ULSTER Unionist MLA Rosemary Barton pressed Education Minister Peter Weir on Monday to assure her that area based planning is “not simply a smokescreen for pushing through a large scale closure of small rural schools.”
A consultation into the area planning of schools was launched this week by Minister Weir.
Education Minister Peter Weir.
Due to particular geographical circumstances, he explained, “these sort of things perhaps have to happen in some cases, but we all need to accept that it is not ideal for any of our children to be in a situation where three years are being taught all in the one go.”
Sinn Fein MLA Michelle Gildernew (above) asked the Minister: “Does he agree that we have excellent schools with outstanding inspections that might fall into that category of being unsustainable? My children are in composite classes. They are in an excellent school.”
“We have some excellent schools out there which are very small; we have some excellent schools in terms of teacher provision. The problem is that, when you look particularly at multiple composite classes, in many ways, however brilliant the teacher is, they are always starting slightly from behind. It is not, I think, the ideal situation,” he said.
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