Julia Hassall | A blog about Wirral Council, Wirral Council's councillors & officers

Councillors discuss schools, free school meals and 4 Wirral schools in special measures

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Last night’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Attainment sub-committee started off well enough. Before the hour of six o’clock had even been reached, Cllr Moira McLaughlin was chomping at the bit to be made Chair. As there was only one Conservative councillor present and many, many Labour councillors, it was hardly likely she wouldn’t become Chair.

The Labour councillors then agreed to Cllr Wendy Clements being Vice-Chair.

The Chair, Cllr Moira McLaughlin pointed out that Cllr Alan Brighouse wasn’t present, but decided to continue the meeting anyway. To be perfectly honest I’m glad as if every meeting waited until Cllr Alan Brighouse was present things would never start on time as like another councillor he has a reputation for poor timekeeping.

Apologies were given for Julia Hassall who would be late. Declarations of interest were given as some councillors were school governors.

The minutes were agreed. The Chair said that the main thrust of the meeting would be a presentation from Deborah Gornik (who wasn’t there). The Chair was informed that Deborah Gornik would also be late as she (and presumably Julia Hassall) were “at another meeting”. Were they meeting each other? What was this other meeting about? Who knows?

The one officer (apart from the one taking the minutes) that had turned up on time, Sue Talbot gave her report on standards (which is not often a word you hear at public meetings of Wirral Council).

However this was about standards of education for at the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 level, with a focus on raising standards and what happened to the education of those in local authority care (adopted or fostered). The phrase “good news story” was repeated by Sue Talbot many times.

Cllr Alan Brighouse was the first to speak and used words like “pretty fantastic improvement” followed up by a question about falls in numbers of children eligible for free school meals. The answer given was that the eligible benefits for people for apply for free school meals had changed which partly explained the drop and in answer to a further question that the officer preferred to use numbers of children rather than percentages.

The Lib Dem spokesperson (as the only Lib Dem he’s therefore the spokesperson) continued to talk about primary schools becoming academies (at this point I wondered if he was going to explicitly mention Lyndale). Sue replied that Wirral Council still had legal duties towards academies and mentioned the academy representatives on the Wirral Schools Forum and Sue went on to say the good relationship that Wirral Council has with primary schools (which if you’ve been following the Lyndale story is a matter of opinion).

Cllr Wendy Clements then asked about floor targets, the officer replied that no schools triggered all four triggers but they had banded schools (sound familiar?) and there were four schools in band four… followed up by her favourite phrase again “good news story”. Cllr Clements asked a follow up question and the answer given was that they were keen to track children who come out of care but admitted that sometimes they don’t keep an eye on those children.

Cllr Moira McLaughlin asked a question about whether children subject to care orders were monitored. The officer replied not yet, but said that once the virtual headteacher role was shared that id would help. Cllr Walter Smith asked about intervention strategies. Sue Talbot gave a detailed reply going into detail about how two of her team concentrated on early years, one on english and one on maths. She said that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate had highlighted a problem they had with British working class boys and went into detail as to what her team does.

Cllr Walter Smith asked if nursery provision had any effect on children going into primary school. The answer given was yes as long as it was good quality. Cllr Tony Norbury referred to his work as a school governor and asked how the changes to school meals in primary schools would affect free school meals? The officer answered that schools were proactive at doing this as it led to additional funding through the pupil premium for them. Cllr Tony Norbury asked two follow up questions, to which the answers were “too early to tell” and “pupil’s circumstances change”.

Cllr Phillip Brightmore asked about free school meals too. The answer given was that how they encouraged people from September could be different as all infants would get free school meals. The councillor referred to the table and referred to the Wirral West figures. Sue Talbot referred to “pockets of deprivation” in Wirral West in her answer. He then brought up the results for Pensby High. Sue Talbot said that the results might change as the school had sent the whole cohort back for remarking therefore the figures were provisional.

Cllr Tony Norbury asked about English as a second language and the strategies there. Sue Talbot referred to the Ethnic Minority Achievement Service and how they need to support schools, however kids with English as a second language seemed to be better at phonics that people who had English as their mother tongue. She referred to Polish teaching assistants and Urdu speakers.

The Chair Cllr Moira McLaughlin moved the meeting to item 8 (OFSTED reports). Sue Talbot gave a brief introduction and talked about the four schools that were being monitored by OFSTED due to previously poor inspections. One was becoming an academy so would not be in special measures due to this as special measures status disappeared when a school became an academy.

