I enjoyed the education focus in Thursday’s Evening Express: Flashback school pictures, north-east to receive less government early years education money, and (indirectly) Colin Farquhar on risks and creativity, a cinematic meets civic redevelopment view.
His full-page article started with an anecdote on school poetry and concluded with a call for “creativity, transformation and risk”, which could have been a quote from the recommendation of the first report by the great and good of the Times Education Commission. Indeed, at first glance I thought the picture, at the heart of the article, was an artist’s impression of an atrium for a new city academy.
And a “radical and thoughtful solution” occurred to me: why not put in a school, in order to improve the moribund eastern end of Union Street? One option would be to relocate Harlaw Academy ; plus the current campus would fetch a good price.
Alternatively, a secondary faith school might be encouraged to set up for the growing religious population of Aberdeen. This has been successful in other parts of the UK where large empty shops have been converted and lively teens have transformed run-down areas.
This bold move might be a vote winner in the upcoming local council elections. Which political party triumphed with “Education, education, education”?
Paul Martin