A Formal Community Response & Alternative Proposal

7/30/2019 A Formal Community Response & Alternative Proposal

1/14

A Formal Community Response

and Alternative Proposal

to North Lanarkshire Council's

Learning & Leisure Service's

Committee proposal to

Rationalise Abronhill High School

and

Cumbernauld High School

into one campus

from term 2013-14,

under the

Schools (Consultation)(Scotland)Act 2010


2/14

Presented by the

Community of Abronhill

and supported by:

Abronhill High School Parents Council

Abronhill Primary School Parent Council

Whitelees Primary School Parent Council

Parents of Language & Communications Support

Centre in CHS

members of the Cumbernauld High School Parent

Council

Abronhill Regeneration Forum

Abronhill Learning Trust

Abronhill Housing Association

Retail outlets within Abronhill

community groups and clubs in Abronhill

Save Abronhill High School working groups


3/14

National Support Against the

Closure of Abronhill High School

Ian Rankin (Author)

Tam Cowan (TV and Radio Presenter)

Tam Dean Burn (Actor)

Dave Anderson (Actor and 'Gregory's Dad')

Colin McCredie (Taggart)

Frankie Boyle (Comedian)

Irvine Welsh (Author)

Melanie Masson (X Factor)

Tom Urie (River City)

Alex Norton (Gregory's Girl and Taggart)

Hardeep Singh Kohli (Writer and Presenter)

Gary Hollywood (Actor)

Tom Kitchin (Chef)

Darius Campbell (Singer)

Mikey Hughes (Big Brother)

Andy Cameron (Comedian)


4/14

Ross King (Presenter)

Janey Godley (Comedian)

Shebhan Littlejohn (Clyde 1 Presenter and DJ)

Emma B (DJ)

Stu Who (Comedian)

Stuart Hepburn (Screenwriter and Actor)

Patrick Harkins (Film Maker, Director and Writer)

Lynn Ferguson (Actress and Writer)

Graeme Stirling (Actor)

Kathleen Crawford (Casting Agent)

Dr K A Laity (Author)

Simon Weir (Actor)

Steve Boggan (Journalist and Writer)

Justin Leighton (Photographer)

The Vaselines

Eugene Kelly (Singer and Songwriter)

and many more...


5/14

Contents

Part 1 Summary of Critical Appraisal of the Consultation

Part 2 - Background Details about Abronhill as a Community.

Part 3 - Rationale for the Rejection of the Proposal by NLC to merge both AHS and CHS and why we

believe it would have a detrimental effect on educational standards in both schools and cause long

lasting damage to the community of Abronhill which North Lanarkshire Council have a legal duty to

consider within the context of community planning and development.

Part 4 A Formal Alternative Community-led Proposal for Abronhill High School setting out an

incremental list of money saving options for a different utilisation of so-called excess capacity.

Part 5 - A Formal Alternative Proposal for Cumbernauld High School with options if AHS is not closed.


6/14

Part 1

Summary of Critical Appraisal to the NLC Proposal For Consultation to merge Cumbernauld

High School with Abronhill High School from term 2013-14

We, as a group, have examined in detail the consultation paper issued by the Learning and Leisure

Committee of NLC and the framework within which councils must work, namely the legal parameters

and template set out within the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 where set procedure and

due process are laid out and our statutory rights delineated as consultees, and believe there to be 9

points by which we can request a Ministerial call in for breaches of the Schools Act 2010 and herby give

advance notice of our intent to do so immediately following NLC councilors decision, in January 2013, to

close AHS and to pursue same to Judicial review, if necessary to protect, in essence:

Our community from economic decline Educational standards and achievement of pupils at AHS

We have examined the consultation document in great detail and have many concerns about the waythe evidence is presented to us as consultees and consider that some of the evidence has been

conceived and written with an inbuilt bias towards closure of AHS and wish independent expert advice

on both the presentation and veracity of the evidence and hence the overall legality of the consultation

process. One example of this is the bold assertive statement on EIA on the consultation document,

which refers to an EIA on the internet and under close scrutiny, it turns out the EIA states almost

everything is under the category Dont know. The latter should negate the former in this case as it is

seriously misleading. All of the critical points appraised by us will form part of our submission to the

Scottish Minsiters for call in and further legal action if necessary.


7/14

Part 2

Background to Formal Alternative Proposals: Abronhill as a Community.