Cllr Phillip Brightmore pointed out that such things “doesn’t help the kids”. Cllr Wendy Clements referred to a “clean start” followed by a comment by Cllr Alan Brighouse.

The officer explained that new academies were given twelve months to become established. A further inspection could happen any time after twelve months. There was an academy planned to start on the 1st September, but it hadn’t happened but the school had changed its name to Kingsway Academy. The delay had been caused due to complexities caused by the PFI contract.

At this point nearly half an hour into the meeting (at agenda item 8 out of 9), the Director of Children’s Services Julia Hassall and Deborah Gornik arrived.

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Wirral Council’s Cabinet to decide on one of 3 options for Lyndale: keep it open, close it or change it to an academy

Phil Ward (Wirral Council’s SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014 (who chaired the consultation meeting at Acre Lane on the 16th June and is referred to in some of the consultation responses)

Well the papers for the special meeting of Wirral Council’s Cabinet to decide on the next steps about Lyndale School have appeared on Wirral Council’s website.

Despite an officer refusing a month ago my Freedom of Information request for the consultation responses on the basis that they would be published (which implies that they would be published as part of the papers for the special Cabinet meeting) the consultation responses (a majority of responses are against closing the school) aren’t included in the papers for the Cabinet meeting.

In an exclusive for this blog I did publish them on Tuesday, but that’s not really the point.

I hate to labour the point, but this is how consultations are “supposed to work”. An idea or policy is proposed, you have a consultation on it, you then publish the consultation responses in an open and transparent way so that the decision makers take them on board.

Not including the consultation responses with the Cabinet papers for the special meeting, gives the impression that officers don’t want material published that would lead to say “awkward questions”. Surely doing consultations isn’t rocket science, surely Wirral Council has run so many consultations they know how to do it by now?

The “bureaucratic machinations” go beyond just this “oversight” of not including the approximately three hundred pages of consultation responses. After all some of those responses are very critical of the way the consultation was actually run.

Let’s take how officers deal with the large petition. This gets a brief mention in appendix 5 on the last page.

I quote “A petition was received in support of Lyndale School containing 10,692 entries, of which 2,580 were duplicates, illegible or un-named, missing or non-existent addresses and 3,178 were resident outside Wirral. The remaining 4,935 entries comprised 702 “written” entries and 4,233 “epetition” entries.”

Last time I checked, Wirral wasn’t its own country with a big twenty-foot wall on the border and rumours of “barbarians” outside Wirral that well, you don’t have to listen to. The school is in Eastham which is on the edge of Wirral! Of course there are going to be people outside of Wirral are going to sign the petition (some of whom will probably live far nearer the school than I do living in Bidston). To callously state or imply that the views of over three thousand people don’t count because they don’t live here, I mean well doesn’t this sum up an attitude that has caused some of the problems and got Wirral nicknamed the “insular peninsula”? Family members of those attending the school could be living outside the Wirral, so could staff or other people closely associated with the school.

Moving on to duplicates, there was a written petition and an e-petition, obviously some people will have signed both versions. As to “illegible or un-named, missing or non-existent addresses”, well (I’m writing this as someone who has in the past gone door to door collecting petition signatures but I’ll point out not this petition) there are many adults in today’s society that couldn’t write their own name and address even if they wanted to (a sad reflection of our education system). It doesn’t mean their views don’t count!

The report goes on to state “Note that the Wirral Council Petition Scheme says a valid e-petition entry requires name, postcode and e-mail address. The e-petition was submitted as part of the consultation with name and postcode but without e-mail address”, so basically what this is saying is that out of 10,692 petition signatures, a Wirral Council officer only classes the 702 on a written petition as “valid” and feels happy enough to just disregard the views of the other ten thousand people.

There is a breakdown of the petition signers by ward, obviously the ward where the school is based Eastham attracts the highest number.

However moving on to the crucial question of what is the actual recommendation of officers as to what to do next (and what’s the result of the independent report into whether the options meet the SEN Improvement Test)?

Well in a U-turn from previous statements about being minded to recommend closure, page 19 states “In January 2014 Cabinet agreed to undertake a consultation on the closure of The Lyndale School, the consultation closed in June 2014. This report recommends that Cabinet considers the contents of this report and makes a decision on this matter.” which probably to most people is a recommendation that is about as clear as mud as to what officers want but at least they’re trying to be impartial.

