Commentary on Sections Assessments: primary education Section 8: GMPE assessment areas
32.Subsections (1) and (2) require that, on receipt of a parental request, an education authority must designate the area in relation to which it will undertake its assessment of the need for GMPE. Subsection (3) states that that area will be referred to as a ‘GMPE assessment area’. Subsections (4) and (5) stipulate the broad approach that the education authority must take to designating a GMPE assessment area. An education authority must, so far as reasonable, seek to accommodate the demand for GMPE evidenced in the request and any other demand that the authority knows about from parents of children resident in that education authority area who are under school age and have not yet commenced attendance at a primary school. An education authority must also take into account factors that might affect how that demand could reasonably be met, such as the residence of the children who the demand relates to, accessibility in relation to the potential provision of GMPE in that GMPE assessment area and guidance issued by Bòrd na Gàidhlig.