Abronhill has always been a satellite town with its own identity. Abronhill was the first outlying village

in Cumbernauld to be built which had its own local shopping centre and schools and achieved a mixed

development from small to large dwellings at a medium density but with contrasting forms to achieve a

sense of place and identity. Abronhill has already lost a Primary School, two nursery schools, and threesmall community buildings due to cuts in recent years.


8/14

Part 3

Rationale Behind our Rejection of the L & LS Committee proposal to merge both AHS and CHS

....to contribute to the social and economic regeneration of communities by providing a range

of council services in the new refurbished school buildings. NLC Education Dept policy.

Our rejection of the proposal to merge AHS with CHS is based upon two fundamental issues: 1) evidencebased concerns that educational standards would not be maintained if the merger went ahead and, 2)

concerns that the school closure would result in a major decline socially and economically in the middle

part of Abronhill. These two concerns coalesce in our collective desire to maintain and protect our

community and we consider it the councils responsibility to us as taxpayers, to provide quality

education and manage public owned resources in our community. We desire to see implemented, into

practice, the theoretical policy statement of North Lanarkshire Council to encourage community

participation, to encourage community development and planning and provide a professional service for

People first. The Corporate Plan of the council advises us of the corporate desire to 'Create strong

sustainable town centres and communities that are attractive places to live in, work and visit' and the

Convenor of L & LS, Mr Logue, has affirmed that schools should be "facilities to benefit entire

communities". Abronhill is at once an integral part of Cumbernauld in its entirety but forms one of theclearly defined local based communities with its own identity and local services. The closure of Abronhill

High School, set at the physical heart of the community, would be inconsistent with these policy

statements of the council. Abronhill High school is geographically, economically and educationally,

central to our community. That NLC could propose a closure of such a vital part of our community

without any notion of planning ahead for the benefit of the community what would arise in the place of

the school, post merger, suggests a dereliction of duty towards local taxpayers.

Various points illustrate the central role of AHS in the community of Abronhill:

Many shops rely on the term-time revenue of pupils and teachers alike to sustain them andwithout that, many would close. This would impact greatly on the community, especially

young families and the elderly who cannot always rely on going to the main town centre shops.

Many families choose to live in Abronhill because all facilities are within walking distance andmany may not move into the area due to a lack of facilities should this closure go ahead. This

would almost certainly result in a decline in the value of housing a local school is always a

selling point to families - and subsequent degeneration of the community.

The school facilities and grounds are utilised after school hours (every night) by many sportsclubs from football, zumba, taekwondo, dance, etc, and is attended by all ages of people from

within Abronhill and also from other areas within Cumbernauld. The sports facilities at Abronhill

and near the school are superior to the facilities at CHS.

Abronhill Regeneration Forum (ARF) utilise the school grounds for gala day to raise funds whichcontributes to the insurance of the Community Playpark that was built using funds raised by ARF

through the Lottery fund. AHS has been developing their Creative Arts department (Art, Music

and Drama) and has become very successful. There are performances held in the school

throughout the year and are well attended by the community. The band 'Vagabond Thieves' and

many others performed at this years Community Gala day.


9/14

There are many concerns by the community regarding the safety of their children on theisolated paths through dense woodland to CHS. A concerned parent who has professional

expertise within the community safety environment, providing personal safety advice to adults

and young people, said 'I would not recommend use of either pathways by persons walking

during the dark, autumn and winter mornings and nights. I would not use the paths alone myself

in these conditions due to the lack of natural visibility. Safety is first and foremost about

prevention, not cure.' Whatever assurances are provided by local Police about the low level ofcrime on the routes to and from the CHS site at present can only be retrospective and cannot

take into account the dynamic change in demographic were this merger forced through and

100s of pupils forced to walk these paths. These paths are simply an unsafe hazard to our

children.

