Only the first battle

Monday’s failure of the Wishart/Wills/Budge rural schools closure coalition’s S1-S2 proposal (‘SIC agrees to look at S1-S3 model’, SN 9/6/14) while welcome in itself, means nothing more than that Communities United for Rural Education (CURE) has repulsed the first assault on their defences. CURE has not won the war, only their first battle.

While it may seem that S1-S3 fits with the grandly-named Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), and that this would be a reasonable compromise, it’s still a thickish ‘salami slice’ downgrade of the junior high schools (JHSs) which has opened the way to bring full closure of any and all JHSs back to the table.

What will happen to Shetland’s JHSs when Scottish Labour eventually return to power and decide to reorganise education with a ‘Curriculum for Greater Excellence’ which recommends children narrowing down to their main subjects at the end of S2?

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You’ve got it in one, the Lerwick centralisation crowd will take another slice and your once proud JHSs will be down to S1-S2, only, this time, there will be no defence if you have already accepted the S1-S3 downgrade.

And then one more, final, attack and the JHSs are no more.

That’s the best you can expect. The return of ‘full closure’ of any and all JHSs to the agenda also spells more immediate ‘D-A-N-G-E-R’.

The Wills-ite closure coalition has not been defeated, merely repulsed and if allowed to do so, will use this tactical retreat to call a cease-fire while they re-group.

Even in retreat they are already making threats – “divide and conquer” – by talking about closure of Sandwick, Baltasound and “to a lesser extent (Gary Robinson’s) Aith”, encouraging Yell and Whalsay to desert CURE, as the Scottish ‘nobles’ did to Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk.

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Politics is, indeed, a dirty business.

All the currently united factions of CURE must stand firm together and fight ANY closure.

Shetland’s country people must pile into the fray, as the cooks and logistic people did at Bannockburn when the cry “THEY FAIL” was roared as the English cavalry were turned back in disarray through the marshes and spike pits laid by the Scots.

The Wills-ite forces’ ranks have been broken and they are fleeing to lick their wounds and trump up a new closure strategy.

Country folk who want to save their schools must now keep the pressure on SIC by signing Ali Inkster’s petition in their local shop or online at:

http://www.change.org/petitions/shetland-islands-council-resign

John Tulloch
Lyndon
Arrochar