The following schools have informed the Council that they will be closed on Thursday 22 May 2014 as they act as polling stations for the European Elections:
For other days schools are closed, such as school term dates and training days, please view the school terms and holiday dates page.
Students, independent researchers and small businesses can now access many of the world’s best academic papers across science, technology, medicine and other disciplines through York’s Libraries and Explore centres.
This is the result of a unique collaboration between librarians and publishers, who have made their journal content available for free to UK libraries under a new initiative, Access to Research.
Access to Research will provide licensed online access to over 1.5 million journal articles and conference proceedings through library terminals. With 8,400 journals included in the initiative at the moment, this will make content in the fields of Health and Biological Sciences (20%), Social Sciences (18%) and Engineering (14%) available to the public for the first time. Users will also be able to read a wide variety of articles in the fields of Art and Architecture, Business, Environmental Science, History, Journalism, Languages, Politics, Film, Philosophy and Religion, Mathematics and Physics.
(more…)
Hob Moor schools
Industrial action by NUS members is expected to close several schools in York on Wednesday.
Several others – including Westfield and Hob Moor primaries- will provide reduced services.
The full list can be accessed by clicking here.
City of York Council is holding a public consultation about the future use of Burnholme Community College site on Saturday 15 March.
The drop in consultation event, which will be held onsite at the college, will take place between 11am and 3pm will offer an opportunity to meet with the project team and comment on the future use of the site.
The Steiner school in Fishergate is set to have an application for a reduction in its Business Rate liability turned down by the York Council.
The school is a registered charity and a non for profit organisation with any surplus made used for development. The school has recommended fees of ￡6,500 pa per child. The school was seeking a discretionary rebate of £3203 but this is set to be turned down by Labour Councillors apparently on the grounds that it is a fee paying schools.
The York Council currently discounts around £95,000 that charities in the City would otherwise pay in Business Rates. The scale of the relief was reduced when Labour took office in York.
Most charities, and other not for profit organisations, already receive what is known as “mandatory relief” which is paid for by central government.
In York the division of the Discretionary Rate relief is as follows
|
Category |
DRR (total) £ |
CYC Share £ |
|
Not-for Profit |
3340 |
1670 |
|
Charities |
119931 |
59966 |
|
CASC’s |
21925 |
10962 |
|
Rural Discretionary |
40605 |
20303 |
|
Rural Top Up |
5514 |
2757 |
|
Total Cost |
191316 |
95658 |
The complete list of organisations recommended to receive Discretionary Rate Relief over the next year can be found by clicking here.
It includes the Tang Hall, Bell Farm and Foxwood Community Centres. Several Church aided schools are also included.
2/3 of the relief is paid by central government.
The team, which supports parents and carers across the city of children aged between 0-19 (and up to 25 years of age for young people with disabilities) has been awarded the National Association of Families Information Services (NAFIS) Family First Award for quality.
(more…)
York primary schools have produced only average results in performance comparisons published today.
The results are based on the number of pupils achieving “good” level 4 in reading, writing and maths.
The highest performing schools in York were Naburn CE and St Mary’s CE both of which achieved 100%
Lowest performing school was Derwent which achieved 38%
click
Other results included:
A full list can be found by clicking here
York schools are being challenged to strive for excellence as part of a new initiative launched this autumn.
York Challenge aims to empower the city’s schools to achieve excellence in four key areas: leadership, curriculum, teaching and ‘narrowing the gap’ to accelerate the progress of under achieving children. Focusing on partnership working, schools will work in geographical groups – school improvement clusters – with the emphasis on ensuring that all schools become good and outstanding through working on improvement priorities as a cluster.
The York Council has released details of the payments that it has made to local Universities over the last 4 years.
Click to download full list
In total, payments of around £3.5 million have been made although the vast majority of this (£3 million) was a grant to York University for the provision of a County Standard swimming pool. The scheme – part of the new “sports village” on Hull Road – was agreed after the Barbican pool closed and was paid for from the proceeds of the sale of the land there.
In total £192,519 has been paid to St Johns University. The largest payments were made to an anti bullying campaign although the University receives significant payments from taxpayers for the “Higher York” organisation.
The University of York fee payments range from £170,000 paid for the York Cares organisation (which managess voluntary projects in the City) to £850 for a speaker at a “women’s development session”.
All Council expenditure is now being closely scrutinised following the decision of the Labour Leadership to remove winter salt bins from key foopath locations in the City.
The bins cost only £50 a time to fill.
NB. At the last Council meeting the Labour Leadership revealed that it will pay £31,000 to York Athletics Club as a sweetener to move out of the Huntington Stadium. It had been intended to provide a replacement athletics facility at the sports village but Labour now propose to fund the refurbishment of the existing University athletics field.
Pedestrians and cyclists will benefit from works to improve access and crossing points in and around Joseph Rowntree School in New Earswick.
Construction of a new zebra crossing and off-road cycle links to the south of the school will start from Monday 28 October for approximately two weeks. To enable this work to be carried out safely and quickly, there will be a road closure on Sunday 3 November
A key aim of the scheme, part of the wider School Safety Programme, is to facilitate and encourage walking and cycling on school journeys, reduce the number of cars on the network at key times, and promote sustainable travel habits at an early age.