PARENTS from a second Scottish council will have to prove their children are baptised Catholics in future if they want to attend a popular denominational school.
Inverclyde Council is considering a shake-up of the rules on school entry to protect places for Catholic families who want to attend Notre Dame High School, in Greenock.
The move follows an increasing number of placing requests to attend the school from outside the catchment which cannot all be accommodated.
A council paper on the proposed changes states that in future priority access will be given to pupils "who can demonstrate an affinity with the religious ethos of the school and can provide documentary evidence of this in the form of a certificate of baptism into
The changes are part of a wider reform of school entry policy in Inverclyde which will also see children who have attended feeder primary schools for the longest time given priority when applying to an associated secondary school.
A council spokesman said: "It is important that we hear the views of parents and young people about criteria in place when examining placing requests and in the exceptional circumstances where a school is at capacity. I would urge parents and carers to review the proposal and to let the council know their views on this consultation."
In August East Renfrewshire Council announced a consultation on a similar proposal to deal with overcrowding at St Ninian's High School, in Giffnock, on the outskirts of Glasgow.
St Ninian's regularly comes top of the school league tables and is a magnet for Catholic families as well as those of others faiths or no faith.
However, new housing developments and an increase in families moving to the area has meant the school is now oversubscribed with local children with the situation estimated to get worse.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel