Parents Angry At Handling Of School Closure

Parents are hitting out at the way the closure of a Fife primary school was handled.

Children at Pitcorthie Primary were given letters to take home, but parents weren't sent a text to tell them this.

The school is to shut after this academic year, with 288 primary and 62 nursery pupils will transfer to either Lynburn, Commercial and Touch primaries.

Parents argued that the school's 94 percent capacity was justification to keep it open, and that estimated maintenance costs were incorrectly expensive.

Andrew Hutchison, a parent who campaigned to keep the school open, says the announcement was poorly dealt with:

Pitcorthie's closure is one of seven in Fife, as the local authority looks to cut costs in the face of a £92million budget shortfall in the coming years.

Councillor Bryan Poole, spokesperson for Education, Children, Young People and Families, said deciding to close a school is "not something that is done without long and careful consideration."

He said: "As a council we have a duty to provide the best service and the best value for money for all of the children and families in Fife. We simply can’t continue to provide that level of service if huge amounts of our budgets are taken up maintaining deteriorating school buildings.

“ We should be spending that money in more meaningful ways, providing the very best learning environment which will help our teachers to continue to improve the learning experiences of our young people. This decision will help us do just that.”

Cllr. David Ross, Leader of Fife Council said it is "a sad time" for parents.

But added: "We understand this may be a challenging and sometimes difficult time for parents and staff but we will be working closely with them to help them through the process and try to allay any fears they have. Every effort will be made to ensure that the children affected by the closure will be able to make the move into their new schools as seamlessly as possible.”

“The education of our children is our number one priority and the officers and teachers involved are experienced professionals who all have the children’s welfare at hear”