Hi Jackie hope this helps,Cllr Frank Docherty
Jackie
I understand your concerns,.
Sadly, when Langside College moves to their new campus in December 2008 (approximately), the Little Scholars business would have needed the Council to further subsidise them by half a million pounds in order to secure new bespoke acccommodation in this campus. The previous Executive Director did not feel that it was appropriate to seek such substantial funds for what is essentially a private business at such a time of financial pressure.
It is important to reassure however that there will be no disruption to the present service for over a year.
It was felt that it was appropriate to alert Parents early to a longer term change in order that they had plenty of time to make alternative child care arrangements. The
Council has not withdrawn funding in any way from their partnership with Little Scholars and would indeed have been happy to continue what has been a winning partnership with the college had circumstances been different.
In the meantime, officers have been extremely pro active in trying to find solutions for the 0 - 5 Gaelic medium south side provision in the city. The new Lyoncross nursery should open for 3-5 year old pupils in the next six months and will offer an excellent local authority - run south - side provision. We have also identified from our estate that the nearby Homelea day nursery becomes vacant next August. We are well aware that 0 - 2 years is the best time to acquire language and have applied to the Scottish government for additional funding that would allow us to run this exceptional level of provision for very young Gaelic learners. If successful with this funding application, we would then attempt to have this service up and running before Little Scholars are obliged to close their doors.
I trust this reassures you that we have been problem solving and await word from the Scottish government to secure provision for very young Gaelic learners.
Cllr Frank Docherty
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