Parents Must be Informed

At Tuesday evening's Council meeting there was a document from the South Eastern Education & Library Board called Review controlled School Provision in Bangor Town.

Cllr Smith said "I raised my concerns at a SEELB Board meeting and feel it necessary to do so at Council. My main concern was that the document has been circulated to Boards of Governors and not parents. Parents have not been consulted and are picking up bits and pieces of information which at times it is not always correct. This has led to worry that a number of primary schools have been targeted for closure. Also I am worried that the response is due to be with the SEELB by 24th June - I feel a very unrealistic deadline and one which has not included parent consultation.

The paper sets out the population level of Bangor town and recognises that the area is maturing and housing development has decreased over the years. Following on from this education provision has produced a number of surplus places in a number of primary schools.

There are a number of recommendations contained within the document for primary and post primary education and Council recommend that it restate their commitment to protecting the quality of education provision in North Down. The SEELB officers were also invited to speak to Council. Once again I felt this was getting the sequence of events in the wrong order. I proposed that Council write to the SEELB asking that the date of 24th June be extended to allow for full parent consultation. This proposal was accepted, I hope that parents of the area are provided with the consultation document, that they are consulted before any decision may be made.

I accept that there is overprovision of primary school places in North Down and that some hard decisions will need to be taken, but surely it is more sensible to bring people along with any form of consultation rather than information being handed down 2nd hand.