'School curricular model must be made clear'

The Scottish Qualifications Authority states: “All National 5 courses have been designed to facilitate progression to Higher. Therefore, in all our Higher courses, as a published recommended entry requirement, learners would be expected to have attained the skills, knowledge and understanding required by the relevant National 5 course or an equivalent qualification and/or experience.”

The expectation is that Hermitage Academy will now allow pupils to take examinations that better reflect the progressive SQA qualifications.

Future fourth year pupils will study six core subjects plus two other subjects (plus PE).

National 5 exams would be taken in S4 as parents have requested. There will still be the option to by-pass National 5 examinations or delay them to fifth year if agreed with parents.

Some parents may still be prepared to accept the risk of their child ending up with no qualification after five years of study in a subject by going straight to Higher in fifth year.

In fifth year, pupils will focus on six subjects with five periods each.

In the Senior Phase there will still be the flexibility to choose courses not leading to SQA examinations.

The frustration and anger being expressed by so many parents reflects the failure of the local authority to clearly explain the new curricular model and to deliver on the promised improvements more quickly.

The failed experiment will have run for three years before the new curricular model is introduced so additional support is still required for the current S4 to S6 pupils.

Parents of pupils in S1 to S3 now need some clear information on the subject options available for their children as they progress to the Senior Phase of their education.

James Robb,

Helensburgh Central councillor

In response to Mr John Ashworth's letter I find that I am completely mystified as to why he should have been told that the lights on the approach to Hill House are not the responsibility of the local authority, when in fact they have been in public ownership for the last 40 plus years, 21 of them in Argyll and Bute.

I was a member of Strathclyde Regional Council in the early 1970s when I was called to a meeting to be informed that drawings, believed to have been by Charles Rennie Mackintosh himself, had been discovered either in the university or at the Glasgow School of Art. These drawings had been brought to the notice of the council because they were drawings of lamp standards.

I was asked what my view would be on having the designs created and installed in Helensburgh because the council officials were of the opinion that they would enhance the approach to Hill House which at that time was owned by the Royal Incorporation of Architects.

The lights were constructed and erected using ratepayers' money and I remember there was an informal switch-on ceremony. I have checked this with a former member of Strathclyde staff who was project officer for lighting and who also attended the switch-on.

At the re-organisation of local government, when Strathclyde faded out, the responsibility for Helensburgh's roads and lighting transferred to Dumbarton District Council who carried on the maintenance for quite a number of years until another re-organisation saw Helensburgh taken into Argyll and Bute, in 1995, and they then became responsible for street lighting.

Indeed, Argyll and Bute Council embarked on a similar project a few years ago when they replaced the street lights in Colquhoun Square with new elaborate lamp standards, which featured a gold painted model of the Comet and had tiled bases, because they were felt to be more appropriate for Colquhoun Square. These, also the responsibility of the local authority, remained in place until the recent redesign of the square under the CHORD Project.

This week I visited the site in Upper Colquhoun Street and there are three lights working and three lights which are not, but the fact that three are working is proof positive that the lights are supplied and paid for by the local authority and, to me, is proof of ownership.

I think that Mr Ashworth must have got someone who is not aware of the history of these lamps and that there has been some misunderstanding because Helensburgh has a very good roads and lighting depot and a very competent chairman of roads.

However, in view of the financial stringencies affecting local authorities across Scotland I wonder if the National Trust for Scotland, who now own Hill House, would be prepared to sponsor the painting of the lamp standards. It would, afterall, would be to their benefit if they were brought up to their original high standard.

If not, then perhaps a local organisation or individuals may be prepared to take on the task provided they get the permission of the council to do so, permission which I am sure would not be refused.

I would like to add that there was a time in the past when members of the roads and lighting team were able to tour the town at night checking street lights and recording those which were out. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible, so I would ask members of the public to take note of the number on lights which they see are not working and to report them to the council.

Billy Petrie,

ex-Strathclyde Regional councillor

With reference to Cameron McNeish’s recent article re proposed Your Park camping bylaws.

What a misnomer this is! Yes, the public were invited to vote yes or no to the questions The Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority (LL&TTNPA) put to them in Your Park consultation re a camping ban on much of the west shore of Loch Lomond and extensions to the existing bans on the east shore and parts of the Trossachs.

