Scottish Catholic Observer

A new joint campus for St Peter’s Primary, Aitkenbar Primary School and Andrew B Cameron and St Peter’s early education and childcare centres (EECC), was announced last year. In June, it emerged that the two schools would have separate entrances, in addition to separate staffrooms.

Aitkenbar Primary Parent Council and Scottish Socialist Party councillor Jim Bollan had criticised the plans, and SNP group leader Jonathan McColl last week called for further talks on the issue.

However, the council’s planning committee approved the proposals and work on the new £9.3m school campus will now go ahead, with the development expected to be completed by early 2016.

Opponents of the proposals had claimed separate entrances were not a legal requirement at the new school and that a shared public reception space was included in the original plans.

However Michael McGrath, director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service, said that ‘council officers were aware, from the very start of discussions with the Church, that we required each school to have its own entrance, to protect its identity and autonomy.’

“It would be quite wrong to suggest that this was not known or understood by council officers,” he added.

A statement from Glasgow Archdiocese said: “The new shared campus is designed to allow two distinct schools with their own staff and uniform and ethos to share certain common facilities to the benefit of all. This is the vision of both the archdiocese and the local authority and the new campus will facilitate this.”

A spokesman for West Dunbartonshire Council had previously said that ‘the Catholic Church’s protocol on shared campuses requires certain facilities, including entrances and staff rooms, to be provided separately to emphasise the fact that there are two distinct schools sharing the same campus,’ and that ‘St Peter’s and Aitkenbar primaries work very closely together and the shared campus will enable this strong relationship to grow,’ while emphasising that many areas of the school will be shared.

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—Read the full version of this story in October 17 edition of the SCO in parishes from Friday.