Final whistle for activities
by Ian Smith
PUPILS from Glendale and Seahouses Middle Schools recently enjoyed what might be their last chance to take part in several out-of-school activities.
Specialist tuition in activities such as football, mountain biking, fly fishing, dancing, arts and crafts were on offer before the Easter break.
It came courtesy of Northumberland County Council’s extended services teams which provided holiday activities and out-of-school clubs for children.
However, teams across the county including Berwick and Alnwick are being reduced after changes saw the budget which funded them passed to schools.
A previous government’s ‘ring fence’ which meant part of education funding had to be spent on extended services has now been lifted. The money is instead given to schools which can decide whether they want to use it for after-school purposes.
The council claim that some schools have chosen not to use the money for extended services and that has led to a small number of job losses.
Mark Carr, a part-time out-of-hours learning coordinator at the Alnwick schools’ partnership is among those who has been given his notice. He will continue the out-of-school club until the end of the school year.
He said: “This might well be one of the last chances we get to put on activities for children so we wanted to make sure there were lots of different things for them to try out.
“As well as Wooler and Seahouses we were able to put on out-of-school activities at Alnwick and Hipsburn.
“The service has been of great value but things change, new governments come in and they have different ideas, whether it is right or wrong.”
A council spokesman said: “The ring fence that previously applied to extended services was removed this year. The funding now goes directly to schools and it is the schools that decide if they wish to allocate money for after school purposes.
“As some schools have chosen not to use this money for the provision of extended services this has necessitated a small number of redundancies from staff working in this area; to date, two compulsory redundancies have been made.”
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Weather for Berwick-Upon-Tweed
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 10 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: East