The reason given is “The Council has a responsibility to manage resources effectively for all schools and the school population. We would like to affirm our continued intention to work positively with the children and families affected by any recommendations, and reassure parents of our continued commitment to their child’s wellbeing and education.”

I will translate these two into plainer English for those not as familiar as myself with “Council speak”:

“In January* politicians decided to ask the public for their views on closing Lyndale School. Consultation with the public happened and finished in June. This report (written from the perspective of officers) tells you what we think happened during that consultation and it’s now time for politicians to make a decision.”

* Note: since January the politicians on the Cabinet have changed as Brian Kenny lost his seat in the May elections to the Green Party and Cllr Harry Smith has also left meaning there are two different Labour councillors taking these places (Cllr Stuart Whittingham and Cllr Bernie Mooney).

“It is about money, but don’t blame us senior officers for all this as we’re trying to put children first.”

So, what’s likely to happen and which of the options have been ruled out as they don’t meet the SEN Improvement Test?

Well this is detailed in the “independent” report.

This report states in section 5.2 “In reality the only viable course of action is Option 7, to close the Lyndale
School and expand Stanley School and Elleray Park School to provide 220/230 places.”

However the report is more detailed than that. Let’s analyse each of the options in detail:

Option 7.1 which are variations on retaining Lyndale

Retain Lyndale and change funding bands

The report states that it is unlikely that the funding bands will be reviewed until after the end of financial year 2014/15, which let’s face it by the time a review and consultation is undertaken on this, Lyndale could’ve been closed down. Even though the banding decision is a political one that politicians could change their minds (if they so wished) on at any time and a final decision on next year’s school budget has yet to be made. The independent report refers to the deficit, but many schools operate with a surplus or a deficit (they don’t get earmarked for closure though). As this is “no change” option, the SEN Improvement Test is met.

Retain Lyndale School and restrict places at Elleray Park and Stanley

The report author seems to be against this option on grounds of parental choice “Restriction of places at either of the schools will restrict parental choice. This may result in appeals by parents to the SEN Tribunal. Restriction of places also goes against Government policy which encourages the expansion of popular schools.”

Retain Lyndale School and extend to full range of CLD

The report author states that if Lyndale School took on children with CLD then these would be children they would receive less money for (per a child) than the children with PMLD which would worsen their financial situation rather than improve it.

Retain Lyndale School and school commits to take full range of CLD. Stanley and Elleray Park admissions kept to place numbers

This option also includes changing the funding bands for children at Lyndale. There aren’t any major quibbles the report author seems to have with this option and quotes statistics (based on July 2014 figures) of Stanley with 100 children and ninety places, Elleray Park has 94 children and 90 places. So both schools are currently oversubscribed based on their places.

It mentions that Stanley School could take as high as 120 children and once the building work at Elleray Park is completed in September 2015, that its capacity will increase to 110.

Option 7.2 Lyndale becomes a 2-19 school

The report author goes into detail as to this option, but points out that it could take about seven years for numbers to reach about fifty. The report author sees this as a “high risk option” as it would require capital investment in the school and run the risk of not working out. Four parts of the SEN Improvement test are quoted as not being met for this option. Although this is an option parents want, it seems highly unlikely this will happen.

7.3 Federate (hard or soft) with another school with Lyndale remaining on current site

There is nobody obvious that Lyndale would federate with and this option is ruled out as not meeting three of SEN Improvement Test requirements.

7.4 Co-locate Lyndale School with another special school (which also covers co-locate and federate with another special school)

As with 7.3 there’s no-one obvious that Lyndale would federate with, this option is looked at in detail and ruled out as not meeting three of the SEN Improvement Test requirements.

7.5 Lyndale becoming an Academy/Free School

Such a decision is for the Department for Education and parents, the report author still thinks that Lyndale will have problems with funding but cannot demonstrate how it would/wouldn’t meet the SEN Improvement Test.

7.6 Close Lyndale School. Open two SLD bases in Primary schools for 6/8 pupils each. Expand
Elleray Park and Stanley schools to 100 each

This has a number of sub options which are

Close Lyndale
Close Lyndale and open SLD bases in two primary schools
Close Lyndale, open SLD places in two primary schools and expand Elleray Park and Stanley to 100 each
Close Lyndale and open a PMLD base on the new Foxfield site

However this is ruled out as it doesn’t meet four of the requirements in the SEN Improvement Test.

