Gaelic Medium Education - Consultation Report

The Education (Scotland) Act 2016 placed a duty on Local Authorities to encourage and support Gaelic Medium Education (GME). Pupils wishing to access GME may reasonably expect to be able to access provision directly. At present, only pupils living within the Meadowburn Primary School catchment area may enrol directly in the Gaelic unit.
 
Pupils who wish to attend the Gaelic unit and who reside out with the catchment area are required to submit a placing request. As the unit is part of Meadowburn Primary School, these placing requests are considered alongside all other placing requests to the school. This means that some pupils may not be granted a place in the unit due to placing requests to the mainstream school, which may have a high priority in terms of the admissions policy.
 
A statutory consultation was held at the end of last year on the proposal to change catchment area for pupils accessing Gaelic Medium Education (GME) only at Meadowburn Primary School is changed to include the whole of East Dunbartonshire. This will mean that pupils accessing GME, no matter where they live in East Dunbartonshire, will be able to enrol directly in the school, and will not need to submit a placing request.
 
Council officers have gathered the responses of consultees and information provided by Education Scotland to prepare a report on the consultation. This report is required by Scottish Government legislation, and must be published before the Council can make a decision on the proposal. 
 
The report will be published on Friday 23 February 2018, and will be available within the documents section of this page. Reference copies will be available to view at Meadowburn Primary School and at the Council Offices, 12 Strathkelvin Place, Kirkintilloch. 
 
Under the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010, this consultation report must be published for at least three weeks before the Council can decide whether or not to implement the proposal. This is known as the ‘extended consideration period’. This period is intended to allow interested parties to read the report and to make their views known to their Councillors. 
 
For information on how to contact your local Councillors, please visit the Councillors section.
 
If you require any further information about the consultation process, please contact the Primary School Improvement Programme team at:
 
Telephone:  0300 1234510