Letters: Schools system treats parents as inconvenient idiots

The Herald Scotland

12-05-2025

The Govean revolution in England saw the expansion of educational choice that has propelled their schools into a premier league of achievement. We, however, are stuck with a failing model that demoralises teachers, treats parents like inconvenient idiots, and operates a progressive teaching system that by its own admission fails to teach.
The only solution is to break open the Scottish education system, take power away from the bureaucrats, and hand it over to the parents.
It remains to be seen if Reform UK Scotland adopts education policies that create the means for teachers, parents and pupils to break out from the subservience of local authority control.
The creation of free schools and academies would create not only new opportunities for teachers and pupils alike but done properly would redistribute power out of the hands of the system and into the hands of parents and the wider local community. The creation of junior colleges along the lines of that established in Newlands by Jim McColl would provide new opportunities for those children that the educational establishment have managed to alienate to the point of disengagement.
A radical platform such as this will undoubtedly incur the wrath of the entire blob. Trade union leaders, politicians and journalists will fall over themselves to denounce the proponents of such ideas as fascists.
There is, however, another 'f' word that's far more apposite. One which an increasing number of Scots have had a bellyful: that 'f' word is failure. Whether it's transport, health or education the leftwing consensus has failed on every conceivable metric. The Scottish education system has failed teachers. It has failed pupils. And, as McEnaney and Stell's article clearly demonstrates, it fails parents.
This failed system doesn't just need a warning, or a mildly annoying period of detention: only its permanent exclusion will now stop the rot. James McEnaney might not like the means, but Reform UK Scotland is the only serious political party in Scotland with the chutzpah and the capabilities to tell the education system the lesson it needs to hear. It is the only party vying for power in Holyrood that can correct the multitudinous errors of the current, failed system.
Graeme Arnott, Stewarton.
A flood of happy memories
I was delighted to read ('Second World War papers found hidden in desk bought at auction', May 8) of the finding of wartime documents in a desk of the late Ian B Rodger, a well-known Glasgow lawyer and an Army captain during the arduous invasion of Italy.
In peacetime Sir Alexander Gibson, councillor Ainslie Millar and Ian founded Scottish Opera with its first performances in the King's Theatre, Glasgow in 1962.
In the mid-1970s the new company, being highly successful with between eight and 10 large-scale operas every year in numerous performances in Scotland and England, were supported by the public in buying and fully restoring the Theatre Royal in Hope Street under the chairmanship of Gavin Boyd - the building now redundant to Scottish Television.
When I was writing a book about the Theatre Royal, Ian Rodger told me that his war ended in Venice, many months after the liberation of Rome from the Italian fascists and German Nazis.
I don't know whether he was already an opera fan, but he certainly was in Venice, the home of opera.
In 1975 he insisted that flagstones be used throughout the main entrance foyer of the Royal. This is what Venetian opera houses did so that any rising waters overwhelming the entrances could be easily brushed away and the show continue. With a smile he added that if the Clyde ever floods up Hope Street it would be easy to sweep the water away.
Graeme Smith, Newton Mearns, Glasgow.
The horrors of Belsen
When my father was a boy, he used to go poaching with an older person in the village. When he returned as a doctor years later, he was invited by the 'gentry' to join in shooting and fishing. He was a member of the local Territorials and received his call-up when he was fitting gas masks on the children in the school at the very start of the war.
He was in the 174th Highland Field Ambulance, which was part of the re-formed 51st Highland Division and served on the front line, and he was in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) through the North Africa campaign and from Normandy through Europe, ending up in the horrors of Belsen, and by now working with the 38th Casualty Clearing Station.
By this time, he had won the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and the OBE and was a Lieutenant Colonel — later, he was made a full Colonel. Like many others, he spoke little about his war-time experiences, coming back quietly to civilian life. He never touched a gun.
Dorothy Dennis, Port Ellen, Islay.
Screening Trump's madness for method
If The Donald goes ahead with imposing tariffs on films made outwith the USA, then this country will inevitably be deprived of all those Yankee dollars that Screen Scotland spends most of its time chasing. However, might the consequences of this Trumpian policy mean that we'll have to make more Scottish films? Jings, crivvens, help ma boab! Heaven forfend! I knew there was method in that Lewisman's madness. Gaun' yersel Donald!
Hamish McBean, Glasgow.
A fond farewell to Ron
I would like to send my thanks to Ron Mackenna for all the enjoyment his restaurant reviews have given me over many years. They were the 'go-to' page for me. Good wishes for the future, Ron.
Irene Burn, Netherlee, Glasgow.