7.7 Close Lyndale. Expand Stanley/Elleray Park schools to provide 220/230 places

This option also contains the option “Close Lyndale and expand either Stanley or Elleray Park”.

The report author considers the first option as meeting the SEN Improvement Test (however doesn’t go into much detail). The second option is considered to not meet the SEN Improvement Test because of parental choice grounds.

7.8 Close Lyndale School but retain the site making another school a split site school. The Lyndale site would be retained for as long as felt necessary

The suboptions are “until children currently at the school had left” and “until the receiving school no longer required it”.

This is ruled out as not meeting four of the requirements of the SEN Improvement Test.

So the options Cabinet will be considering next Thursday that aren’t ruled out as they breach the requirements of the SEN Improvement Test (which can be quite subjective but this is based on the report author’s opinion are):

Option 7.1 Retain Lyndale

This is further split into sub options such as retain Lyndale and change funding bands, retain Lyndale School and restrict places at Elleray Park and Stanley, retain Lyndale School and extend to full range of CLD and retain Lyndale School and school commits to take full range of CLD. Stanley and Elleray Park admissions kept to place numbers.

Option 7.5 Lyndale becoming an Academy/Free School

The author can’t say one way or the author as to whether this option breaches any of the requirements of the SEN Improvement Test.

Option 7.7 Close Lyndale. Expand Stanley/Elleray Park schools to provide 220/230 places

This is the option that people associated with Lyndale School don’t want. However if Cabinet chose this option it would trigger a further consultation and a future decision to be made following that consultation.

So therefore the three options that aren’t ruled out by in some way breaching the SEN Improvement Test (according to the report author) are:

1) various options on the theme of keeping Lyndale,
2) the Academy/Free School option (which depends on the Department for Education agreeing to it) or
3) closing Lyndale.

Wirral Council’s Cabinet will meet in Committee Room 1 at Wallasey Town Hall in Brighton Street, Seacombe starting at 6.15pm for a special meeting just to make a decision on Lyndale School (which will be a public meeting).

If you would like to contact the people who will be making the decision, contact details are below (although it is always possible that some of these people will not be able to make it to the meeting, however even if not present at the meeting they are bound by collective responsibility for decisions taken). Please note the addresses below are home addresses in case you want to write to them in advance of the meeting by post.

The papers for this meeting have been published on Wirral Council’s website and the consultation responses can be read here.

Councillor Phil Davies (he chairs the Cabinet meetings) phildavies@wirral.gov.uk/ 0151 625 3320 / 07720 073154 / 16 Westbourne Grove, West Kirby, Wirral, CH48 4DL

Cllr Ann McLachlan (she often chairs Cabinet meetings if Cllr Phil Davies is not available) annmclachlan@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 522 0299 / 27 Danefield Road, Greasby, CH49 3BP

Cllr George Davies georgedavies@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 653 4265 / 07713 644330 / 46 Shamrock Road, Claughton, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH41 0EQ

Cllr Adrian Jones adrianjones@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 638 9050 / 10 Elmswood Road, Seacombe, Wallasey, CH44 8DB

Cllr Chris Jones christinejones@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 638 9050 / 07853 042243 / 10 Elmswood Road, Seacombe, Wallasey, CH44 8DB

Cllr Chris Meaden chrismeaden@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 645 1729 / 07738 824130 / 19 Inglemere Road, Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH42 4QL

Cllr Pat Hackett pathackett@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 638 1543 / 07771 972302 / 7 Wood Lane, Wallasey, Wirral, CH45 8QP

Cllr Tony Smith (he is the Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services whose portfolio Lyndale School falls under) tonysmith@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 677 1384 / 27 South Drive, Upton, Wirral, Merseyside, CH49 6LA

Cllr Bernie Mooney berniemooney@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 200 8089 / 07811 060891 / 30 Brompton Avenue, Liscard, Wallasey, Wirral, CH44 0BD

Cllr Stuart Whittingham stuartwhittingham@wirral.gov.uk / 0151 653 5539 / 16 Fender Way, Prenton, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH43 7ZJ

All of the above ten politicians are members of the Labour Party. If you wish to contact one of your three local councillors (assuming that you live on the Wirral) their contact details are here, but it will only be names listed above (assuming they can make it) who will be making the decision at the special Cabinet meeting about Lyndale School.

