A BOATER hat and a chequered dress had been swapped for a thick navy skirt and a tie. Previously, there had been an ocean just over the way, now bars guarded the windows from vandals.

I remember my first day at my Scottish primary, the sick pit of nerves and the detached curiosity. I’d moved school quite a few times before but never to a new country so this was a wholly unique experience.

What marked me out, to them, was my weird accent and my inability to comprehend my classmates’ questions.

I didn’t know what a Proddie or a Catholic was, never mind which I was. I didn’t know what Rangers or Celtic were. Why did I have to give the correct answer before anyone would chum me in the playground? There was a playtime scrum, with me in the middle, as I was heckled by these weird words.

“Tell them you’re Jewish,” Ma Stewart said. “Tell them you like rugby.” When I didn’t understand the accent, “Say, ‘I’m terribly sorry, I can’t quite understand you, could you please repeat yourself?’”

These were not the right things to say to Coatbridge classmates when you already stood out like a sore thumb. Worse was to puzzle out loud why Christian factions mattered when I’d come from a classroom full of Aborigines, Pacific Islanders, Greeks, Lebanese and etc.

So there we were, divided by a common language, with me in an invisible sandwich board that read, “Bully me”.

I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if English was not my native tongue. How alienating, how lonely, how outwith my control.

So how sickening to read the Scottish Daily Mail’s front page and see “Scotland’s schools struggling with record number of foreign children who are unable to speak English.” How parochial.

Currently there are 39,342 children in Scottish schools who have English as an additional language (EAL), an increase from 9486 a decade ago.

A spokesman from the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association said teaching suffers due to cuts to the number of classroom assistants who support children as their English improves. He says EAL children can struggle without sufficient support while English-speaking children do not receive enough attention.

A spokesman for the EIS similarly says EAL children - who have “the right to expect that specialist support” - may suffer from cuts to specialist support.

So, both agree that “foreign children” are not the problem. Cuts - although the Scottish Government denies this - to education provisions are the problem.

Foreign children are an asset to Scottish classrooms. A report from the Scottish Government Languages Working Group states Scotland must become a “confident multi-lingual country of the future.”

We have long bemoaned the fact language learning is in decline in the UK. An inability to speak additional languages is one of the major handicaps in Britain for developing trading links with other countries.

Languages assist business but also travel, personal development, an understanding of the possibilities of communication. If we want our children to be open to the world and living in a multi-cultural, multilingual nation, which we must, then the tolerance that grows from studying beside those of other countries and cultures is vital.

In Glasgow’s Govanhill a growing Roma population causes infrastructure problems for the local community. The Roma children who attend primary school and learn English have the chance to use that education to overturn centuries of oppression and poverty. We should be proud of this possibility and potential.

We should also be grateful for the fruits of this potential.

Maria Walker, Head of Service of the EAL Service in Glasgow, told me how a large number of Afghan and Pakistani pupils who had grown up playing cricket helped their new Drumchapel school form a team for the first time and trounce the local private schools.

Other teachers speak of how children from certain countries raise attainment in their classes as they come from cultures that highly prize learning.

Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah, who came to Britain aged eight, has been awarded a knighthood in the New Year Honours list. I was interested to read his comment. “Looking back at the boy who arrived here from Somalia, not speaking any English, I could never have imagined where I would be today - it’s a dream come true.”

If we can’t value the potential of foreign children, we’re the problem. Not them.