questions have been put together due to those concerns.

  1. The Consultation Process

  • As you are aware, we have grave concerns regarding the consultation process as a whole. There are a number of questions in relation to the process as follows

  1. When will we be provided with a named council officer to assist us with procedural as well as other queries. We were promised council staff time and resources at the first Cabinet meeting and are still waiting for that help.
  2. Funding-

For band 4 and 5 top up, please clarify the following:-

  1. How many teachers per child have been allocated?

  2. How many TA’s per child have been allocated?

  3. Does nursing care come with this budget?

  4. Does Physio care come within this budget?

  5. Does Equipment come within this budget?

  6. How will the schools fund the additional equipment and capital expenditure which will be required for preparation of the school for our children eg changes within the school layout, decoration, provision of suitable outside space including sensory areas?

  1. Cross Funding – The funding cuts brought in by place lead funding represent a loss of £7000 per child. How exactly do they propose the saving to be met per child?

  2. If the children move schools, they will still be underfunded. Please confirm that the deficit will be met by cross funding from other pupils? This has been suggested on a number of occasions.

  1. SEN Improvement Test –

  1. Please confirm the exact procedure and process and confirm that this will look at not only Education, but also Safety, our childrens general well Being including Physiotherapy, Nursing, Sensory experience, Feeding, Space, and Toileting.

  2. We have been told that the test must be passed but have yet to be told who makes that decision as to whether the test is passed? It is clearly a very specialist area and the local authority will need the input of suitably experienced personnel. We wish to know who that will be and their level of qualification and expertise.

  3. We have been told that a needs assessment will be carried out on our children, as above, who will this be done by?

  4. Will there will be agreement between the local authority and ourselves as to the suitability of the person engaged to carry out the report?

  5. Please confirm that we will be asked to give permission for that person to access not only our children but their medical records?

  6. We also feel that it will be necessary for the parents and or carers of each child to be interviewed as the children are unable to communicate and the parents/ carers are best placed to advise on their own childs needs, please confirm that this will be done.

  7. We have been informed by Julia Hassall that each Medic involved with each child will be consulted, please confirm by whom and how this will take place.

  1. If when the SEN Report is done, it states that the SEN improvement test has not been met, what are the contingency plans? Does this mean Lyndale will stay open? Clearly any further period of uncertainty will be detrimental to the children and the parents/ carers as well as the staff and the school as a whole. We anticipate that the local authority will have contingency funds available to ensure that the school can remain open in the long term should the SEN improvement test not be met.

  2. Please confirm what will actually happen during the consultation? We are not knowledgeable nor experienced in local authority practice or procedure and need to have a clear picture of both including the timescale and dates of any proposed meetings and decisions.

  1. Please confirm we will be sent copies of any paperwork in relation to the consultation forwarding to us via paper copy or mail.

  2. We want assurance that all Councillors are looking at this from a Non Political and Non Personal view. We note from the Call In that all Councillors Labour voted – FOR and Conservative – AGAINST. We are firmly of the view that this is a political decision and want to be assured that it will be a decision based entirely on the needs of the children. I have to say that we were also quite alarmed that one of the Councillors at the call in mentioned that he personally knew the local authority witnesses and assured us that they were nice people ! We do not feel that that was at all appropriate to say and do not feel that that councillor was impartial and in fact he should not have been involved in that or any decision involving our school.

  3. Has there been an equality impact assessment done for:-

  1. SEN funding changes

  2. Lyndale Closure

  3. Schools Budget 2014/15

If there has, can we have a copy of the paperwork.

  1. The Options to be Considered

  1. How will the other options mentioned in the initial document provided by the Local Authority be assessed?

  2. Will the local authority look at the possibility of us becoming an academy as they would not then be involved in the running of the school?

  3. Will the 2-19 or in fact 2-23 be revisited. The last time this was looked at the reasoning behind the decision not to go ahead was flawed. The current trend in other boroughs is to make schools 2-19 and in fact in Cheshire its 2-23. Will the local authority look in detail at this proposal?

  4. At the call in it was mentioned a number of times that the consultation would look at options that had not yet been thought of, how will this be done? Will the local authority bring in expert help in looking at these options?