We also believe the proposals will result in a drop in educational standards for our children, at least for

the duration of the transitional period before any new build is erected at CHS campus, which may be

2016, at least a three year period. Even post-new build, there is incontrovertible evidence from Hays

Group who conducted the largest study of school mergers ever collated in British educational history

that Over half of the school mergers studied resulted in a sustained decline in standards of performance

for students. (See Hays publication Staying On Track: Securing the Performance of Schools after Merger

and Amalgamation, at www.haygroup.co.uk/education - publications). The tools required of the

service to avert such a decline as mentioned by the Hays Group as essential are not evident within the

consultation document or the EBS. Nor are we assured that the additional resources needed for the

transitional phase, again as mentioned by Hays Group as key to the bridge between old and new

schools, are part of the EBS or within the proposal. The largest published evidence on school closure

within the UK pinpoints resources that are missing from the consultation document: Schools facing a

merger need additional resources and support to help them plan and implement the organisational

changes appropriately. (Op cit). We, therefore wish to maintain AHS to maintain the high educational

standards hitherto successfully achieved by pupils and staff. Further, having spoken to community

leaders within the CHS area, it is clear there is a considerable body of evidence to suggest a merger

which involves a Language and Communication Learning centre for ASN pupils across the autistic

spectrum, would cause problems among ASN pupils in their progression and integration within the

mainstream curriculum. The previous slow successful achievement of many ASN pupils would possibly

be put in jeopardy and disrupted by an almost doubling of pupil capacity from term 2013-14. There is no

material consideration within the EBS to cover this genuine community concern for these pupils,

however small a part they are of the total pupil roll.
http://www.haygroup.co.uk/educationhttp://www.haygroup.co.uk/educationhttp://www.haygroup.co.uk/education


10/14

Part 4

Alternative Proposal for the School Estate management of North Lanarkshire Council to

consider with specific reference to Abronhill High School

Having delineated our rationale of objection to the councils formal proposal, we now explain our

incremental options for alternative proposals and ask this is given consideration to be presented to the L

& LS committee as alternative estate utilisation with various possible services to be considered as viable

alternatives. We have split these alternatives into five main proposals with a further breakdown of 10

possible additional options in combination of various services which might utilise excess capacity within

AHS.

1. Abronhill High School should be maintained within the council education estate and any future

refurbishment assessed as and when required. Refurbishment is considerably cheaper than a

new build.

2. That the education service should investigate the possible integration of one or more Abronhill

council based services (or other educational service within Cumbernauld) to be housed within

the school facility, on an incremental optional basis, as follows:

Incremental Option 1

AHS has the capacity to incorporate at minimum, the existing Abronhill Library staff and books

now extant in a separate building, providing savings to the service in building heating and

maintenance costs. The sale of the library building would, as a one off income, add to overall

savings. This would also have the benefit of encouraging pupils to further enhance their

education by taking more books on loan than they might normally have given the close

proximity of the services.


If option 1 is not deemed as providing sufficient savings to the service, that AHS should further

house both the local library and the existing community centre located within Abronhill town

centre, thus allowing incremental savings in building and heating costs, adding to the above

savings. This would further integrate the school into the community and enhance the already

strong ties the school has with the community, particularly given its base in the physical heart of

Abronhill in Larch road.


11/14


If there is still excess unused capacity to incorporate further services into AHS after an

examination of the service taking the local library and the local community centre in house

within the Abronhill campus, an examination of other local services that sit within a cultural and

educational framework should be examined as possible candidates for inclusion within the

campus, such as an office to promote Gregorys Girl School to tourists, organise a GregorysGirl walkabout tour and possible ideas of how to develop and generate income from the fame of

the school as the site for Gregorys Girl, one of Scotlands most iconic films, made primarily at

AHS. There could even be a Scottish national female football trophy named after Gregorys Girl

school given it was the first Scottish based film to feature a female actor playing football. The

film was produced in a few other locations of Cumbernauld and various signs could be erected

to show this film heritage. This has potential for local employment and to help change negative

images of Cumbernauld town.


Given council plans to redevelop, rationalise or redesign the usage of the Muirfield Centre in

Brown Rd Seafar, with Sanctuary Housing (Cumbernauld) already indicating a desire to utilise

the building after redevelopment as lead occupant, that CLD and all Community Educational

services be relocated within the AHS campus either alone or in conjunction with one or more of

the above-noted services as would fit purpose and functionality, thus enhancing the community

educational ethos of AHS.

