Save my classes from axe
Pupil, 11, is an internet sensation after plea on Facebook to stop cuts
MOST youngsters post videos on the internet featuring fun footage of their friends, pets or practical jokes.
But Annie-Kirsty MacLeod is in a different class, with the 11-year-old making a touching online plea for her favourite subjects to be saved from the axe in a round of swingeing budget cuts.
As the Mail has reported, Highland Council is planning to slash learning time for some primary pupils and lose teachers from the payroll in a series of controversial cost-cutting measures.
But Annie- Kirsty decided to launch a fight-back against the moves, which she fears would result in the loss of her PE and music classes, and her video has become an internet hit.
She starred in the heartfelt video, filmed by her mother, after coming home in tears when she learned that her top subjects were under threat as Highland Council looks to save £64million over four years.
Annie- Kirsty was inspired to speak out after being told about the possible changes as part of the council’s budget consultation during a pupil council meeting.
Her mother, Lorraine Cullen, said the youngster came home from school in ‘floods of tears’.
Annie-Kirsty said: ‘I was very upset about it. I just thought I had to do something to try and let other people know about what might happen.
‘I had the idea of the video so I got my mum to help me write the script.’
The film of the pupil at Cradlehall Primary School i n Inverness, posted on the parent council’s Facebook page, has been viewed more than 11,000 times.
In it the schoolgirl pleads with council chiefs not to axe teachers and not to dismiss those teaching music and PE as ‘not important’. She also pays tribute to her music and PE teachers at the school, saying: ‘I salute you’.
Annie-Kirsty calls on people to share the video to put pressure on
‘I think it’s absolutely crazy’
Highland Council bosses to scrap their cost-cutting plans.
Her mother and stepfather Callum Sim, 54, run a pet and equine supplies company based in Muir of Ord, Ross-shire.
Mrs Cullen, 52, said: ‘As a parent, I’m right behind her. You can’t cut important subjects like this to save money – education is our future.
‘These are the subjects which shape children expressively and socially. Not every child can be academic. Annie thrives in music and sport and there will be plenty of others who are in the same boat.
‘I think it’s worthy of a big outcry to get it stopped. I think it’s absolutely crazy. We can’t take away the arts from children at primary school level. It’s unthinkable.’
The local authority is consulting on whether to cut learning time by 30 minutes a day for some primary pupils. It has also proposed a 1 per cent reduction of its secondary school staff could achieve savings of about £600,000. This would mean losing 15 full-time employees.
A public consultation on the cutbacks ended yesterday.
A Highland Council spokesman said: ‘The proposal is to reduce the primary school week from 25 hours to 22.5 hours. If the proposal is agreed, we would continue to have a curriculum that includes music, PE, drama etc, and there would be consultation on the detail of how any reduction might be made.
‘Responses to the consultation will be taken into account and a report will go before the Highland Council in December.’