Oxgangs Primary Parent Community
A community site for the Parents of Oxgangs Primary School children
Welcome!
Welcome back to Oxgangs, everyone, for the 17/18 academic year, and an especially big welcome if this is your first year at Oxgangs. Hopefully everyone’s settled, or at least settling, into the new routine.
The first Parent led activity is the AGM on the 12th September, 7 pm, in the school dining area –
A big thank you to all those who took the time to complete the school survey back in March. The report has now been finalised and can be found on the “Surveys” page, along with the updated Satisfaction graphs.
Doctor Who like, the Parent Council is in the process of regenerating itself into a more effective parent body. We think terms like “Parent Council”, “PTA”, “Parent Forum” don’t express who we are, or what we’re about. Continue reading “PCC Jun 2017 News”
PLEASE take a couple of minutes to complete this years survey which is now live. This survey is important in gauging parent views and in directing us to the issues we need to address going forward.
The survey will be live until March 31st and can be completed online at:
https://goo.gl/forms/zUL5rQnDfRsNzwF23
If you have problems, please try again later… if you still have problems, please contact me at oxgangspc@gmail.com.
Paper copies are available from the school office.
The overwhelming majority of parents who drive to school do so with consideration and care for the safety of children and other road users. However, there is a minority of parents who do not.
Bad parking puts lives in danger –
As stated in previous news items, the Council and Police are actively monitoring the situation around the school. Because some parents continue to disregard the existing no-
The proposed layout can be seen here, and the notice here.
Please indicate your support for these restrictions by 17/03/17 via:
Email: trafficorders@edinburgh.gov.uk
Phone: 0131 469 3122
Write: Traffic Orders, 249 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1YJ
In your communication, please quote:
Traffic order: TRO/15/61
Order Title: Prohibition and restriction on waiting
Your full name and address.
Again, Prof Cole’s report into the Edinburgh Schools Construction can be found here.
There are two main issues we believe were not adequately addressed.
The first is that, subsequent to any school building failure, there should be an appropriate risk assessment carried out on the remaining structure. Prof. Cole says the Council did all it could, but an appropriate risk assessment was not initially carried out at Oxgangs; a decision that, as we later discovered, put the lives of children –
The second concerns the question, Is there a link between PPPI funding and building quality/ safety?. Prof. Cole says that there is no reason why a PPPI funding should not deliver high quality buildings. We feel this is disingenuous. Prior to PPPI, the Council was the client for procuring new public buildings and the Council was answerable to the tax payer. However, under PPPI, the council relinquished all client authority to a funding vehicle (ESP in our case) who then took over the client role. The line of Client responsibility was therefore broken. A funding vehicle has different objectives: as a client, a funding vehicle wants a building that returns a profit to its investors which, in the real world, means cutting costs and maximising returns. We see this as an inherent conflict of interest and we can point to 20 odd poorly built buildings around Edinburgh (at least) as evidence. Our experience is that PPPI schemes put children at risk and are expensive to the tax payer.
I wrote to the Evening News on this matter and my letter was published on 14/02/17.
The publication of Prof. Cole’s report effectively ends our evidential role in drawing conclusions from the events of last year. Alistair Gaw has written to all Parent Council chairs to say that Prof Cole’s recommendation for parents and Council to discuss plans for any future crisis will be addressed through the Council Consulting with Parents (CCWP) committee. At present Oxgangs is not directly represented on this committee, nor is it likely that any other affected school will be represented. I have written to Mr Gaw to suggest that the CCWP is an inappropriate forum for such planning and that, at least, the PC chairs of the affected schools should be invited to any relevant CCWP meeting –
The inspection report has now gone before the relevant council committee for sanction and it is likely that the report will be approved without further note. In essence, this means that the Council are happy with Her Majesty’s Inspectorates (HMI) findings, and that both HMI and the Council are confident Oxgangs is on the right path and requires no follow up action. I attended the meeting and was asked by the Inspectorate to reassure parents that attainment standards are much higher and that “Satisfactory” really is the new “Good”.
2016 was a busy year and there was much to discuss at our last meeting –
Along with the release of his report, which can be found here, Prof. John Cole presented his findings to a full Edinburgh Council meeting this afternoon. (The webcast of this meeting can be found here).
I have yet to read the report in full, but from what I gather so far, it is a comprehensive report and has established 10 sets of recommendations (approx. 40 in all). We should thank the Council for supporting it, and Prof Cole for his thorough work.
The crux of the building problem –
From what I have read so far, however, I, and I suspect most parents, will feel that the Council’s handling of the initial collapse was not entirely appropriate, as stated in bold in section 12.1.6 of the report. Section 12.1.1 invites us to believe that a wall (9 tonnes of it) falling off the side of a school building in a fairly common storm was assumed by the authorities to be nothing more than a bit of localised storm damage, rather than an exceptional occurrence. Cllr Gavin Corbett managed to ask Prof Cole why the school reopened three days after the initial failure during the Q&A session after Prof Cole’s presentation. Prof Cole indicated that the Council were likely motivated to minimise disruption. Personally, I feel that while minimising disruption is laudable, it does not trump safety, and hindsight has nothing to do with it. While it is true that, as events transpired, the safety of the building was found to be in question (and more disruption was caused at Oxgangs as a result), discovering this should have been a priority, not a rearguard action. Not carrying out a more robust investigation from the outset (which would, at the least, involve drilling a few holes around the walls to check the tie embedment) –
Reopening the school early without a robust structural assessment is the sorest issue amongst parents –
Putting things in perspective, this is the only exception I have to what is otherwise, on first inspection, a thorough piece of work which makes solid recommendations and addresses the key issues with, not just Oxgangs –
If you have any issues or points you’d like the Parent Council to raise regarding this report, then please use the info on the “About Us” page to get in touch.
