Gina Davidson: Pupils should not be Poles apart

Published on Wednesday 10 March 2010 08:46

LAST week at St Augustine's High, pupils at the Catholic secondary school were celebrating "unity and diversity week". So far, so politically correct you might think. Yet this is a school which is a prime example of the way education is changing in Edinburgh.

Thanks to our recently-booming economy the city has become a multi-cultural melting pot – and there are now 90 different languages being spoken by youngsters in the city's schools. Indeed, the total number of city pupils who do not speak English as a first language has risen by more than 500 over the last two years.

While there are obvious difficulties to overcome in communication terms, it should make for a much more interesting educational experience for all children.

Of course some schools are taking more of the brunt of this influx than others. Catholic schools in particular are favoured by the Polish community, for obvious reasons, but also it seems by Muslims, and as a result school rolls are increasing.

Not everyone is happy with such change. Just a few hundred yards from the happy diversity of St Augustine's, a row is brewing over the shared complex of St Joseph's and the non-denominational Broomhouse primary.

Apparently the roll at St Joseph's has been on the increase since the new campus opened eight years ago. Then the school only had 97 pupils, now it has 200 and its side of the building can only hold a maximum of 219. There have been 48 catchment requests for primary one places for after the summer, yet at the moment it can only take 40 children.

Meanwhile, the roll at Broomhouse has declined from 175 to 143 in a building which can take 419 kids. As a result the council has decided the schools should flip the buildings, so that the Catholic school has more room. In purely physical numbers it makes a lot of sense – yet Broomhouse parents aren't happy.

Any change for your child always puts a parent on edge, but what is the real beef here? They say that they're concerned their children will lose out on access to a computer suite, playing fields and, er, bike sheds. Instead they will have astroturf pitches and if the headteacher wishes to turn the general purpose room into a computer suite as she has done in the current Broomhouse section, that could be accommodated.

Perhaps more pertinently, some parents say St Joseph's is being too diverse, taking in too many children – and that includes non-Catholics – to the detriment of Broomhouse. But why might that be the case?

A look at the achievement levels of each school in the three Rs might give an answer. At St Joseph's, the percentages of pupils in primaries three, four, six and seven achieving or exceeding levels in reading, writing and maths for their age, stood at 70, 70 and 77. At Broomhouse the percentages stood at 65, 57 and 67.

Such information is never compiled in league table form, but you don't have to be Carol Vorderman to work out which school is achieving more success in the basics. While there is more to a well-rounded education than such results, for many parents they are the first and last thing when it comes to where to send their kids. And as every child has two catchment schools, denominational and non-denominational, there is always a choice.

St Joseph's, then, is doing something right – even with a larger roll, and probably larger class sizes than Broomhouse. Is there a religious factor? Certainly, many non-Catholic parents choose Catholic schools because they believe the "ethos" at the school is somehow better than at non-denominational schools. It's a hard concept to measure but, whether true or not, it plays its part in making a school more attractive.

Of course the real debate is why, at a time when the council is closing schools with small rolls to save cash (Royston primary which will close in the summer has more pupils than Broomhouse at 161), the idea of two primaries sharing a campus is allowed to continue.

It would surely make the most financial and cultural sense to have just one school offering all the diversity that could be wished for.

The danger remains

STRANGER danger used to be the mantra. As a child you were warned never to accept sweets from anyone you didn't know, and to certainly never, ever go with anyone who wanted to show you some puppies.

Perhaps, in the light of yet another case of a vulnerable child being lured to her death over the internet by a stranger, that message needs to be rammed home again.

Ashleigh Hall, 17, was killed by serial rapist Peter Chapman, who had posed as a 19-year-old, good-looking teenage boy on Facebook. Her mother says she could have done nothing to stop Ashleigh going to meet him. "You tell them to be careful but . . . he was a nice-looking boy. I couldn't have stopped it and I wouldn't have stopped it," she said.

But she should have at least tried. She couldn't have physically prevented her from going, but there should have been more doubt in Ashleigh's mind about the whole set-up. "Peter" was a stranger, whether he was 19 or, as it tragically turned out, a 33-year-old manipulative and cunning rapist.

No matter how old or good-looking the stranger, Ashleigh and her family have learned the hardest way, that the danger is always there.