Change Notre Dame High School from girls only

[Glasgowlassie]

I have 2 children, currently at Notre Dame Primary in Glasgow. I have only just discovered, due to a recent campaign that my son and daughter will not be able to go to the same High School.

Girls are enrolled into Notre Dame High School, an all girls high school, this is state funded and a total anomaly, the only one of its kind in Scotland. My daughter must go there unless I can get her into another local school via a placing request, becoming increasingly difficult in the West End.

My son has to go to the linked school 3 miles away, St Thomas Aquinas, if I can't get him into another school which is closer.

Over 75% of the girls in this girls only school come from a distance via placing request. So this has an impact on the local community and the environment.

There is a campaign to change this which is how I became aware that my children would not even be allowed to go to St Thomas Aquinas without a placing request for my daughter.

In 2018 there is no place for an all girls school as it is discriminatory. Schools should serve their local area first.

Campaign is here for anyone that is interested and wants to help change it. Particularly people from Glasgow.

www.ndh4all.net

Prosecco I agree with you in that respect - Notre Dame is an anomaly. But there are also state funded Catholic Schools, Jewish schools, Gaelic schools. I suppose the argument would be that you can attend a Jewish school if you're not Jewish, but you can't get into Notre Dame if you're not a girl.

Maybe then the argument should be about scrapping ALL schools which have a selective intake, whether that's on grounds of religion, sex or language. If parents want that sort of segregation, they fund it themselves.

Actually, I agree with that bit More, however to me it seems that the Op is regretting a decision she made years ago as it is now no longer convenient.

I agree k2 - I don't want to fund other's ideological education; let's make it a level playing field for access to local state schools. Anyone who wants different can pay for it.

Op go back read your personal comments about me
sad little person
goady

You’ve also called other posters
pointless
nit picky
goady.
Not understanding
You’ve berated anyone not in agreement. That’s your modus operandi throughout thread.

I have absolutely no personal issue with you. I appreciate you feel sensitised and it’s probably a source of upset and that’s difficult. However, i will challenge your incorrect assertions.

Perhaps you could rein it in,stop your name calling and erroneous demonising others who simply disagree.

Or you take the alternative approach and scrap catchment areas completely and have every school specialising in something - a RC girls school, a non-denominational boys school, a science school, a performing arts school, an engineering school etc etc etc. Then let anyone living anywhere in Glasgow choose the ideal school for their child.

At the moment though it's a bit half-arsed and a mish mash of both. They're never going to do away with RC education though, it's hugely controversial.

The dance school of Scotland is based at Knightswood
The Dance School of Scotland is the country’s only fully funded centre of excellence for vocational dance and musical theatre. The School, which is funded by The Scottish Executive, is incorporated into Knightswood Secondary School in the West End of Glasgow.

Hopefully it will have died off in a generation or so & all state schools It's so divisive.

I assume that the pre-requisite for entrance to the dance school is an an ability to dance? Nothing to do with race, religion, gender?

One would hope
Specialist Schools was mooted. Knightswood is a specialist school

*Lipstick*I haven't called anyone names apart from you. I have referred to comments as pointless and nit-picking. Very different from calling posters that. You haven't bothered to come back on the webpage point because I never said anything about the Handbook.

I haven't berated anyone, I have disagreed with points made.

You know yourself you've been called out on your behaviour on other threads. You've done the same here.

Stop addressing points to me, I will not respond further.

For so long as you make unfounded representations about me I’ll naturally respond

Reread your own posts were you call others
pointless
nit picky
goady.
Not understanding

Yes More it is. Similarly the entry to the Gaelic school is based on the family having a commitment to the language and embracing it at home, although I'm not sure how they judge that.
These specialist schools are the true city schools, meant to serve the whole city.

In the case of the Dance School, serving the whole country

The Gaelic School categorically does not consider commitment to Gaelic or Gaelic spoken in the home in its entry requirements - something that I wholly disagree with.

Moreprosecco is absolutely right - this is about should the state be funding single sex education. I don’t agree it should and it doesn’t anywhere else in Scotland.

The argument about it being a city-wide school seems a strange one too. If there is only going to be one single single sex school in the whole of Scotland then surely it should be non-denominational?

Yes I’m sure it would fill up if it was non-dom.

Been interesting reading about the weird set up in Glasgow. Got confused though that the OP keeps saying NDHS should serve it's catchment then in the next breath say it doesn't have a catchment just feeder primaries? Why keep mentioning catchment then? Obviously as a Catholic school it's catchment should be catholics so if it were to change to the catchment it was designed to serve then the op would not get in.

I know a secondary which sits within the catchment of another secondary (so if you live next to the school your catchment is a different school ). There are also primary catchments which sit across two secondary catchments so the P7 cohort is split depending where pupils live. There are Catholic primaries and these have a catchment across loads of non-dom primaries, but no Catholic secondaries so the P7's split all which ways. Where catchment schools are full it is not uncommon to have siblings at different primaries. Children manage and thrive. Even where kids move to a local secondary their friendship groups are split across classes. There seem to be a lot of non-arguments here.

Just to clarify the stats (I've been looking in to them)...

The capacity for NDH is 800.

The roll in 2015/16 (most recent available on Scot gov website) was 658. That's 21% below capacity.

In 2008/09 the roll was 825 so it's gone down 20% in the last 8 years. (Comparatively, Hillhead High's roll has gone up 30% and Hyndland secondary's has gone up 4% over the same period. Hyndland was already close to capacity in 2008 so not much room to expand).

In 2015, 2016 and 2017, NDH took in 45, 35 and 28% of girls from feeder schools respectively, so there is a downward trend in local girls choosing to go there.

The percentage of girls attending from outside the catchment in the whole school roll is 81%. This number is less than % of placing requests because some of the girls coming up through feeder schools will have put their placing requests in at primary school stage.

It all points to diminishing demand for single sex schooling, not just in the local area, but across the whole city.

But what catchment? I thought it was set out that it didn't have a catchment just feeder primaries?

It's certainly confusing....but looking at the school website it says....

"All girls living within our catchment area and currently attending a denominational primary school will automatically enrol for a place as part of our new S1 cohort"

So I guess there must be a catchment area.

Whinberry - the feeder primaries have catchments and the catchment of NDHS is defined by that. You can view here: glasgowgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=3296a79016c34af98c4e71c0f1e02fa5

Ah thanks for clarifying!

Although that means that girls who put in a placing request at primary school stage to attend one of the feeders would automatically get a place at NDHS and would therefore be counted as “catchment” despite the fact they don’t live in the catchment area.

The consultation on catchment that GCC are holding this year is to have defined catchments for all high schools and no more feeder primaries. At the moment it is a mix of both across Glasgow.

Yep I just re-read my post and realised I wasn't very clear....

81% of pupils are out of catchment.

This % is higher than placing requests because there will be a number of feeder school entrants who are also out of catchment.

Does that make sense??

I'm afraid I don't have year by year info on entrants who are out of catchment but coming up through feeder schools.