  1. The Closure of The Lyndale School and moving the children to Stanley and Elleray Park schools

If The Lyndale School should close:-

  1. How will the children be allocated to each school?

  2. Will allocation be on geography?

  3. Will allocation be on ability?

  4. Will allocation be on age?

  5. If the decision is based on choice, what if there is not an equal division? What if all parents want their children to go to the same school?

  6. What if parents decide that neither school is suitable? Will the LA fund out of borough schooling?

  7. Will each of the parents be able visit the respective schools once the new provisions are in place in order to assess them?

  8. At the time our children were allocated to The Lyndale School, neither Elleray nor Stanley School was considered suitable. What has changed?

  9. Are each of these schools going to cater for children aged 2-11 in just 2 groups or is the plan to integrate our children with the existing children in both Stanley and Elleray? It would clearly be very difficult to cater for such a large age range with, for example, only two small classes of children, it would mean that a child would potentially be in the same class and therefore the same class room for up to nine years.

  10. We have requested the incident reports from Meadowside, Elleray, Stanley and Foxfield Schools. These are necessary to look at any potential safety issues with our children both now and if they go through transition to secondary school. We have received inadequate information. Please confirm that these records will be obtained and provided to us. We do not want any details that would identify any of the children involved so there should be no data protection issues.

  1. STANLEY SCHOOL SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

Stanley School currently has 97-100 pupils and we are told that there will be 110 there within a very short space of time. It also has a waiting list. The school capacity is listed as 90(Information taken from letter from Julia Hassall dated 7 March 2014 – answer to question 8, table 2).

  1. Where are the spaces for our children?

  2. We have been told the capacity will be increased to 110. How will this be achieved?

  3. What if Stanley is already at 110 pupils when the consultation is in progress?

  4. If spaces are created somehow for our children, what happens to the children on the waiting list for Stanley school?

  1. Everyone knows the number of ASD and behavioral children is increasing, how will you cope with this if Stanley school is full and / or over capacity, where will the additional capacity be for any future increase in either ASD/ behavioural or PMLD children.

  2. On our Governors visit to Stanley School they had one spare classroom, however, they were told that once this school is at capacity this would be full. Where exactly are our children’s classrooms going to be and how many classes will they have? For example, for 10 children, we would need at least 2 classrooms, there are no spare classrooms in this school. We were told categorically that there was no plans to expend Stanley school however at the call in meeting Julia Hassle mentioned something about an extension, please clairfy.

  3. During our meeting with the Headmaster of Stanley and Julia Hassall, the Head informed us that he would have to stop their intake of children now, to accommodate our children in July 2015. Julia Hassall said at the call in that this is not the case, please clarify how this space is going be freed up at this school?

  4. Stanley school is low arousal. The Headmaster acknowledged that this environment would not be suitable for our children, as our children need constant stimulation. How is Stanley school going to create a stimulating, vibrant, colorful environment in and out of the classroom without impacting on existing children?

  5. How do they propose to get our children into school in the morning safely? Stanley has one door and one arrival point at present. This will be busy and noisy and a lengthy process. How can our children be offloaded quickly, quietly and safely whilst not coming into contact with the children who could potentially stress or injure them.

  6. How do they propose to get our children safely through the school during the day, will the school ensure enough staff to have one pushing the wheelchair and one walking with the child to ensure that they are safe?

  7. Stanley does not have communal lunch or assemblies. Our children do, on a regular basis, which they enjoy and which is an essential part of their development as it allows them a sensory and stimulating experience whilst allowing them to mix with the other children. How will this be replicated in Stanley?

  8. Outside space at Stanley is currently one open space sectioned off by green mesh fencing, there is no quiet area, no sensory area, nowhere suitable for wheelchair bikes. It is going to be an extremely noisy, unsafe and stressful environment. Our children currently spend a lot of time outdoors, especially during the warmer months, outside, enjoying the environment. How is this going to be replicated?

  9. Stanley does not have or as far as we are aware have never had any severely physically disabled and highly vulnerable children like ours. Are they proposing that our staff move with our children or that they take on new staff ?

  10. We as parents believe that Stanley was built with our children in mind and that the local authority were always minded to close our school. If that was not the case why was Stanley built with specific classrooms containing expensive and extensive hoisting equipment in one of their class rooms and in other communal rooms. They did not and still do not have any children needing them? (if any children did need them, they could be catered for via a portable hoist ).

