I READ with interest your education correspondent's expose of the Glasgow Education Convener's involvement in the preparation of the formal consultation proposal for the future Woodside/Hillhead secondary school.
Dr Green repeatedly justified his persuasion of the Labour group by stating yesterday that in the interests of fairness we should at least consider moving the school to the Woodside building.
I refer him to the informal consultation process from November to February. There were three proposals in that document, including closing Hillhead High and merging on the Woodside site. We have considered it.
There were over 250 replies in favour of retaining Hillhead High School on its present site. There were about 10 from members of the Woodside community, the majority of which came from staff. These mostly promoted merging on a totally new site - an option which was discarded by the council along with the option of moving to the Woodside site.
Dr Green is very fond of quoting the Director of Education as saying that the only reason he advised in favour of the Hillhead site was that the parents refused to move, whereas the Woodside parents had no choice.
I would like to hear Mr Corsar's own version of his reasons. I have only heard him saying that it was for ''overwhelmingly educational reasons''. I believe the educational arguments have been won.
The unique ethos of Hillhead High School raises it above others in what it has achieved as a multicultural inner-city school with such a broad range of racial and social backgrounds. At a time when there are significant worries over larger schools with such a make-up, it is vital that the hard-won confidence of the pupils in Hillhead High School is disturbed as little as possible. It is equally as important for the Woodside pupils.
Since it is proposed that Hillhead staff and management are retained it makes little sense to uproot the delivery system of such security by transplanting all its elements - staff, existing pupils, and new pupils - to a new location.
Indeed, the larger pupil community at Hillhead can be instrumental in easing the transition for the Woodside pupils getting used to entirely new arrangements.
Dr Joanne Beaumont,
Chair,
Hillhead Primary School Board,
13 Kelvinside Terrace South,
Glasgow.
June 3.
SCHOOL rationalisation is indeed a difficult issue but perhaps Glasgow's councillors should have started from the basic premise that the handful of schools within the city which are clearly successful and perform above national standards should have been left well alone and efforts concentrated on the others.
The clinching argument for retaining Hillhead High School on its present site is that every single pupil attending the school is there by parental choice, either moving directly from the associated primaries or by placing request. It must also be remembered that of Hillhead's 70% placing requests, many come from areas such as Possil where local schools have already been closed and and these children would have even further to travel if the Woodside site were chosen.
If, by any chance, this resurrected ''second option'' were to go ahead, the only result in a very few years would again be a half-empty, ''uneconomic'' school, created at the expense of one which is proving popular, and successful.
The councillors could not be so daft - could they?
J Morrison,
230 Ashcroft Drive,
Glasgow.
June 2.
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