Wendy Alexander called on the Council’s Education Policy Board to use the consultation period to think again. She offered a 3 point plan in her submission.

1.    Halt plans to half number of teachers working with pre 5s in Renfrewshire. Retain all teachers currently teaching pre 5s in Renfrewshire working with that age group – 39 at present but the consultation proposes cutting to 15-20.

2.    Keep Nursery Head Teachers. Retain all six head teachers in existing nurseries. The evidence shows head teachers bring vital leadership to everyone working in a nursery setting.

3.    Don’t dilute Snowdrop Unit’s expertise. Retain Snowdrop Unit in a Nursery with its own specialist head teacher and staff to give those children with special needs in particular the best start in life.

Wendy Alexander said

“I am aware the proposals before the Board are advocated on the basis that there will be other changes in staffing with the addition of some other non teaching professionals. Whilst more staff are always welcome this cannot be an excuse for halving the teacher numbers as will happen under current plans.

In their election manifesto the SNP claimed they were ‘concerned at the removal of nursery teachers from nurseries in some council areas’ and wanted to ‘deliver access to a fully qualified nursery teacher for every nursery age child, starting with children in deprived communities’.

Yet now we see an SNP-led council trying to claim that ensuring this ‘access’ means scrapping jobs and spreading a handful of teachers thinly over hundreds of children; some of whom suffer from the kind of deprivation that the SNP claimed they’d tackle as a priority.

I urge the Board to go back to the drawing board and come up with a solution that will raise, not cut the number of teachers working with pre-school children in Renfrewshire”.

Follow the link below to view Wendy’s submission to the council’s nursery consultation:

Renfrewshire Nurseries Formal Objection

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