Parents from two Inverness Primary Schools are joining forces to fight a mooted merger that will leave them sharing a head teacher.
Plans outlined by Highland Council suggest the changes involving 230-pupil Central Primary School and Bishop Eden’s Primary School, with just 35 pupils.
But parents at Central feel they would be left with a “part-time” head teacher, which would mean delays in addressing vital issues identified for improvement such as improving communication with parents and carers, playground facilities and the management of behaviour.
In a letter to parents of Central Primary, Parent Council Chairwoman Esther Dickinson said: “Central is an inner-city school with lots of challenges including a poor standard of learning (as identified in the school’s Improvement Plan) and parents have also told us they’d like to see improvements in areas such as communication with parents/carers, playground facilities, out-of-school activities and the management of behaviour. We think that our existing head teacher, who has only been in post for just over a year, has enough to deal with at present without taking on the management of a separate school”. She added: “The clustering of schools in the Highland Council area is designed for small rural schools, not large city schools like Central.”
Meanwhile, parents of Bishop Eden’s are concerned their school will be overshadowed and the progress in improving the school will be affected.
Sharon Reid, a board member of the Bishop Eden’s Primary School added: “We as parents feel our children have a unique opportunity attending Bishop Eden’s primary school, for many years we have had a special bond and interaction with Inverness Cathedral as St Andrews own the building.
The constant changes & distress to our children has not been helpful either.
“We have sent an open letter re our concerns to all councillors only one has responded to date, parents from both schools are united as this effects all our children’s education”.
A Highland Council Spokeswoman said: “Highland Council are in discussions with all Stakeholders in relation to proposals regarding the management of the schools in that group. Engagement is on-going and no decisions about the management structure for these schools will be taken in the meantime. We encourage people to participate in that discussion.”
