Parents who campaigned against the re-organisation of junior Gaelic medium classes at Stornoway Primary School are celebrating after the local authority changed its plans. Parents were angry at the decision by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar’s education department to split year groups and create composite classes. The problem focused on the class going into GM2 (primary 2). This class, of 22 children, had been hailed as a great result for Gaelic Medium Education as it was the first GME intake for Stornoway primary that was big enough to stand alone, without being combined with the class above. The new intake, for the 2018/19 session, was also big enough to run as a straight P1 year group. However, two days before classes broke up for the summer holidays, children from GM1 going into GM2 reported to their parents they were being split up, with six from their class being put in with the new GM1 intake. Education bosses claimed the change was the result of a local authority policy to ‘keep capacity’ in all classes, should new pupils enrol at the school, as it allowed them to even out the numbers of pupils across the years.
As it stands, there is a large concentration of children in the GM3/4 class, which is close to capacity. The parents stressed their issue was not composite classes per se, but this particular case, where a small number of children were being separated from their peer group. They felt the children’s education and well-being would suTher. Another problem was the proposed composite class structure could have undone some of the good work done in the ‘Literacy Project’ pilot scheme.
The parents also feared that being put into a composite class with P1 would have a negative impact on the Gaelic of the P2 children as many of the incoming children would not have an equal amount of Gaelic. In a bid to get the comhairle to change its mind, the parents enlisted the help of MSP Alasdair Allan, Bòrd na Gàidhlig chief executive Shona MacLennan and Magaidh Wentworth of Comann nam Parant, the national organization representing parents of children in Gaelic medium education. They also enlisted the help of council leader Roddie Mackay and, at the 11th hour, around 5pm on Wednesday August 15 – the afternoon before school went back – Comhairle nan Eilean Siar announced it was doing a U-turn. In a group call to parents, the comhairle said it had been agreed all new GM1 pupils will form one class, all GM2 pupils will form one class and all GM3 pupils will be part of the composite GM3/4 class.