The complicated reality of the one high school on Mull

If you’ve never lived in the parts of Scotland that are considered ‘remote’ – which of course just means ‘too far away from Glasgow and Edinburgh for some people to think they matter’ – then I think it is very difficult, and perhaps entirely impossible, to really understand what a school is, does, and means to people in communities far from the central belt.

It's a lesson I learned at the very beginning of my teaching career when I moved to Arran. I’d gone to school in a Glasgow suburb, and then completed my training placements in Ayrshire, but life at the other end of that ferry trip was very, very different.

Teaching at the island’s only high school meant that, within days, people living thirty miles away recognised me, and I was always aware that being part of the education system on Arran had helped ensure an extremely warm welcome for someone who was such an outsider that he had barely set foot on ‘the rock’ before moving there.

I still remember being amazed that so many pupils turned up on the last day before Christmas, and realising at that point just how central the high school is to the community connections across the island.

Of course they were coming into school before a two week break during which they might not see their friends at all. It was the same at the end of the year. And those links didn’t only exist for the kids, either.

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I think a lot about how much I learned by moving out of ‘Central Belt Scotland’ (CBS), which brings us to what’s currently happening on the Isle of Mull.

Like Arran, the island currently has one high school – located in Tobermory – and several primary schools dotted around its various communities.

But it is in need of replacement, and the council has started the process to make that happen.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case outside of CBS, the situation is more complicated than it might seem.

The question being asked right now is what sort of replacement is best for the people and communities of Mull? To answer that, you need some context.

You see, the high school on Mull isn’t really a high school for Mull – at least not for all of Mull. The reality right now is that students from the southern part of the island don’t get to go to high school at home – instead, they are sent to board in Oban.

This is necessary because of the distances and travel times involved but, unsurprisingly, it’s something that many people are eager to see changed.

The solution may seem obvious – build the new high school in a more central location, allowing it to become a true all-island institution. Problem solved, right?

Nope.

You see, the school in Tobermory isn’t just a high school, it is in fact an ‘all through school’ serving pupils aged 2-18. Moving the secondary component to a new site nearer to the middle of the island might be a perfectly sensible move, but taking the nursery and primary provision with it, and out of the island’s biggest settlement, is clearly ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the Scottish Government funded scheme being used by the council is built on the assumption that replacement projects will be ‘like for like’ – which is, by extension, built on the assumption that the status quo is already meeting people’s needs. As I wrote a few days ago, if you believe that is the case all over Scotland, you desperately need to get out and see more of it.

Communities on Mull now find themselves at the mercy of a set of rules that may be perfectly adequate in CBS and other parts of the country, but which are a barrier to the sort of progress they want to see.

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To make matters worse, there are some major complaints about how the council is handling all of this.

Officials have identified five possible sites for the new building, but won’t tell anyone exactly where they are. Quite how people can properly engage in a consultation under those circumstances is anyone’s guess.

We’re also hearing from people who say that the processes to engage the different communities around the island have been shambolic, and our attempts to get some clarity from the council haven’t borne much fruit (at least not yet).

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As I have already argued, when it comes to these sorts of decisions around education provision, one size does not fit all communities. That’s always the case, of course, but it’s an especially important principle in situations like this one.

It looks very much as though what Mull needs is an approach that disrupts the status quo rather than one that entrenches it. It is up to the local authority, and the Scottish Government, to make that happen.

In a country that really valued its ‘remote’ communities, rather than just using them for the purposes of PR and Visit Scotland posters, that wouldn’t be too much to ask.