Primary school

[stratmad]

Just found this article about MK's first school, which is to be closed down:
http://www.milngavieherald.co.uk/news/local-headlines/exclusive-mark-knopfler-and-darius-back-campaign-to-save-bearsden-primary-1-2701520
Maybe it would help if they re-named it?

[dmg]

Bearsden - ooh-la-de-da!   Posh area of Glasgow.

Good luck to them on this one, we need all the schools we can have these days.  My old high school was knocked down many years ago now and it was a sad day.

[vgonis]

I really don't get it! Is it an old building and is too expensive to keep, does it have to do with the recent money cuts? I really hate it when they close schools for such reasons. Money money money. And then what ? Are they going to sell the place tear it down and build a multi store?

[dmg]

I really don't get it! Is it an old building and is too expensive to keep, does it have to do with the recent money cuts? I really hate it when they close schools for such reasons. Money money money. And then what ? Are they going to sell the place tear it down and build a multi store?

It does seem silly.  The reason for tearing down my old school was that it was an old building.  In fact, it was listed but it was badly maintained and the roof was beyond repair so in the end they had to knock it down.  They sold the land to developers who built houses there and the council then built a new school about a hundred yards along the road on the site of the old playing fields!

If Mark's old school does close they'll move the kids on to local schools and class sizes will increase and children will get less attention - surely this can't be good.  Mind you, class sises were just over therty when I woz at skool and it didin't do me any harum.

[vgonis]

You were lucky! Our class from elementary school until the final day in Lyceum was always around 30. The elementary school, in the beginning housed two schools, one in the morning and one in the evening. When I was in the forth grade they brought two more schools, while they started negotiations with the owners of a near by site to built another school building. So in order to house the extra kids each class got to spend one year at some ready made class sized houses that were put in the already small play yard of the school, at the vast basement or the warehouses that were quickly cleared. It was not the best of places to contact lessons and mind you it was the early to mid 80ies, when Greece was considered blooming economically! Nobody protested and to tell you the truth we were too young to even bother. It was fun to us back then.
Then the Gymnasium and Lyceum  (high school, I guess) was a building reminiscent of a huge prison, ground floors had bars and all, and housed two schools as well, morning and afternoon. It was the late 80ies and early 90ies, another blooming period for Greece! But we never saw the inside of a lab, we used to excersize during the gym class on old matresses and a couple of basket balls and to top it all the new school at a near by site was delayed so we had to use the basements and every other possible room to house the exesive number of pupils. And we were already 30 in each class!
Imagine my surprise, when I, together with some mates, while searching the surroundings of the buildings, we found a marble plaque taken down and let to rot, that stated that the building was built by the dictator George Papadopoulos during the junta in 1967-1974! It was such a let down for our democratic beliefs. And what's more as we grew up we found that most schools and roads and many public buildings were built during that period! The democratically elected governments, couldn't built a school in 10 years! And they had to give the building of roads to the private sector, which means that the roads were never meant to finish, or became to expensive (either to built or to travel on-due to the high tolls)
     

[dmg]

There's a lighthearted Facebook page dedicated to reminiscing about old teachers etc. at my high school called: "We Survived Graeme High School!"

[superval99]

I really don't get it! Is it an old building and is too expensive to keep, does it have to do with the recent money cuts? I really hate it when they close schools for such reasons. Money money money. And then what ? Are they going to sell the place tear it down and build a multi store?

  Mind you, class sises were just over therty when I woz at skool and it didin't do me any harum.

You were very fortunate, dmg!   I was at infants/primary school in the 50s and my class size was always around 46.   

[ingridswing]

I don't think it's that bad to have classes of max 30. But keeping an old builing which is badly maintained can be more expensive than building a new one. With modern isolation, heatingsystems and stuff it's cheaper to heat the school these days, so maybe it will repay itself. 

[dmg]

If Mark's old school has architectural significance then perhaps that could weigh on it's side too, but he's right when he says a school is part of the community.  This is especially true if it is a long standing one.  My old high school was from the art deco period and although my parents never went, they know people their age who did and my gran knew people who did too so it goes through generations. 

When it was time to knock it down they held an open evening for former pupils and teachers which I attended.  That showed me just how much a community supports it's old school while even at that time the new school was being built just along the road (and a second a few miles away too)!  I can't imagine what would happen if there was no replacement.