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Glenurquhart School Closure

From Moriston Matters, Issue 13, June 1979 .

GLENRQUHART SECONDARY SCHOOL

The now rather hackneyed Education Committee proposal of closure of this school, mooted three times in the last twelve years was once again foiled by concerted local community action during the past two months.

The proposal by the Education Committee was occasioned by the unfortunate death of the Headmaster, Mr Campbell, and the Committee's need to make a decision about the appointment of a new head and the terms of the appointment, if indeed there should be one at all.

To be fair, the Director of Education called a public meeting to discuss the matter on Thursday, 8th March, in Blairbeg Hall, at which he painted a rosy picture of the "opportunities" available at Charleston Comprehensive School which he stated was a preferable alternative to keeping Glenurquhart School open. Now, as Charleston is a new school in Inverness, the one on the way to Balnafettack, the local parents in Drumnadrochit felt strongly that it did not make sense to bus 30 children at a cost of £7,168 per year from Drumnadrochit, 37 children from Cannich and 13 from Glenmoriston to be hostelled at Da1neigh Hoste1, costing £31,900 when there was a perfectly good school in the village. There are many social and community reasons which were strongly stated, of even more importance than the financial one; the need for a growing young community to have its own school, to encourage the pupils to take a real interest in their local area and have a lasting affection which wouold help them to stay and promote its continuance after leaving school. Many parents objected strongly to the idea of their 12-year old children forcibly sent away from home to board out. The public observed that since 1970 Glenurquhart School has been consistently kept short of finance, maintenance and encouragement by the Dept. of Education and this looked deliberate, in order to run the school down, then close it.

The school staff were qualified and keen to maintain and extend the scope of the school, which offers 17 subjects at 'O' grade. The pupils can only take 8!, so it compares very favourably with any Inverness school, and the academic achievements of its pupils going on to University and further education are better than those of any other school in the area. The continued stumbling block is that the Education Committee have repeaedly refused to provide additional science accommodation which would enable all pupils to take all their "H" grades, instead of as at present being ab1e to take only languages and humanities and having to go elsewhere in their 6th year for their 'H' grade sciences.

The Education Committee were roundly criticised about the disrepair, lack of facilities, shabby classrooms, poor hygiene and working conditions for pupils and staff alike.

It was resolved unanimously to press for the continuance of the school and its refurbishment by the 300 or so at the meeting. The Director was left in no doubt of the community's wishes at the end of an enthusiastic and determined meeting. Later, on 14th March the ??? members of the Secondary School Council met Mr.D. Sutherland (Divisional Education Officer) at a special meeting and once again expressed the identical points in considerably more detail and unanimously passed the same resolution as at the public meeting. Three days later, on Friday, 16th March, the Education Committee unanimously voted to accept the parents' and public's wishes and recommended the Finance Committee to allocate funds and re-examine the needs of Glenurquhart Secondary School with a view to refurbishing in the near future.

So again it must be noted that if public opinion is concerted and based on sound argument Official Bodies find it very hard to resist, - after all they are there to serve the public and its best interests, not to propagate their own pet policies.

M.A.T. (perhaps Mike Tomlin - ed)
Vice-Chairman, Sec.School Council

P.S. The parental ballot (questionnaire) results for those who did not see them in the press were: 86 for the school at Glenurquhart 0 for the school in Inverness, 95% vote in favour of Glenurquhart School!