School Model Consultation Launched

Following a Full Council decision in June 2018, elected members agreed to a Transformation Programme to address the challenges of providing a high-quality service across dispersed rural communities, to an ageing and declining population, set against a backdrop of addressing a significant funding gap projected for future years.

Dumfries and Galloway Council’s school estate, our school buildings and how we use them, will have to change over the coming years to respond to changes in our communities. Our Council continues to spend more per child in some of our schools compared to the national average, and there is a large range of disproportionate costs across our own school estate. We know that our school rolls are falling across Dumfries and Galloway, that the condition and suitability of some of our school buildings may not be at the standards we want them to be, and that we have many more classrooms than we need in many places.

This is an opportunity to consolidate and modernise our learning estate with a focus on sustainability and to protect the education of the children and young people in our schools. In order to identify whether making changes to our school estate will have the desired impact, we begin by seeking to create a consensus through consultation on the most important principles that need to be considered to deliver a truly future-proofed school estate.

We will consolidate all stakeholder feedback into an agreed set of principles for planning the future of our schools. These principles will form a school model and will help ensure best value and sustainable settings, resulting in an improved learning environment for all our children and young people, while considering the needs and wishes of our partners and communities.

Chair of Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Education and Learning Committee, Cllr Richard Brodie commented:

"We are currently engaged with school communities to plan the best way forward for our children. We must seize upon the challenge of falling school rolls to provide quality educational experiences in schools fit for the 21st century."

Vice Chair of Education and Learning Committee, Cllr Maureen Johnstone said:

“If we have a set of shared principles that we have worked together with communities on setting out, this would help us start to see where change might be needed. We acknowledge that we should be proactive and make decisions for a sustainable future, with children’s learning as the focus.”

You can read more about the consultation, and complete the consultation at www.dumgal.gov.uk/schoolmodel