BY Daniel Harkins | September 25 | 
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Taking to the streets to save St Mary’s
Pupils, parents and supporters of an Alexandria primary school have taken to the streets to protest against a proposed relocation of their school to a new super campus.
Children of St Mary’s Primary School gathered with their parents outside their school last Saturday as they chanted and held banners calling for the school to be saved (above).
West Dunbartonshire Council have opened a consultation period on proposals to relocate St Mary’s to a new-build with St Martin’s Primary School. The new school would be built on the current St Martin’s site next to Vale of Leven Academy and would be a shared campus with Renton Primary School and Language Unit and Riverside Early Learning and Childcare Centre. The so-called 3-18 campus would educate pupils from the ages of three up till 18 and would have a total cost of £17.2 million.
Parents have raised concerns about the size of the school and potential loss of educational standards as a result of the super campus move, and have criticised the financial efficacy of the plans. A petition against the closure has been signed by more than 150 people, including by Leonardo Franchi, the head of the St Andrew’s Foundation for Catholic Teacher Education at Glasgow University, who has visited the school a number of times.
“Plans for new ‘super schools,’ whenever and wherever they arise, need to be treated with great caution,” he said, giving a personal view based on his knowledge of the school. “There is value in having schools rooted in small local communities wherever possible with due care given to breadth of provision. Catholic schools should, ideally, be very close to the site of the local parish. St Mary’s Primary in Alexandria would seem to me to be an ideal model for others to copy, not one to be erased from the map.”
Ahead of the launch of the consultation, Dumbarton SNP Councillor Ian Murray had said St Mary’s was being dragged into a ‘marriage of convenience,’ by the council.
The council consultation will end on October 30 with responses being sought from parents, school staff and Glasgow Archdiocese amongst others.
—This story ran in full in the Sept 25 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.
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