A proposal to switch all Dundee secondary schools to a standardised 33-period week has been formally rejected.
Councillors heard on Monday evening that the consultation exercise involving staff, parents and pupils had produced a mixed reaction and the city council’s education department now believed it should not go ahead.
Education convener Liz Fordyce said this had been ”a genuine consultation process” and it was clear there was not sufficient support to proceed.
One of the arguments the department had made for the proposal was that it would make it easier for schools to implement Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).
Ferry councillor Derek Scott said he had heard concerns from parents at Grove Academy about how CfE would work in particular the reduction from eight subjects to six that pupils would be able to take in the senior phase of school.
Parents were worried that pupils who wished to study three sciences might not be able to do so and he wanted a guarantee that this would not be the case.
Education director Michael Wood said he had been in touch with the school’s parent council to reassure them on this point.
”There is no reason why any pupil in S4 would not be able to study three sciences if they so choose,” he said.
Only 272 parents took part in the consultation and Liberal Democrat group leader Fraser Macpherson wondered if action could be taken to ensure a higher response rate in future.
Mr Wood said an average of 70 parents had attended meetings at each of the nine secondaries, so the response to the questionnaire did not reflect the interest there had been in the 33-period proposal.
Labour group education spokesman Laurie Bidwell said he believed it was time for the education committee to have a report placed before it on the model Dundee schools would adopt as CfE is rolled out in S3 and above.
Mr Wood said his department had not been sitting on its hands and schools would be getting in touch with parents by the first week in February to tell them more about how the new curriculum will be made to work.