Petition to save school playground

Fury at plan to extend nursery over outdoor space

Hundreds of people have signed a petition campaigning to save a primary school’s playground.

Parents and residents have signed the online petition, which was set up by the parent council, in a bid to stop the extension of Rattray Primary School’s nursery being built on the school’s playground.

Plans are currently in place to expand the school’s nursery provision from 2020 by 50 places, however this could mean the nursery is built over much of the current playground.

The parent council’s petition said: “This will bisect the playground, significantly reducing the space for all the children. The playground is already quite small and it is a facility we really can’t afford to lose any of.

“This will also adversely affect Bikeability which parent volunteers run at the school plus bike club and visiting practitioners who come to teach a variety of sports.

“As a parent council we are horrified and frankly furious about this and are concerned about the impact the building work could have on the school community with reduced space for playtime/lunchtime and the possibility of children being kept indoors.

“We find this unacceptable as we are constantly told that children need to play outdoors and exercise. The children will effectively be going to school on a building site.”

The petition continued: “With the extra 200 homes being built in Rattray the school roll is going to increase and reducing the playground seems crazy to us. We can’t believe Perth and Kinross Council haven’t looked at other alternatives.”

The parent council have also sent a list of their own suggestions to Sheena Devlin, director of education and children’s services at the local authority.

Suggestions include flattening the part of the building dedicated to primary one and rebuilding a twostorey building instead which would house both primary one and the extended nursery class.

Other suggestions include moving the nursery into the primary one section and extending the building onto its small playground, currently used by the primary one and two children.

They add the school’s community hub has not “realised its potential” and the space could instead be used to house a new nursery.

A spokesperson for Perth and Kinross Council said: “The reconfiguration and extension of the existing nursery at Rattray Primary School will provide additional space and more flexible areas for a range of uses to accommodate the increased entitlement to early learning and childcare.

“This will benefit children’s learning and development, and give parents and carers greater flexibility, for example, in relation to work, training or further education.

“The council is focusing on making the best use of the existing space for the extension. It is also committed to ensuring the impact on the children and the existing school is kept to a minimum. The small reduction in outdoor play space is unfortunately unavoidable.

“The school is considering a range of options to ensure all children receive their share of access to the outdoors including making more use of nearby Davie Park.

“In addition the school is committed to participating in the ‘Daily Mile’ scheme which encourages all children to walk or run every day.”

The petition can be viewed online at www.change.org/p/ sheena-devlin-perth-and-kinrosscouncil-save-rattray-primaryschool-playground-make-pkc-lookat-alternatives-for-nursery-build

As a parent council we are horrified and frankly furious about this