Court battle to stop deaf school closure

Sara Craig, whose deaf three-year-old son attends Gateside School, said Renfrewshire Council had not consulted fully or adequately on its proposals to close Gateside, which currently caters for 17 children, of whom three are deaf. The school is also the base for a peripatetic service for deaf children which is to be amalgamated into other peripatetic services for children with special educational needs. It was originally intended to cater for 15 children with hearing impairments.

The protesting parents are being supported by the West of Scotland branch of the National Deaf Children's Society. The chair, Joe Owens, said, 'It's a centre of excellence for deaf children, and the council is going to close it and combine the children into an ordinary nursery.' The council has decided to transfer services for under-fives with hearing impairments from Gateside, a nursery school with its own headteacher, to neighbouring Glenfield Community Nursery, a council-run nursery, by August 2002. The other Gateside children will also transfer to Glenfield or to other local nursery provision. The headteacher's post will be made redundant, but three other specialist staff - a teacher of the deaf and two specially trained nursery nurses - will transfer to Glenfield.