The following notes are from our Parent Council meeting on January 31st.
Mrs Walshe went through some of the background to the inspection, details of what the inspectors were looking for and how the school was embracing the findings within its strategic plan for improvement.
To date, the Inspection Report, Additional Inspection Evidence and Summarised Inspection Findings can all be accessed via the Education Scotland portal. The headline findings in the Inspection report are that Oxgangs was evaluated as “Very Good” in two categories, “Good” in four categories and “Satisfactory” in two categories. These evaluations, in and of themselves, do not tell the parent very much and interested parents should read the “Summarised Inspection Findings” for a more detailed assessment.
Mrs Walshe indicated that Oxgangs was the first school in Edinburgh to be inspected under the new inspection regime. The results for other Edinburgh schools will be published in due course. The new inspection regime is based upon the Scottish Government’s drive for attainment under the “National Improvement Framework”, “Curriculum for Excellence” and “Getting it Right for Every Child”.
Parents expressed concern that the school did not receive “Good”, or better, evaluations in all categories. Mrs Walshe stated that Oxgangs was a good school and that the findings in the “Summarised Inspection Findings” point to many strengths. The fact that the inspection team were not seeking a follow up inspection also indicated that they were confident the school was on the right track. Mrs Walshe stated that the School staff were already deploying teaching interventions to address the three stated areas of improvement, and were looking beyond this to a strategic approach that would address the increasingly demanding attainment goals set by Government. Mrs Walshe indicated that the school staff were committed to improving attainment.
Parents expressed concern that the inspection had taken place too soon after the school reopened, and that the school had been given insufficient time to re-
Parents expressed a view that it was difficult for them to look passed the “headline” assessments as they had no professional awareness of the inspection framework. Mrs Walshe indicated that, if any parent wished, she would be happy to answer their queries about any aspect of the inspection.
Another matter that was discussed at the Parent Council meeting was initiating a Tech based after school club. These sort of activities come under the umbrella term of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Maths): engaging children with these activities is thought to be the best hope for their, and our national, future prosperity. So far our ideas include: e2 Young Engineers –
We hope you and your family had a very good festive season, and we wish you a very Happy New Year.
The next Parent Council meeting will be held on Tuesday 24th January, in the school staff room, at 7 pm. Please come along if you want to find out what’s happening, or get in touch via this website, or a Parent Council member (listed here, on the “About Us” page and in the school foyer), if you’ve any issue you’d like raised.
We understand that the HM Schools inspectorate letter (i.e., summary of findings) will be published, as it happens, on the 24th. This will doubtless be a topic for discussion at the upcoming PC meeting. This letter will be released to the media on that day, and posted at www.education.gov.scot. More detailed reports will be released subsequently. As mentioned in the November post, the school was last inspected 10 years ago. In conversation with one of the inspecting team I learned that Oxgangs was due for inspection last year, but this was postponed subsequent to the wall failure. I also learned both that this is a new inspecting regime, and, that in the intervening 10 years, the criteria for assessment has been revised (i.e., been made more demanding) eight times subsequent to the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence in 2010 (I have been informed that “Satisfactory” should be viewed as the new “Good”). Finally, as the first school in Edinburgh to be subject to this inspecting regime, Oxgangs is leading the way for other schools in city as to what to expect. Being inspected after, effectively, about a term of school time subsequent to the building reopening seems a little harsh, but we await the findings.
It was our understanding that the Cole Inquiry into the safety of PPPI buildings within Edinburgh subsequent to the collapse of the Oxgangs wall would report in December, however, we have learned that this has now been postponed till February to afford those who have been criticised a chance to reply. While it is tentatively reassuring to learn that the inquiry has found cause for criticism in the delivery and maintenance of PPPI buildings, we will have to wait another few weeks to learn the full findings.
Car movements around the school continue to be a problem for us, especially at drop off time in the morning. Within the last week there was a small collision between two vehicles on the school perimeter: a consequence of the congested and fraught nature of morning traffic around the school. As well as traffic ban areas around various city schools, the Police are now fining drivers who flout the rules around, currently, three schools in Edinburgh, as reported in the Evening News. We don’t want to see any of these measures enforced around Oxgangs –
If you haven’t already, please have a look at the Survey page to add your say as to what out-
During last term’s parent consultation meetings, the majority of parents voted for a change in school photographer. Consequently, school pictures will now be taken by Tempest.
This time of year always gives pause for reflection, but, as we approach it, I couldn’t let the anniversary of the wall failure go without mention.
Last year was unprecedented in the demands put upon the school community and those associated with it. We are in the last stages of learning the material facts related to the school building failures, which I think all parents will be keen to understand. Personally, over and above the understandable passionate concern of parents, during that time I witnessed acts of nobility, and countless acts of quiet compassion and genuine care amongst and between parents and staff, that often got overlooked in the hurly burly. I would say these are important lessons for children, but the children seemed to exemplify these character traits the most. Our hope for the future, I think, can can be founded in this.