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Hoylake RNLI Open Day and the top 7 stories this week

It’s a Bank Holiday today and although I’ve been down to the Hoylake RNLI Open Day today and taken plenty of photos which is a story on that can wait till tomorrow. Three years ago I wrote about the Area Forum where the beginnings of what is now the Hoylake Lifeboat Museum were discussed, which is one of the buildings that is open as part of the Open Day.

Wirral Council’s interest in the car park next to the Hoylake Lifeboat Museum was as you can read from this story in the Wirral News from 2010 was originally going to be sold off along with where the museum is after a decision by former Cllr Simon Holbrook (who was then Cabinet Member for Corporate Resources) in November 2010. However the decision was “called in” by councillors and reconsidered in December 2010, a letter from Hylgar Properties Limited being one of the factors that led to a changed decision. Despite brief mentions about that call in meeting, here and here on this blog, it seems I never did get round to writing up a detailed account of what happened at that call in meeting back in December 2010, however the minutes of what happened at the call in are on Wirral Council’s website.

As it is a bank holiday today, I will just be writing briefly today about what has been popular on this blog in the last week and taking the rest of the day off. The last week (August is traditionally a quiet month for politics) has seen 551 visitors to this blog viewing 1,247 pages. The top seven stories in order of popularity the last week have been:

1) Why did Wirral Council spend an incredible £1,872 on a London barrister to prevent openness and transparency?

2) The incredible £754,783.18 that Wirral Council councillors cost (plus amounts for the Mayor & Deputy Mayor)

3) Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall “we’re not having straightforward consultation” (part 10)

4) Planning Committee on 8:5 vote approves plans for Tranmere Rovers training ground to move to Leasowe

5) Bidston Moss Retail Park: Five New Units Under Construction

6) Birkenhead Market Limited Accounts: Is This The Reason Behind Neptune’s Masterplan?

and

7) Government asks councils in England to bid for £16 million of money to tackle fraud

Note the Contact details for 66 Wirral Council councillors (2014) is in joint 7th place but as it is just for information I have not included it in the above list.

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Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Julia Hassall “we’re not having straightforward consultation” (part 10)

Phil Ward (Wirral Council’s SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014 (who chaired the consultation meeting at Acre Lane on the 16th June)

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Lyndale School Closure Consultation Meeting 16th June 2014 (Audio only)

Continues from Lyndale School Consultation Meeting: Cllr Dave Mitchell “They need the care they’ve got!” (part 9).

This transcript below starts at 1:05:50 in the video above.

DAVID ARMSTRONG (ASSISTANT CHIEF EXECUTIVE)
Just before we get to it, just before we get to it, I’ll just make the point about you’ll know there a number of people sitting here who will know we’re having discussions about Elleray Park and Stanley …(unclear)… and more recently we’ve been having discussions about Foxfield based on comments that have been made towards us.

Subsequently and clearly I’ve got to talk about the nature around the Wallasey School, but what was referred to was Wallasey School is currently based at an outpost base where inevitably …(unclear)… similar …(unclear)… some space …(unclear)… and I think that’s a very short-term arrangement, so it’s nothing at all to do with the Lyndale School.

TOM HARNEY (CHAIR OF GOVERNORS)
Well thanks for that point about a shared site.

JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
Can I just come back to the point the gentleman made at the back you know? I’ll come back in a minute on what Alison McGovern said. You’ve said why haven’t we got parents at the front telling?

GENTLEMAN AT BACK
I said there’s, I don’t want to object, but whether it was legal.

JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
and I had a meeting with the Chief Executive of the Council, Graham Burgess. There were three parent governors, two of whom are here tonight and they said to Graham Burgess and myself, it feels like we’re not having straightforward consultation about some of these issues. We don’t know err what you’re doing to investigate the other eight options along with the other proposals that have come forward and what we have done and what Alison McGovern also said was I think, was is there something about, can you recreate Lyndale ethos in a different setting? Can you explore that and so we’ve had one meeting so far, we’ve got another meeting on Friday, to try and have a different kind of conversation about how we explore all the different options because I think the gentleman here raised the point when we were at the Floral Pavilion, it feels like when we have these meetings sometimes you can, questions from the floor, we know we kind of almost it feels like defend the position, whereas you can with smaller groups sometimes saying you can have a different kind of conversation but we’re doing that in tandem with these meetings to try and flush out all the different options and look at them in real detail.

