CONCERNED staff at Langlee Primary School are seeking assurances on the future of complex needs provision at the school.
 

The Border Telegraph revealed last month that parents are already being offered alternative places for their child’s care and staff  contracts are being terminated.
 

Scottish Borders Council deny that they are closing the facility which provides support to children aged three to four year-olds who are identified as having complex needs.
 

But with staff numbers already being cut and more job losses expected at the end of the current academic year, the long term prospects for the facility look bleak.
 

In a letter to Galashiels Community Council this month, Depute Chief Executive at SBC Jeanette McDiarmid said:  “The unit has been overstaffed due to several pupils leaving the area during the academic year and this has been addressed in the last few weeks by ending staff temporary contracts to ensure a more proportionate staff to pupil ratio.
 

“Only a very small number of children with complex needs use this facility, as local nursery provision can provide the additional support and facilities required.
 

“The majority of the children currently using this facility are due to move to primary school at the end of the academic year. This will obviously affect the number of staff required as a result.”
 

Mrs McDiarmid said parents of children at the school had been contacted and “are happy with the continuing arrangements and support”.
 

She also said that additional staff will be deployed to local nurseries to support individual pupil needs at a local level, and that an accessibility officer will ensure that the appropriate resources and equipment are in place to support all pupils in nursery.
 

However  Community Councillor Marion Romeril -who is a teacher at the school- said:  “There is an awful lot of bad feeling at Langlee about the situation.
 

“We have heard that specialist units who give support to the school and advise parents where their children would be most suited have been instructed not to refer children to Langlee.

 

“This will clearly have an impact on the numbers at the end of this academic year, so it is not true to say the demand isn’t there. If it has been decided that the unit should be closed, they should just be upfront about it.”

 

Chair of Galashiels Community Council Judith Cleghorn said:  “This is the only unit of its type in the Borders and to have that taken away from these children is absolutely disgraceful.
 

“Emotions are running high in Langlee about this. I know the school, I have been there recently and it is absolutely heartbreaking.
 

“Why go and put equipment in for special needs children at other schools and uproot children when everything is already there and purpose built for them?”