Half day Fridays at Highland primary schools will hit parents

A Highland councillor has branded a proposal to cut the primary school week to four and a half days "complete madness"

Ken Gowans, who sits on Highland Council’s education committee and represents Inverness South, has called for any action on the plan to be halted until a new council is in place following May’s election.

Earlier this week the Strathy revealed the local authority is considering closing primary schools at lunchtime on a Friday, in a similar set up currently being rolled out in secondaries across the region.

Officials and leading councillors have said children will not lose learning time as the other four days will be extended and breaks will be reduced slightly but Councillor Gowans said the plan will "cause havoc" for working parents.

"This is complete madness," he said. "People build their work and lives around the school timetable and have made arrangements for working hours and child care to fit round the school week.

"It’s very short sighted, have the implications been considered? Is Highland Council going to give thousands of its employees a half day on a Friday so they can collect their children from school?

"I’m a parent of a seven year old and this would be very difficult for myself and my wife. I teach at Inverness College all day on a Friday, I can’t abandon my students to look after my daughter."

And Cllr Gowans said some parents may have to give up work altogether if they cannot make alternative arrangements.

"It is going to have serious consequences for the income of families," he said.

"They will either have to cut their hours back, give up work altogether or pay extra for child care, which could easily cost more than £100 a month just for those extra few hours.

"It’s different for high schools because the children are a bit older but you can’t leave primary school children unsupervised.

"There is absolutely no benefit to this that I can see.

"So many people are going to be asking to change their hours to work round this, employers simply won’t be able to give it to all of them."

Last week Councillor Drew Millar, chairman of the education, care and adult services committee, said it will be for headteachers, school staff and parents to decide if they think the new timetable will work for their schools but pointed out that some schools, particularly in rural areas, could be forced into the change if their pupil transport is shared with the associated secondary.

But Councillor Gowans said the council should go no further with the proposals until it is approved by the new council.

"Highland Council is supposed to have a policy of getting it right for every child," he said. "This isn’t getting it right for every child and it’s certainly not getting it right for every parent.

"I’m calling for a halt of this process until the new council is in situ because it is for the new council to decide and they must give this the seal of approval, with meaningful public consultation, before it can go ahead.

"I think there will be outcry because every parent I’ve spoken to is against this and it will need to be scrapped."

A council spokeswoman said: "From August 2017 only Highland secondary schools are required to move to a four and a half day week – this decision was taken by councillors in 2014.

"Primaries will only be considering a four and a half day week where there are critical reasons such as integrated school transport arrangements with secondary schools or because the local school community has elected to do this."

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