GENTLEMAN FROM AUDIENCE
OK, well can I just say that the replication of Lyndale and that’s what I want to talk about. Lyndale even though we knew at the beginning of the year and it’s fully documented, it says many of the children have had PMLD [profound and multiple learning disabilities], it’s the actual, it’s the vast majority, it’s almost all the children.

JULIA HASSALL (DIRECTOR OF CHILDRENS’ SERVICES)
It is.

GENTLEMAN FROM AUDIENCE
So, the reason why Lyndale is so effective in that area is because it’s a small, lovely school and it does feel like, it does feel like a home and people say …(unclear)… 0.1%, it’s the very most vulnerable of our children. So they are all, this facility actually caters for them because they are vulnerable, they are vulnerable to other more boisterous children in care.

They need more responsible adult care, they are in the absolute …(unclear)… in this Borough and the reason why I’ve gone round approaching all those businesses, is because one hundred percent of the people think that that 0.1% of our most vulnerable children should be the …(unclear)… number one priority on everybody’s agenda and everything else should come second to this.

He received a round of applause for what he had said.

1:09:00

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How was the history of the Lyndale School closure consultation rewritten by Wirral Council?

Phil Ward (Wirral Council's SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014

Phil Ward who chaired the consultation (Wirral Council’s SEN Lead) at a later meeting of Wirral Schools Forum 2nd July 2014

A while ago, well nearly two months ago I was at the last of the six consultation meetings about Lyndale School. Nobody could really fathom out then why the officers were keeping the notes of these meetings “a secret”. In fact, had it not been for the Freedom of Information Act request of the Wallasey Conservatives I doubt they wouldn’t have been published for a further few weeks (and let’s face it they can use “future publication” as a reason to turn down FOI requests).

The officer chairing that meeting, Phil Ward was adamant in that meeting that the notes were for councillors on the Cabinet. Previously on this blog I’ve written up a transcript of the first hour or so of that meeting. Yesterday I compared the transcript of the meeting to the notes that officers wanted to use to tell Cabinet Members about the meeting.

One of the councillors in Eastham (where Lyndale School is) (who was present at the meeting) is Cllr Chris Carubia. He has written several books for example, The Raven Flies which is described as “finding out the location of his father, Sigurd and his crew, join King Olaf of Norway’s invasion to the land of the Moor’s, encounter a strange new culture and battle a savage new enemy”. I’ve never read any of his books (this isn’t really a blog for book reviews) but this is to make a point. The reason I mention this obscure fact is that his books would be put in a library under the “fiction” section. He used his imagination to come up with them. They’re made up.

This is probably where the notes (which let’s face it officers were going to use to persuade Cabinet to make the decision they wanted) should be as they are veering towards a fictional account of that meeting. Now the alternative viewpoint is, oh don’t be so cruel John, officers are doing their best under difficult circumstances. Yes, they are, but we’ve seen this subtle rewriting of history recently before at the Improvement Board where Wirral Council asked for questions from the public, rewrote their questions and handed out the “approved” version of history to those at the meeting hoping nobody would “spot the difference”.

So what is the proof I have of this? Well yesterday (and believe me it took some time to do as it was a two-hour meeting) I compared the notes to the transcript of what was said by whom. I am only about halfway through the meeting. It is only then when you can compare and contrast the two versions that you see what edits were made, what was left out and how things were changed. After all this is consultation, Wirral-style where we ask for your contributions but then officers meddle afterwards with them.

Call me biased (because let’s face it on Lyndale I am and it’s an editorial line we all agree on here but this is a serious point about how consultations are done and how decision-making happens). Is this the way consultations should be done? If the information politicians take into account when making important decisions has been altered in between being gathered and being put before politicians by officer/s is this honest? Does the way the notes were presented originally give anybody reading them the impression that the meeting was vastly different to how it happened and the misleading impression (as apart from a brief list of some present) as no names are used so that officer’s views can look like people responding to the consultation?

Below this is just the first half of the meeting compared to the notes. Things I have added are I hope highlighted in green. There are aspects of the notes that are broadly similar to what happened and I’ve left them in unedited. The aspects of the notes that seem to be at odds with what was said, have got a line through and are replaced with a direct quote of what was actually said. There are sections which were originally blank in the notes and some of the extra detail has been added.

