Communities under threat

Unless you are fortunate to live in a village, community does not exist on the mainland UK.

I moved to Shetland in September with my husband and three children seeking a better way of life for them, a more personal way of schooling and to enable them to be part of a community in the hope that they will grow up and be more rounded adults.

Adults that can teach their own children that there is more to life than the material existence that seems to engulf today’s teenagers in England and elsewhere.

I am absolutely mortified that one of my main reasons for bringing our children here is under threat.

Does the council not realise that in shutting down schools such as Sandwick Junior High, they threaten to wipe out what I understood Shetland to be about: community!

Friendships forged with others in the village will get watered down in a mass Anderson High.

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Yes, you can argue that they will have bigger friendship circles, but at what cost?

The village schools play such a huge part in developing our children into respectfully confident adolescents who care about the community around them.

Teachers have relationships with the families and can help children realise their potential, making them ready to tackle their future education with a more mature approach.

Does the council want all those children that have been well educated here and gone to university to equip themselves with skills and life experience to return at some point with young families helping Shetland to thrive in the long term?

Surely the removal of these schools and the breakdown of communities will deter lots of people from returning.

My husband was brought up here in Sandwick and I have always envied the strong friendships that he made throughout growing up here, ones that have always been maintained.

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Now most of them are back with young families hoping to have the same upbringing that they had.

Is it not scandalous to take that away from them because of cost cutting?

Only last week we had a letter – postage paid for by the library service – informing me that a book that had been reserved by my daughter was available for collection.

Could this not have been emailed to me as a parent or a note been put in the register at school to save 60p?

It’s things like this that need looking at for cost cutting not our children’s education!

Rebecca Wishart
Sandwick