In general, the incremental options listed should be examined as a set of variable possible services to be

housed within the overall ethos of AHS and its wider role in the community. To facilitate this change of

additional functionality within AHS, the excess capacity and concomitant available space for other

services would necessitate an analysis of precisely what building room usage is required firstly for the

adequate running of the school and in establishing such utilisation, this would itself pinpoint the amount

of surplus available space into which optional services might be allocated on the incremental scale

suggested. Before this analysis is done to decide what alternative proposals are viable, the utilisation

possibilities and scenarios are as follows:

1. AHS to incorporate the local library

2. AHS to incorporate the local community centre

3. AHS to incorporate both library and community centre

4. AHS to incorporate library and community service, plus one other local service if

another, not mentioned here, is proposed by the local community

5. AHS to incorporate NLC CLD/Community Education staff relocation


12/14

6. AHS to incorporate library and CLD/Community Education relocation

7. AHS to incorporate library, community centre and CLD/Community Education relocation

Applying a strategic strategy approach to all the council buildings within the centre of Abronhill could

throw up a different arrangement of possibilities of those listed above, such as linking the schoolphysically to the Community Centre (see picture below) which would permit an adaption of usage for

other areas if further capacity was required by one optional scenario. Indeed, any or all of the

alternative possibilities above would contribute to a variety of annual savings with additional income

from building sales or land designated surplus to requirements keep the council true to its perceived

community planning obligations for the residents of Abronhill. We ask the service to provide a report

into the viability and cost savings of each option and inform consultees of the reasons why any, either or

all, alternative proposals above, are judged viable or not.

Proposed Community Centre/Library/PE block

The above plan shows the area between the Community centre and the High school could be

utilised to build an extension and link corridor.


13/14

Part 5

Alternative Proposal for the School Estate management of North Lanarkshire Council to

consider with specific reference to Cumbernauld High School

Given it is our view that the merger of AHS and Cumbernauld High school should not go ahead, our

alternative schemata for the services perceived overcapacity in CHS is as follows, although we believe

this is for the service and CHS catchment area parents and pupils to decide:

Option 1

That CHS requires a new build, not major refurbishment, is not in doubt. There is evident decay in the

building structure which has come to the end of its functional life and is no longer fit for 21st century

educational purposes. This appears to be the view of NLC L&LS and also HMI E who in their last report

were informed by NLC that there were plans for refurbishment. Further, the service itself considers

Cumbernauld High school as being of poor fabric in terms of building quality. From informationstatistics shown to us by an NLC source, no money has been spent on CHS since May 2009 and a survey

of early 2012 pinpoints some elements which are judged as major concerns by NLCs executive. These

recently identified concerns amount to work costing in excess of 1.6 million pounds. Hence there is a

need for a new build, but we would argue one designed to suit a smaller roll capacity school. This

smaller school would save several Million of taxpayers money, thus reducing long term council

borrowing which is already a very significant amount, over 700 million, for new school estates. An

added benefit would also be a relatively stable school class size and ethos that is advantageous to the

ASN pupils becoming integrated to the mainstream curriculum. Further flexibility in land utilisation

would allow the new school design to incorporate a proper sized designated football/rugby pitch as the

current one is regularly bogged and almost unusable all year and a proper 21st century separate hockey

pitch could be established, along with adequate athletics facilities like a designated 400 metre running

track to allow the new build to properly reflect its council affirmed role as a Sports Hub. The current

school has two small red ash/blaze pitches which are used for hockey and the largest doubles up as an

unlined 200 metre track when cones are laid down. A functional and utility based redesign of the entire

educational campus with its variegated educational and sporting uses is overdue and the opportunity of

a new build school would allow this to bring CHS into the 21st.

Option 2

To facilitate some form of savings for the service, it would be worth considering the possibility of

reallocating the CLD/Community Education service housed at the Muirfield Centre Brown rd, into the

CHS campus either from term year 2013-4, or after a new build, to save on separate building repair costs

and heating.


14/14

Overall, our preference would be to see a smaller new build for CHS with the intermediate saving

schemata of housing the CLD service within the campus. Our preferences are driven by what we

consider to be the best approach to achieve the quality educational standards for CHS and AHS, and

added value for the community and community planning, not pecuniary annual savings. This perspective

has shaped our proposals equally in a balanced view towards the best for each community. Despite this

underpinning value assessment we have set out to provide a set of alternative proposals where a variety

of savings would occur were our proposals implemented by NLC education service. We have no doubtthat CHS requires a new build and we are not asking for a new build for AHS, but merely that it is kept as

it is at the moment and if any refurbishment is required in the future, that it is done when it is deemed

necessary.

A Formal Community Response & Alternative Proposal

Documents

Transcript of A Formal Community Response & Alternative Proposal