This is so you can compare the “Wirral Council version” to my version of what happened based on the transcript. I hope that is clear. Most of the changes happen to the “key points” column. As names aren’t in the original version, this could’ve originally given the misleading impression that “key points” were made by the public. However this is just officers’ (and the Cabinet Member’s) viewpoints. It would take a long time to transcribe the rest of the meeting and do the same with the last few pages of the notes. If I have the time I will though. You can listen to the whole consultation meeting at Acre Lane about Lyndale from start to finish if you wish. Please leave a comment on this as (as has been mentioned many times by politicians and others before) getting consultation right is key to the decision making process at Wirral Council.

Annotations are added in red.

Public Consultation Meeting re The Lyndale School held at Acre Lane

16^th June 2014: 5.30pm to 7.30pm

In Attendance:

Julia Hassall: Director of Children’s Services, Phil Ward Senior Manager SEN, Councillor Tony Smith: Lead Member for Children and Family Services (arrived late not present from start), David Armstrong: Assistant Chief Executive, Andrew Roberts: Senior Manager School Funding and Resources.

Attendees 34.

Questions/Comments Key points

Can we have a copy of the notes which you have been taking throughout the 6 consultation meetings

Could you then have key bullet points, or pick

up the themes and can we see them.

These are high level summary notes and not minutes and we will be using them to inform Cabinet. They are to capture your views

Phil Ward: “They’re not for circulation.”

They will be made public when our report goes

to Cabinet

I have been to 100 companies so far and have asked them what they think of the closure of Lyndale and they are 100% against it.

You are public servants and you should be serving the needs of people not yourself

Thank you for your comments

Phil Ward: “Is that something you’d like to submit to us?”

The consultation document is not worth the

paper it is written on

Phil Ward: “point taken”

When the children’s assessments are done

will they be used to cost need. Will you look at the banding

The assessment is about capturing the most up to date information of a child. This will be done on an individual basis

Phil Ward “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”

The banding system is new and it was agreed by the Schools Forum.

There will be review after the first year. DA/AR will feed this information you are raising back to the Forum

David Armstrong “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.” … He referred to the Schools Forum and how questions about the banding feed into the Schools Forum.

Ed – 1st update: Everything below this has gone a bit wrong (table wise) below this point. I’m working on fixing it! 2nd update: Fixed (11:36 13/8/14) 3rd update 3:55 pm removed duplicate cell in column 1 (above)

Councillor Dave Mitchell:

Will the petition from
5 years ago also be presented to Cabinet?

“Will that include the decisions made by Council which were fully supported by all parties?”

All 3 parties fully supported it and decided not to close Lyndale

“I think that’s a very important issue, it should actually be highlighted. It was a notice of motion to Council and it was fully supported by the local authority at that time.”

David Armstrong: No, it would just include references to previous reports.

Julia Hassall: This is a new consultation.

“We did make clear reference to that to my recollection at the call in.”

Lyndale school is a fabulous resource inside
the school as well as outside. We are able to take our children out so that they can enjoy the trees, the garden etc. The idea of
squashing us into another school is not conducive to provide a high level of care and education

Phil Ward: “Thank you for that point.”

Is it 5 or 10 places in Stanley School, it is
just a play on words

The new building was built to accommodate a higher number of pupils.

The number of extra places will depend on the needs of the children

David Armstrong: “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.”

Are there any PMLD children at Stanley School at the present time?

No, but there are some children with PMLD at Elleray Park

David Armstrong: “The school was built to take the full range of PMLD.”

I have visited Stanley School and I would be petrified to leave my child there.
I think it would be a massive risk as I don’t
think my child will be safe “would
be absolutely petrified to leave Scott there. I’m absolutely petrified.”

Both Head Teachers are confident that they can safely integrate your children into their school. Across the country there are many
schools who do this successfully

Phil Ward thanked her for her point.

Has anyone spoken to Paediatricians or
Specialist Health Visitors about this consultation

Phil Ward: “Sorry I can’t speak for paediatricians, but surely the point… No they have not, no is the answer to that.”

What is going to happen if there are growing
numbers with children with CLD if you transfer our children into Elleray and Stanley

This is something which we have to manage all the time. We need to keep
up with the changes in SEN.

Phil Ward 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.

