Moving to the southside...maybe Mount Florida

[StripeyFox]

Apologies, I know there are loads of posts about schools already.

I'm thinking of moving to Mount Florida and was wondering if anyone has any experience of the primary school there? I have been considering a variety of areas in the Southside and have heard a bit about some of the other primary schools by word of mouth but haven't heard anything about this particular primary school. Although my son isn't yet school age I expect I won't be moving again before he starts school. I'd appreciate any information you might have about the school - researching schools is new to me and not knowing many people with school age children, I'm finding it somewhat tricky!

Thanks

Don't have specific knowledge of Mount Florida but it's not a primary I've heard bad things about. A former colleague from work's son goes there - and from what I remember of her, there's no way she'd have sent him there if she had any concerns.

It feeds into Shawlands Academy, where ds goes (as a placing request) and I am extremely happy with how he is doing and the aspirations of the school.

Other Southside schools about which I've heard good things are Shawlands, Langside, Battlefield, Merrylee,Glendale.

Ds is not impressed with those classmates who have come from Cuthbertson. He says they were way behind in S1. That might just be the particular cohort who were in his class.

I know a couple of people whose children go to mount Florida primary. Both very happy. The head teacher changed quite recently - within the past 3years or so - and I believe she has made a big difference. Much improved, I hear.

prettybird can I ask why your DS found the Cuthbertson pupils to be less then impressive?
Just asking as my DD will be starting Shawlands from Cuthbertson in August and would hate for people to think she was behind her peers academically.
She only started at Cuthbertson for p5 as we are not from Glasgow originally and all of her teachers have commented on her work ethic and how it has rubbed off on the other pupils. She also has a few very bright children in her class despite the cultural challenges that many pupils from the school face.
So would just like to know if I should prepare myself for her to have some catching up to do to be on par with the children from the less disadvantaged schools.
Thanks

I'll ask him - he's now in S3, so it was a wee while ago that he commented.

From memory, he said they were further behind in French and but I'll need to check also no one from Cuthbertson was in the top set for English or Maths. That could of course be just the particular cohort.

And as a reassurance, if your dd has a good work ethic, that will go down well at Shawlands, so she should be fine.

Iirc, part of ds' "complaint" was that the Cuthbertson kids in his class didn't have the work ethic that he was used to and which had been expected of him at his own primary school. He's not that much of a goody two shoes, honest!

I could see them being behind in french tbh. Her teaching seems to have been quite unreliable over the past two years with that.
Fingers crossed she'll settle in fine. Was just disappointed to read that an entire class from one school could be so far behind their peers.
Thanks for the quick reply!
She has her visit days this week and is super excited. Think I'm just being a nervous mum worrying about the transition. Fingers crossed she'll be fine.

I'm sure she'll be fine. I hope she enjoys her transition days. The important thing is her attitude. The depute responsible for transition and the S1s (and the School of Rugby which would always welcome more girls ) is lovely.

Ds will be "going" into S4 in a couple of weeks when they start the new timetable.

Ds' primary school had a similar demographic to Cuthbertson - over 60% ethnic minorities/EAL and a high number of FSMs. But it was apparently an exemplar of best practice in how to works with multiple languages/EAL support. It was doing "team teaching"/cross-curricular work long before CfE. As a result, it is bursting at the seams with placing requests some from Cuthbertson

Morning isn't the time to ask ds questions about school - I'll see what I can find out this evening.

Spoken with ds. He says that his main concerns are that no one from Cuthertson is in the top English or Maths sets (although he mentions in a positive way one girl who is very good at music) and that some of the kids have challenging behaviours and smoke His primary school had a high Muslim, Arab, Polish, Russian population but very few Slovak

...sorry, posted too soon by accident.

....very few Slovak or Roma kids. Even though many of the kids at his school had English as an Additional Language, they were able to speak English. He complains that the Slovak girls pretend that they can't speak English to the teachers but he knows that they can.

