Banchory Parent Council (BPC) ask Clackmannanshire Council to remove the budget proposal “Banchory ELC would not accept any new admissions for the session 2023/24 and that instead, families would be offered child places in surrounding nurseriesâ€. Whilst currently stated for the 23/24 intake, BPC unanimously agree that this move is both surprising and damaging to our community, with a potential route for Clackmannanshire Council to close our nursery permanently thereafter. The initial one-off saving of £483,333 will simply be lost to increasing costs in other areas of education and social care provision. Currently, 67% of our catchment children attend from SIMD Deciles 1 and 2, extreme markers for poverty, disadvantage and those targeted by attainment gap policy. Furthermore, approximately 50% of our Banchory community are currently under staged intervention. Despite these challenges, the contextual analysis of our school and early years performance shows consistent growth and transformational change on all fronts under the current resource and staffing model. The recent Grade 5 Care Inspectorate reports praise Banchory ELC on its transition experience from ‘home to the setting and on to school’ in particular ‘Children being settled and secure’ by positively affecting children’s trust and confidence through personal development and strong relationships. Finally, Clackmannanshire Council itself states, “Banchory's catchment area has been designated an area of educational priority which entitles additional resources which ensures good staff/pupil ratio†and “The addition of the ELC has been an asset to the school both in the preparation for primary education and in many aspects of early intervention.†Enrolment removal and future potential closure only seeks to undermine this and we seek to maintain current operations. Our robust defence against this proposal is to ensure the opportunities and good work are not lost to our future generations. Thusly the community have rallied around the undisputable facts and want to protect the future of our School and ELC in this petition as dictated below. We look forward to your consideration of our petition.
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