Basic lessons

Published on 10/11/2012 03:24

When is a school no longer a school? When it has been sold to a private buyer, you might think, who intends to use it for a different purpose, or when it is simply demolished.

However, it appears that 
there is another set of circumstances under which a local authority school can be hijacked – namely when it is turned into a church.

Every Sunday in Balerno, 
Edinburgh, the congregation of St Mungo’s Church hold its service in the high school, proudly proclaiming this fact by displaying a large banner on the school building. As a dog owner, I’m very familiar with this eagerness to express territorial dominion (although in the canine world it is normally associated with trees and lampposts), but is it appropriate for a non-denominational school to give its public endorsement of it?

I have the right to expect that the tax that I pay towards education will be used solely for that purpose, and not to indulge the promotion of whatever religious or political organisation that manages to grab hold of a set of keys to our schools.

Veronica Wikman

Malleny Avenue

Edinburgh