In your special arrangements to provide an up
to date assessment of each child you need to take into account that some of the children don’t have language etc and the
environment is as important as well as relationships, friends, as well as a sense of place and security. They need a safe environment and this could be difficult if you mix them with children who have ASC
ASD (autistic spectrum disorders)

We have asked our Principal Educational Psychologist to ensure that we have an up to date picture of each child and their needs. She understands each child and if we know the needs of each child, this will help to drive our future provision

Julia Hassall “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 interacty with each other.”

What about Councillor Chris Carubia: However nobody had mentioned Foxfield School before?
That was a great provision why have you not put this forward as an option

This is a secondary school; children come into this school at aged 11. One of the options mentioned in the consultation document is a 2 to 19 provision. We are looking at Foxfield School as an option as parents have asked us to.

Also it is important to remember that if we close Lyndale we will have a discussion about each child and parents can state their preference for any school

How come at Stanley only 90% is funded,
will this mean that the other 10% will not be funded and have to
be found our of their resources

She said that there were ten children at the school [Stanley] that were not funded and would this be sorted out if the Lyndale School children went to Stanley School?

Annually there is a census for each
school. Numbers are reviewed and amended taking this into
account.

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.”

We gained public support when we fund raised £80,000 for the sensory garden,
if you close what will happen to it and how will you give the money back to the general
public who had donated it?

This
was their hard work and you are going to knock down Lyndale!

There is an amphitheatre; do you know who built it?

It was the YTS lads from Wirral Action

Phil Ward: “We don’t know”
David Armstrong: “there’s no decision been taken to determine it”….
In other schools we have always made sure that if we were about to
close and transfer the children, we relocate
any other equipment where possible. “anything that was in memory of a particular pupil we’ve dealt with that first and then we’ve gone on from that” We will look to relocate the sensory garden

David Armstrong: “I don’t know.”

David Armstrong: “I can’t know every detail.”

Ian Lewis

4 years ago officers put forward a
proposal to close Kingsway Primary
School because it was not financially viable and this was voted against and this school is still here. So what is to say 4 years on Lyndale will not be the same and continuing to deliver high quality care and education.

“If in four years time that’s [Lyndale] still here, who’s to say it won’t be viable?”

Kingsway remains a small school which limits its budget income and there is
an outstanding Council resolution to carry out a review.

David Armstrong “In Kingsway, we haven’t gone back, but at some point there’s a Council resolution to go back and revisit Kingsway.”

Elleray and Stanley school do not
always provide 1 to 1 support or even 2 – 1 support for their children so if you relocate Lyndale will that not effect
their financial viability

The Head Teachers of both schools are
confident that they will be able to manage integration of the children from Lyndale.

Ian Lewis

5 years ago at a full council meeting
all 3 parties agreed to keep Lyndale open. Therefore the message is keep it open

Julia Hassall The
difficulty as mentioned is that there is a change to the funding formula and we have been funding empty spaces in this school. You
have been really clear during these consultations that what you want is wherever your children go to school that it needs to
replicate the provision at Lyndale

“No, no the significant difference Ian now to five years ago, is the government have changed the funding formula. So Lyndale is
currently funded as if there were actually forty children at that school and over the last seven years, the numbers have gone down. It’s been about fifty odd percent occupancy in the school and following the exact funding formula, it will mean that as some point, the £10,000 per a child will have to be applied and that will mean £230,000 for twenty-three children as opposed to £400,000 because there aren’t the children in the places.”

I have an issue in relation to the banding of our children. I accept that they all have different needs but my worry is that my child who is on band 4 is getting £8,000 less than others on a band 5 but what will happen at Stanley School?
what band are they because how much money are they going to have taken off them?

We do not think that this will work as my son needs 1 to 1 care as although my son can feed himself he also needs to be fed as well.

Andrew Roberts: The banding is a new system and only came into being on 1^st April 2014.

David Armstrong The question about whether your child is on the right band needs to be fed in to their annual review. You can also take this up with the Principal Educational Psychologist.

Julia Hassall said, “Can I just add one other bit, I think it’s important to feed that in through the psychologist when the meetings are taking place as well.”

If the banding was changed would that keep the school open?

David Armstrong:

In relation to the National Funding, Local
Authorities have the ability to say what system they are going to use and Wirral chose to do a banding system which has no flexibility.

“decided to do away with this system, which you know because it was easier,
but it really doesn’t have much flexibility or address the actual needs of the children involved.”

The difficulty is that by the time you go to the Schools Forum to change this system, Lyndale will be closed

(no response given)

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