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Johnstone's View 10th February

The news reported in last weeks ‘Mearns Leader’ that nine local primary school buildings have been placed in the lowest category in a recent Scottish Government survey, must come as a shock to many who believe that school standards remain relatively high in Aberdeenshire.  The further revelation that of the 85 schools across Scotland given this classification where there are no plans for building replacement, 45 of them, more than half the total, are in Aberdeenshire, with nine of them in the Mearns.

It’s a particular disappointment to find among them Glenbervie Primary school in Drumlithie where I received my own primary education, as have now two further generations of my family.  It is for that reason, among others, that I know full well that the standard of education received in our local primary schools is much more to do with the quality of our teachers, the experience of our head teachers and the way in which the schools integrate into the communities around them.

I don’t have to be told that this classification does not mean that conditions in these schools are not fit for the children and staff who occupy them.  Indeed, in my role as a member of the Scottish Parliament, I have visited many school buildings beyond the boundaries of Aberdeenshire, which would horrify parents who currently send their children to these schools in the Mearns.  The irony is that results achieved can often be remarkable given the conditions in which teaching must take place.

We in Aberdeenshire have always had confidence that our schools were good and the level of attainment of their pupils was commendable.  That’s why its all the more worrying to discover another set of statistics published last week, which are worthy of consideration.

We all know how controversial it was when performance results for individual schools were first published and assembled into league tables by journalists.  Last week something similar happened when the Scottish Government published figures for the percentage of primary 7 pupils attaining the recommended standards for their age in reading, writing and mathematics, broken down by education authority.  With their usual ruthless efficiency, the press quickly put together a league table designed to show which areas were doing best and exposing the performance of those who were doing less well.

Something of a disappointment then to find Aberdeenshire languishing near the bottom of this league table between Glasgow and North Lanarkshire and some way behind the top performers in East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire.  I suppose its only fair that I should give this a little more perspective since these top two are some way ahead of the pack and, while there are one or two near the bottom of the list who don’t have their troubles to seek, the vast majority fall within a relatively narrow band in performance terms, with Aberdeenshire among them.

It must have come as a shock though, for those of us who might have expected Aberdeenshire to be nearer the top 25%, to find it on the very cusp of the bottom 25% when rated in this way.

Is it possible that these two things are related?  Probably not, but together they come as part of a worrying trend which we all need to face up to now, before it becomes too big a problem for us to turn round in the short term.  Many of us have been quietly confident that primary school education in Aberdeenshire was of a very high standard and there was nothing to worry about.  So should we now be worried?  No, because that will get us nowhere.  Our primary schools are not failing but they have been demonstrated to be a weak point in the responsibilities of our local authority.  This must be treated as a call to arms to fight for the standards to which we believe we are entitled and for our educators and parents, as well as politicians and civil servants, to work together to achieve improvements.

The number of Aberdeenshire primary school buildings which have been classified as ‘economically extinct’, indicates that an enormous bill for school building improvements is on the horizon. Since it was Alex Salmond who told local authorities like Aberdeenshire how they should not fund capital projects, it is time for him to tell us exactly how they will be able to source funds for this kind of capital investment in the future.  We have been waiting for the details of the Scottish futures trust for nearly two years and it still hasn’t delivered a penny.  In the meantime however, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted from the more important task of pushing up standards for the next intake of our Primary Schools.