Subject: Member Involvement – Written Questions

Date of meeting: 29 February 2024

WRITTEN QUESTIONS

The question will be answered without discussion. The person who asked the question may ask one relevant supplementary question, which shall be put and answered without discussion. The person to whom a question, or supplementary question, has been put may decline to answer it.

The following written questions have been received from Members:

1. Cllr Shanks –

The council has previously highlighted how important the Our City Our World programme is in our schools. How will issues of climate change and sustainability be integrated into all curriculum area without the programme?

2. Cllr Shanks –

There is a worrying trend of local schools becoming academies, what strategy does the administration have to support schools and keep them within the Local Authority?

3. Cllr Shanks –

How was the demand for places for babies at a replacement for Brightstart Nursery assessed?

4. Cllr Goldsmith –

Should a decision to close St Bartholomew’s Primary School be made by this Council, what are the administration’s plans for if the Governing Board of St Bartholomew’s makes an appeal to the Schools Adjudicator? This matter is especially pressing, given that the stated last date Primary School applications will be considered is the 8th of March, which almost definitely will not allow enough time for the appeal to be heard.

5. Cllr Goldsmith –

Have the consultations around the closure of St Bartholomew’s and St Peter’s Primary Schools been true consultations, and does this administration agree that Councillors should cast their votes based on the information they have been given both before and during this committee, rather than predetermining how they are going to vote beforehand?