Glasgow Southside Primary Schools

[Motherhood12345]

My family are relocating from England to Scotland and we have two primary school aged children. Our catchment primary schools are St Fillans and Merrylee Primary Schools. Our house will be very close to St Fillans so it would be very convenient, but we're not religious so I'm not sure if that's the best school for my two children.

Does anyone have any experience with either of these schools, or any of the other primary schools in that area (I understand that I can put in a placing request for other schools)?

I'm also considering Hutchesons and Glasgow Academy for the smaller class sizes, but the fees are obviously high so I'm not sure if it's worth it and financially, they would be a stretch for us.

Any experience of any of these schools would be much appreciated.

I don’t have any experience of those two schools but Glasgow Academy is a fair distance from where you are living …

From memory, GA has a junior school in Newlands as well as the west end.

Don’t know St Fillans but Merrylee primary is a lovely school, have friends with children there, always very positive reports. Like all Scottish schools though, struggling a bit with managing kids with SEN.

Depending where you live Hillpark may be the state secondary school for your catchment area, it’s not a good school and a reason why parents in that catchment consider Hutchie if they can afford it or placement requests to East Ren schools for secondary.

You say you are not religious.
St Fillans is a Catholic Primary School.

Things have clearly changed since the 60's when I went to Primary School :)
but in those days only Catholic children would have gone to a Catholic school.
Everyone else i.e Church of Scotland, Jewish, Plymouth Brethren, Muslim would have gone to Merrylee School.
Tho the majority would have been Church of Scotland.

Hutchie is good, my DC is in primary and no regrets, happy to answer any specific questions you may have.

Things have definitely changed. St Albert's Primary in Pollokshields is defined as a RC school but it is predominantly Muslim. A few years ago 85% of the pupils were Muslim.

One of my DDs did a placement in Hillpark when she was doing her PGDE and it wasn't a pleasant time. Discipline was awful.
She has a couple of friends (siblings) who grew up on Mansewood Road (just along from Hillpark) and they went to high school in East Renfrewshire.

For primary it’s not so important but for secondary I would definitely get into East Ren or East Dunbartonshire catchment or go private

Thanks for all of your responses. Just wondering if anyone had any personal experience of either St Fillans and/or Merrylee as it would be good to hear from any current parents. Thank you.

Hi @Motherhood12345, a close friends children attend Merrylee and they’re having a great time. It’s quite a sporty school, good parental involvement, nice grounds with green space to play outside. I’ve met lots of kids and parents from there and they’re all very nice. I’d have no problem sending my DC there.

Echoing pp who say that Hillpark as a secondary option would concern me. There are large numbers of the wealither kids who end up going elsewhere - Shawlands, East Ren or Hutchins the most likely. Hth

My friend is a primary teacher in Glasgow and all her kids went to st fillans and did well. She was out of catchment for st fillans but got them in on placement.

Both of my children have gone/are at Merrylee and we have always found it to be a really good school. A new Headteacher took over in August and seems to be doing great things.
I really despair at the reputation that Hillpark has. My child is in S2 there and is doing really well. Teachers are enthusiastic, keen and motivated and we have always been really impressed when visiting the school (I’m a high school teacher so do have quite a lot of experience of schools!). I taught in East Ren and it’s not all that. I’ve also heard that East Ren has a huge number of students drop out in first year at uni because they are literally spoon fed their education at high school and have teachers bending over backwards to get them the results they need.
What matters most for success is the home environment a child comes from.

I hear good things of St Fillans. A couple of teacher friends have sent their kids there. One religious, one not.

St Fillan’s is a great school with a lovely caring ethos. The Headteacher is fabulous and the staff are great. Obviously is Catholic with all that comes with that but there are lots of non Catholic children there. Holyrood RC Secondary School is the feeder secondary, massive and truly comprehensive. Covers the most deprived and most affluent areas of the Southside. Has lots of young people going off the university and college as well as lots not.

These seems to be common beliefs about East Ren Schools but they’re more Bandwagon Fallacies than truth.

It always tends to be the same 3 points that are repeated, the schools don’t let them fail, they all have tutors and loads of them drop out of uni.

There is no hiding the fact that it is an affluent area and the pupils there are far more likely to be successful due to the home environment, parental support and cultural factors they encounter but they also work very hard to achieve the results and while the committed teachers are by and large supportive I have never witnessed any ‘hand holding’, whatever that term means.

I agree that teachers/education are no better than many other places in the country and their roles are very different but think it’s quite disrespectful to accuse them of manufacturing results that the children themselves achieve.

As for dropping out of Uni, is this really true?

Again it’s something I’ve heard and have been guilty of believing but is there any real evidence of this?

It could be true but if it is I think the cause is more likely to be parents that treat their children like babies to the extent that they get to 18 and can’t look after themselves than anything the school do, which unfortunately is very common here.

I’ve had several children (both own and step-children) go or going through the ER system and if I’m honest if I had the choice again I’d have went somewhere else for several reasons so I’m not blind to the many issues here, but I really don’t think what you have said is true apart from the home environment being the most important factor.

My child is a current student at merrylee. It’s a lovely school, teachers are wonderful- haven’t met a bad one yet, new head teacher seems to be doing well.

we continue to keep an open mind about secondary school and will evaluate the options properly as my child approaches p6 and 7. I too am skeptical of how amazing east ren is. I’ve also been told that chances of placement request to shawlands are high so there’s options. Hutchie also an option for us but of course not for everyone.

the biggest issue with hill park for me is the lack of transport links. King’s park via placement is also an option and a lot shorter a walk than hill park