He's denying saying anything about French but I'm sure I remember him commenting on that in S1

He confirms that anyone who has a good work ethic will be fine at Shawlands (that's why he mentioned the girl who was good at music as she had obviously worked hard at it).

Thanks for this :)
As I mentioned DD has a great work ethic and is one of the brightest in her class. She was also learning violin at her old school, but this has kind of fallen by the wayside since we've been in Glasgow (despite me paying for private tuition, grr) as Cuthbertson don't have music tuition.
We are not an EAL family and I can see why this can be challenging for the staff and other pupils. I'm kind of hoping she can make friends with pupils from the other schools eventually as their have been a few issues with her classmates of late and her teacher also mentioned at the last parents' night that many of the Muslim girls break off and form a new group with other girls from their mosque. I don't know if this is true but it would mean my DD may be left without some of her friends.

When we moved up we went to visit Pollokshields and Glendale but were told in no uncertain terms that we had no chance of getting a placing request for Glendale. We now don't even live in the catchment for Cuthbertson or shawlands but DD wanted to stay with her friends.

Thanks again for all the replies. It's very helpful. As I said I'm probably worrying for nothing and she will absolutely grand.

Only one of ds' friends is from Glendale - he made a whole new set of friends when he went to Shawlands - had to, as it was a placing request - although he did already have friends from rugby there.

They have X-box sleepovers

I can understand why you couldn't get into Glendale mid-session - it's chockablock now. 2 or 3 years ago, it was within 2 places of not even being to accept sibling placing requests. And that was WITH shuffling mixed years' classes across the school to maximise numbers .

There's a big group of placing requests from Glendale going to Shawlands this year, so there will be plenty of kids finding their feet.

Your dd will make new friends from across the various catchment primaries - and those that came via placing requests.

Shawlands also seems to be very good re music (ds couldn't continue it or Art 'cos they conflicted with PE, Physics & Chemistry which he really wanted to do). I'm sure I've heard a good wee string quartet and there was a very good cellist at the prize giving last year.

Thanks again :) and ignore my glaringly obvious grammatical error in my last post!

That's DD away for her visit today. Think she's feeling a bit emotional so hoping she manages ok. I'm so excited for her but so nervous for her at the same time. She's fairly confident but can also be quite shy and I worry that people take it as aloof and rude. Think she's struggled coming into her new ps at the p5 stage too when all of her girl classmates have that "best friend" thing going on.
Am sure she'll do well academically once she finds her feet and would be great if she could get her violin playing back again. She's really into sport too. Don't know if she fancies rugby though :) but she plays netball out of school at hutcheson's for a local team so hopefully she can join the school team at shawlands.

The School of Rugby is a special class where the kids in the School miss 2 periods of PE, a period of Maths and a period of English to do Rugby in S1 and S2. It's part funded by the SRU and has helped get new people into rugby - especially girls.

There is also after-school sports on Thursdays (not sure about other days - Athletics and Rugby were both Thursday).

I think there is also now a School of Basketball but I don't know how it works.

There is a good gymnastics team and I'm sure your dd will be able to play netball.

Hope she enjoys her day. My neighbour's ds will also be there.

Dd had a lovely day yesterday. She's very excited for today and seems a lot less nervous. Think her favourite thing was the vending machine haha!
I tried to probe gently as to how she felt her knowledge was compared with her peers and she didn't think there was much difference. Early days obviously but we'll see how she gets on.
Thanks again. Hope your neighbour's DS had a lovely time too.

That's good. I've sent you a PM - in case you haven't noticed the wee red dot on your envelope icon and/or you're on the app.

TableforFive - ds was helping at Cuthbertson's Sports Day today at least that was the reason he gave for going into school in trackie bottoms, T-shirt and hoodie

Hope your dd's 2nd transition day went well.

Actually, strike that. They didn't turn up so he has come home in his school uniform.