  11. If it is a case of the local authority complying with equality regulations then please confirm why the Lyndale school has not been provided with such equipment and in fact has outdated and insufficient hoisting for their children .

  12. Nurses – Please confirm how many full time nursing staff will be at each school for the children? Stanley currently have no full time nursing care. This is clearly insufficient, if our children were to join the school due to their high medical needs. They currently have two nurses.

  13. Please confirm that the children will have a warm and cosy nursing room with a suitable nursing bed if they need nursing care and are unwell during the day. The current room does not have a suitable bed and is cold and unwelcoming.

  1. ELLERAY SCHOOL SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

Elleray currently has 92 pupils, their capacity (as per the same document referred to above) is 75.

  1. Why aren’t suitable children currently attending Stanley and Elleray being referred to The Lyndale School? We are aware of suitable children who have been told that they must go to Elleray.

  2. Elleray is currently oversubscribed by 17 children. We have been told that the extension is for the current population of children. Can you confirm that this is the case? If this is the case, where will the space be for our children?

  3. During a meeting with the head teacher and Julia Hassle we were told that if our children go to Elleray that the planned Library would not go ahead and would in fact be changed to provide new classrooms for our children. Surely this would be detrimental to the existing children? Are the Elleray parents aware of this fact?

  4. Elleray currently has no suitable outdoor space, no quiet area, and no outdoor sensory area. The outside area is very cramped and will be taken up further by the proposed extension. Where could this required outside space be created without taking space from the current children? How would the school ensure that this would be a quiet and safe area?

  1. How do they propose to get our children into school in the morning safely? Elleray has one door and one arrival point at present. This would be busy, noisy and time consuming with all children arriving on buses at the same time. Currently, the childrens Escorts are not allowed into the School to do the handover of the children to the classroom? How can they ensure a speedy, safe handover? Our Escorts play an extremely important part of our child’s transport and they convey a lot of important information to the staff. How can they ensure this would continue? How would the school ensure a safe journey into and through the school at the beginning and end of the day and in fact throughout the day?

  2. Whilst our parent governors were there a child was seen running unrestrained up the corridor being chased by a member if staff, this would obviously be a potential danger to one of our children. How would the school ensure that our children were protected and safe at all times and still had access to the school as a whole?

  3. Elleray does not have an open door policy to parents, this is vital. Please confirm that this will be changed as this is vital for parent’s confidence.

  4. Hydrotherapy – The pool is very small, this will be unsuitable for our children. There is no hoist from the changing area straight into the pool. The current method of transfer would not be suitable for our children who all have temperature regulation issues. The transfer takes far too long. Also, confirm how many hydrotherapy sessions our children will get per week? They currently get 2 per week. We were told that the children have class swims, how can the school manage this when each of our children need two staff in the water with them and some of our children have to stay in class due to medical issues, how will the school cater for the number of staff needed?

  5. Nurses – Please confirm how many full time nursing staff will be at each school for the children? Stanley currently have no nursing care and Elleray currently have 1. This is clearly insufficient, if our children were to join the school due to their high medical needs. They currently have two nurses.

  6. Elleray Park currently have a communal lunch and assembly, this is a very noisy and potentially stressful and dangerous experience for our children. How will our children be integrated safely into this or will they have to be confined to their classroom?

  7. How will the school ensure that they have sufficient staff to look after our children?

  8. Will the staff be taken from The Lyndale School?

  9. How many teachers and TA’s will be allocated per each child?

  10. How will the school ensure that they have enough staff for eg toileting – when needed, dependent on the child’s needs, each child can require changing between 3 and 8 times a day, 2 staff are required for each change and the appropriate number of staff are required to remain in the classroom with the remaining children. The Head Teacher at Elleray seemed to be under the impression that the children had staff from continuing care to look after these needs, the majority do not.

  11. How will the school ensure that there are staff available and trained to feed each child and administer water and vent gastrostomy tubes?

  12. How will the school fund the additional equipment needed for our children ie hoisting?

  13. Will the school ensure that they have a nurses room where a child can go if they are needing nursing assistance and “time out” due to feeling unwell during the day? Lyndale currently have this provision and Elleray do not.

We appreciate that these questions are numerous and detailed but this information should be readily available as part of the consultation and therefore expect a detailed answer to the same.

