WE believed that People Make Glasgow; turns out it is petty politics.
For more than 120 years Notre Dame High has served as an education exemplar, empowering generations of girls from Pollokshields to Partick, from the West End to Easterhouse to become capable and confident young women ready to take their place in the male dominated workforce.
Demand for the high-performing school grows year on year with families actively choosing to send their girls to benefit from its culturally rich and girl-centric learning environment. Our ethnic communities are strongly represented in the current 78 percent of placing requests.
That choice is about to be taken away. An uninvited public consultation, with no clear educational benefit, pushed debate into the public domain this year. Our local politicians then stood back as it played out, causing disruption and distress to those most affected by change: families and students at the school.
Their only job was to consider reports and take a vote at November's City Administration Committee. That process was completely disregarded last week when SNP councillors, swiftly followed by Greens and Conservatives, declared in the media their intention to vote for co-education ("Row as SNP votes early to axe single sex schooling", The Herald, October 25). A full month before they had sight of reports currently being compiled by experts and senior officials. To ignore their own due process is not only disrespectful to all those who engaged and fed back during the consultation, it blatantly ignores the 54 per cent of public votes in favour of keeping the school all girls. Worryingly, it begs the question, if the outcome was politically pre-determined and the consultation a convenient cover up?
We urge Glasgow City Council members to consider the impact of their early declaration on all local learning communities. This issue is not just about admitting boys to Scotland's last remaining all-girls public school. Changing access criteria for one school sets a unique precedent. Parents can now demand entry for their children to any secondary they deem "local" whether in or out of council-designated catchment areas. It opens up questions around access requirements to the Gaelic school, the School of Dance, the School of Sport and even Jordanhill. That wonderful array of secondary school choice is now fair game.
Whatever the official result on November 28, Notre Dame High is an important part of Glasgow’s education history, complementing the unique educational diversity on offer. We are proud to represent its school community. Removing that choice from families who need it most, surely deserves all our councillors' full and considered attention and respect. How else will they make an informed decision?
Katharine Brough and Ciaran Ewins, Co-Chair, Notre Dame High School Parent Council, Glasgow G12.
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