I attended the NPA public meeting where the NPA Board “discussed” the results before recommending that they be passed to the Scottish Government.

The results “discussed” by LL&TTNPA were, to say the least, muddied as percentages were given, let’s say, for yes whilst numbers were given for no, or vice versa.

Your Park Consultation Report published documents show that LL&TTNPA “received 336 valid contributions”. The report states: “Having considered all the points made in each response ... 165 (49 per cent) were classified as supportive; 167 (50 per cent) objecting; four (one per cent) neutral".

Surely yes/no questions are precisely that. How can four responses be "neutral" when three yes/no questions were asked?

In my experience comments do not count as they are open to whatever interpretation the reader (or in this case the NPA itself ) wishes to put on them. By the same token, what constitutes a “valid” response?

The same report states in paragraph 4.1.1 Byelaw Q1 – “Overall 209 individuals and 54 organisations responded”. If my arithmetic is correct, that equals 263 responses. We are told only that 112 were yes. Therefore 151 were no?

However, Paragraph 4.1.2 Byelaw Q1 states “a total of 137 responses (individuals and organisations) answered no”. These figures just do not equate.

For Byelaw Q2 (para. 4.2) and Byelaw Q3 (para.4.3) only the number of responses are stated. Yes/no figures or percentages are not given.

Nonetheless, Scottish Government are being requested to support this report despite it being fundamentally flawed.

In my humble opinion the title Your Park just does not earn that title as LL&TTNPA want more and more restrictions to be put in place.

Mrs M. Jack,

via email

Research has found that 60 per cent of deprived schoolchildren don’t attend schools on the Scottish Government’s target register, meaning thousands are missing out on support to close the attainment gap.

This is yet more evidence that shows a very substantial number of deprived pupils do not attend schools in deprived areas.

The Scottish Government policy in only targeting selected schools and local authorities registering a high deprivation index and this has limitations.

The SNP’s approach is failing to target support to all deprived pupils in Scotland who do not attend schools in deprived areas.

They are not doing enough to close the attainment gap or to increase opportunity among our county’s least privileged.

There is a significant problem, particularly in Argyll and Bute, that too many of our disadvantaged young people are not getting the best opportunity to do well and this must change.

Our children deserve the means to better themselves no matter what background they come from.

Alastair Redman,

Islay

Nicola Sturgeon has said that the UK should only leave the EU if all four countries of the UK vote to leave.

Can someone from the SNP please explain why she won’t apply the same logic to her planned second Independence Referendum, which would mean that Scotland would only leave the UK if every council area in Scotland voted to do so?

Alan Reid,

Liberal Democrat candidate for Argyll & Bute,

Dunoon

Much of the debate about the current EU renegotiation by the Prime Minister has focused on restricting access to benefits for those from other European Union countries coming to the UK.

Some perspective is needed on this. What tends to be forgotten is that there are around 2.2 million UK citizens living and working in the rest of the EU with, for example, just over a million British people living in Spain and 329,000 in Ireland.

Indeed, unemployed Britons in the EU are drawing much more in benefits and allowances in wealthier EU countries than their nationals are claiming in the UK.

For example, four times as many Britons obtain unemployment benefits in Germany as Germans do in the UK, while the number of jobless Britons receiving benefits in Ireland exceeds their Irish counterparts in the UK by a rate of five to one.

Contrary to popular perceptions, the figures for nationals of those 10 east European countries drawing Jobseeker’s Allowance in the UK remain modest, despite the periodical outcries about “benefits tourism”.

There are only about 1,000 Romanians and 500 Bulgarians, for example, drawing Jobseeker’s Allowance in Britain, according to the Department for Work and Pensions.

Of those EU migrants living here a mere 1.2 per cent are not economically active, amounting to a miniscule number.

According to University College London, between 2001 and 2011 EU migrants made an estimated positive net contribution of £20 billion to the UK economy as they tend to be younger and more economically active than our own workforce, paying more in taxes and receiving less in benefits.

Those from the EU who have made the UK their home make an overwhelmingly positive contribution economically, socially and culturally, and it is good to sometimes highlight the facts as well as remembering those UK citizens who currently live in other EU countries.

Alex Orr,

Edinburgh

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Chief executive,

Action for ME,

Keynsham,

Somerset