 

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

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

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

                            

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

The next question was about the £80,000 that had been raised by the public to pay for a sensory garden at Lyndale School. He asked what plans do they have for the sensory garden and how would you plan to get the money back to the people that donated it?

Phil Ward answered, “Well what it is, if a school, my colleagues can talk about the buildings on the site, but if a school does close clearly there would be in keeping, well we don’t know. We don’t know”.. “well resources that can be used, well resources that can be used certainly”… David Armstrong said, “It’s a what if question because there’s no decision made. There’s no real gardens, there’s no decision been taken to determine it.” The questioner replied with, “Well I’m sure if we knew at the time that there was the chance that all our hard work would be”… “we would not have done all that hard work.” to which David Armstrong replied, “All I will say is, all I will say is, that certainly in my time here we’ve always treated the school sites, what I’ve tried to do is do it with real sensitivity to what’s been the best care that I can.”

The questioner said it was a very, very unique school. David Armstrong replied with, “What we’ve done is anything that related to a particular pupil, anything that was in memory of a particular pupil we’ve dealt with that first and then we’ve gone on from that”…. The questioner asked who put the amphitheatre at the back of Lyndale School to which David Armstrong replied, “I don’t know.” The person asking the question said it was put there by lads working on a Youth Training Scheme for Wirral Action to which David Armstrong replied, “I can’t know every single detail.”

Phil Ward said, “Well clearly we’ve closed that one down, time moves on, there are different circumstances and we are where we are now.”

Ian Lewis said, “Four years ago, when I was a member of the Cabinet, the officers insisted on .. the officers brought a recommendation to close the Kingsway Primary School in Seacombe. It wasn’t a special school, it isn’t a special school and the argument for closing the school was that it isn’t financially viable.

I and the rest of the Cabinet voted against that proposal and four years later that school is still open and in its recent OFSTED inspection it was found to be outstanding. So on what basis do you think that, for the two directors, on the basis that this here is a school is for children who are vulnerable? If in four years time that’s still here, who’s to say it won’t be viable?”…

“Secondly, you mentioned the teaching in the other schools that you’re proposing Elleray Park and Stanley. That as I understand it won’t be one to one as we currently have at Lyndale, so issues such as basic issues such as toileting they would be left. If the children going to Lyndale, assuming this proposal went through, the children from Lyndale went to those other two schools and if their current level of education was to be maintained I would expect that they would have one to one levels of support as they have now, wouldn’t that therefore affect the viability of those schools that they were going to if they’re having to increase staffing to cope with the one to one and that’s a question to the two directors.”

Phil Ward said, “Well I’ll just reply to the one question if I may..”

Ian Lewis replied, “Sorry, I’m not familiar with who you are. Who are you?”

Phil Ward replied, “I’m the Strategic Lead for Special Educational Needs for Wirral. The question of one to one,…”

Ian Lewis said, “Can I ask the directors that question please?”

Phil Ward said, “If you’ll let me get to the last bit, the question of, I’ll bring them in in a sec, the question of one to one, I’ve spoken with the headteachers at the other schools and the basic premise that we’re working on and the staff that we’re working on that every school, every special school in this consultation can provide similar same levels of support to the youngsters if they had to move. It’s all about to the management of the curriculum and staff within the schools. Nothing is ruled out, nothing is impossible. We would not be significantly changing support for the children at the school.”

Ian Lewis replied, “Sorry if you can’t answer a question than I don’t think you should be involved. You haven’t answered the question about the children.” Phil ward interrupts. Ian Lewis continues despite the interruption, “What I’m saying is, let me finish please, what you’ve said is, you will move resources around into the two existing schools because of the increase in, for the children at Lyndale and therefore by definition, the education of the children in these two schools, will be diminished” and again Phil Ward interrupted him and they both started talking at the same time. Ian Lewis continued, “No sorry, will you please let me finish!? Let me continue please! It’s very, very rude for an officer, thank you! What I’m saying to you is, if you’ve got a set finite number of resources and don’t look at me like that I’d appreciate it. If you’ve got a finite number of resources and you share those amongst the number of pupils, then what you’re doing by putting more of those resources onto the children that need it as we have at Lyndale you must be taking those resources from somewhere.”

Phil Ward replied, “Right, I think I’ll bring in the Director on that.”

Continues at Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Kingsway, funding and hydrotherapy pools (part 6).

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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: 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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