Scottish Referendum debate - watch with Mumsnet

DH and I have two sets of cards as we have two houses in Scotland in different regions and pay two lots of council tax. We will only use one vote though.

There is a big flag somewhere beside the motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, but I've only seen one on a flagpole. The others have all been secured to fences or on wooden stands that someone has erected.

I saw someone plastering big "Keep Calm And Vote No" stickers in the middle and at the top of a charity shop window on my way home one evening. Regardless of which side is doing it, Yes or No, I thought that was a sh*tty thing to do, especially to a charity. Would have felt the same if it had been a Yes sticker.

Flags in windows. Agree about stickers though they look shitty really quickly and it's basically just littering.

My polling card has taken pride of place beneath a fridge magnet.

No, just name, address and polling station on one side, and 'How to Vote' on the other.

Did you say you were rural, itsAllGoingToBeFine? Do you mean flags on flagpoles or in windows? I've seen a couple of flats that have their windows completely covered by flags - I do wonder if they're sitting with the lights on all day. Have seen more No posters going up recently. I do wish both sides would stop putting stickers on lamp posts and bus stops - some are now just a mess of ripped off bits of stickers. And Edinburgh Council have thousands of pounds racking up daily in interest payments for the trams so not sure how much money there will be for clearing up

Ooh maybe ours will be there when I get home! What is it like Santana? Silly question maybe but I'm curious! Just like the regular polling cards for general elections and such, but with Yes and No instead of the parties?

My polling card has arrived! Exciting times.

It may be the same with us ItsAllGoingToBeFine! Although I did walk past someone delivering leaflets to the houses in our street for the Yes campaign and told him it was nice to see him around. :) We've had leaflets from both sides, but no callers, either at the door or by phone. No-one carrying out polls, either.

Will be voting yes.

Me either. But the two large yes flags probably put both sides off

I feel left out of the canvassing though, no-one has canvassed us at all, haha. :(

Lol it's okay, I'm not worried. :) Hm like Braveheart the movie minus the historical inaccuracies, but yes the Braveheart thing is not the reason to vote Yes! Every vote for each side counts though, no matter what the reasoning.

Only 4? Don't worry, I know loads . And a few yes. One of whom is very Braveheart about it, so I maybe see more than most of that side of Facebook.

I think people in high-earning jobs will perhaps lean to a No vote, I genuinely don't know as I only personally know 4 No voters. Strangely, they fit in none of those job categories. But there will be exceptions to every rule, of course.

I have no idea what iScotland would mean for my job, it may or may not affect it. Probably not, but if it does, poop happens.

From personal conversations I tend to think many people working in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) related professions lean to a No vote.

In relation to the Gaelic conversation, to be honest I think that the many millions of pounds of our money ploughed into Gaelic overall, including transport and public building signage, separate schools and producing additional learning and teaching materials for school qualifications in Gaelic could have been put to much better use in education.

In above post, *they referring to the people I mentioned, not the EU. :)

I know it's not representative of all, Igneococcus. :) Some of the funding for my research and certain studies would/has come from European programs. They have taken a lot of other things into consideration alongside this issue, though.

I had a look at the website, Hillhead primary school teaches Punjabi and Urdu, that's very good! These are two of the languages for which the council and various other organisations desperately need interpreters. I wish I spoke one of them!

Fucking hell I mean, it's a lovely school but 13.8 million????!!!!

I've just googled 'costs of Gaelic education' and the Scotsman reports that 'City leaders and the Scottish Government have already ploughed £3.53 million into Edinburgh’s first Gaelic-dedicated primary school, Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce in Bonnington'

3.53 million

The new Hillhead Primary in Glasgow cost £13.8 million, so that sounds like a bargain
www.ajbuildingslibrary.co.uk/projects/display/id/5014

Urgh, all my calculations are wrong. Ignore me... sorry

This is really surprising- In 2012/13, the average spend per pupil across Scotland was £5,468. So if the Scotsman's figures are correct, Gaelic education is much cheaper.

Although the Herald says it was 8 million that year, plus a 5.1 million budget for the Gaelic Board.

It does particularly annoy me that given the shortage of schools in that area they've chosen to use the building for a specialist unit full of out of catchment kids. But then Edinburgh council are absolute idiots

The Gaelic primary in question is another wonderful example of the SG bailing out the incompetent council here

I've just googled 'costs of Gaelic education' and the Scotsman reports that 'City leaders and the Scottish Government have already ploughed £3.53 million into Edinburgh’s first Gaelic-dedicated primary school, Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce in Bonnington'

3.53 million

The same article says at least £1.1m in 2012-13 was spent on Gaelic education, for 4593 kids according to the Gaelic board (989 children in a Gaelic nursery, 2,500 pupils were enrolled in GME primary education and 1,104 secondary school pupils were studying Gàidhlig for fluent speakers and/or other subjects in high school through the medium of Gaelic)

That's (at least) £2395 a head. I don't know the equivalent figure for English medium education.

The Gaelic primary in question is another wonderful example of the SG bailing out the incompetent council here. The building was one of the school closures in recent years (now being followed by building over school playgrounds to provide classrooms). The council claimed they would sell it for at least a million. It sat empty. It was vandalised and lead stolen from the roof. Lots of damage followed, and wasn't properly repaired. Amazingly, nobody bought it, and over a million has been spent refurbing. It then had to be fitted out with lots of new equipment (our school struggles to get new chairs and desks).

My understanding is that the cost per pupil is broadly the same, although I know they were struggling to get staff for it so not sure what the spend on recruitment and training was (the idea is meant to be total immersion, so all teaching and all support staff fluent in Gaelic). And it runs at a much lower capacity percentage than other schools. Other schools in the area are stuffed to capacity, we have new classrooms but no additional funding for IT. We don't have enough space for gym, lunches etc. the council have no plans to address this.

Interestingly, and this is completely outwith referendum chat, the Gaelic school introduced a uniform option of a kilt that cost £40. Nice inclusive school uniform policy there. It is optional, not sure now many have gone for it. Or how many 5 year olds are bundled into one that have to last them for most of their time in the school!

I have no problem with Gaelic teaching. I'm not convinced a dedicated school in an area which isn't traditionally Gaelic is the best use of funding, but my view of the incompetence of Edinburgh Council (and the SG's failure to do anything to stop them - rather to just keep forking the cash over) does impact my thinking there.

Signs for stations with made up Gaelic names (because there was no Gaelic name historically, because it wasn't a Gaelic area) I'm not so keen on. And there should be more acknowledgement that Gaelic is/was not the traditional language of the whole of Scotland.