bbbrown, a good many pages back I explained why, in my personal opinion of course, the current site would not be big enough for rebuilding St John's. Your post which came immediately after asked isn't the current site big enough. St John's is overcrowded; this is a simple fact. It is a small school with a small amount of outdoor space. Some of that important outdoor space was lost last year so that the hall could be extended and a new TU classroom added. To build a big enough school on the existing site would probably take away all outdoor space. That seems ironic to me since much of the argument for not building the golf course seems to hinge on the encouragement of outdoor exercise. A lot of what I'm reading both here and in the EN letters page seems to be saying that outdoor space and exercise are very important, but the kids don't need it themselves!
Nobody has as yet answered my query about the Jack Kane centre, but it is to be redeveloped, and a football barn is, I believe, part of the plan for it, but that loses more outdoor space - the space we currently farm out our kids to from PHS. Whilst many people think it is acceptable to send them there for PE, losing much of their PE time in the process, nobody seems too bothered about what happens when that resource is redeveloped - at least in terms of the children's need/right to open air space for exercise. The same with Meadowbank - it's no secret that we're going to lose that soon too. Then where will the children go? There are many people stating over and over again that we should be encouraging the use of green space for fitness, to combat the growing problem of obesity, and yet that argument is being used against giving the children a school with playing fields the whole community can make use of.
Building a smaller PHS and sending half of the kids to Castlebrae is another suggestion, as is rebuilding St John's at Duddingston primary. Presumably moving St John's there - further from Portobello - would cause a catchment problem with St Theresa's or somewhere. It sounds a lot like trying to get rid of the problem by getting rid of the kids! (i.e. If we build a school further away, it's no longer a Portobello problem....) Why is it we're not happy for the people who currently use the golf course to have a move that is accessible to the majority since it is not much further away and many of those people drive there anyway, and yet we're happy to send 1800+ children further away, the vast majority of whom don't drive
?
Why should the children go out of Portobello for their schools when people feel so strongly about people who use the golf course not having to go further afield? What message are we giving here about how much we value our children and their education and their future? What are we saying about their position in our community?
As for experience of decanting, I've asked someone with first hand experience to let us know about the decant of Parsons Green pupils five years ago, which was for a much shorter period of time than would be required to build a new school. What I do know of that myself is that nobody was happy with its effects and it did disrupt the children's education, as I've described much earlier in this thread.
This is a very difficult issue for our community to face, and clearly feelings are running high (I freely admit mine are!). There are no easy answers here. But I really feel uncomfortable with the way we are suggesting children tolerate what adults don't want to.
I'll get off my soapbox now.
Paula
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