Issue - meetings

These will be recorded in full in the minute.

The Convener advised that three deputations had been requested in relation to item 10.5 on the agenda (Denominational Primary Schools) – from Elizabeth Spencer, Anthony Steppie and JJ Welsh.

The Committee firstly heard from Elizabeth Spencer, who thanked Members for the opportunity to speak on behalf of all Catholics in Aberdeen, as well as for minorities in the city.  She advised that she currently headed a social enterprise called Aberdeen Ethnic Minority Women’s Group and had been working as a community researcher in Aberdeen for the past two years.  She explained that her daughter attended St Joseph’s RC School and so the denominational school feasibility study had been close to her heart.  Ms Spencer stated that she had started a petition online for the need for a secondary Catholic school as well as for more funding for more primary Catholic schools in Aberdeen. She explained that she found it very difficult to send her daughter to a school which was 1.7 miles away, and therefore she would like there to be more primary Catholic schools in the city, noting that she would therefore also like her daughter to attend a Catholic secondary school when the time came. 

She added that in Scotland, Aberdeen was the only city without a Catholic secondary school, and despite staying in the city for 13 years, she did not understand why that was the case.  She noted that it might have been because there was not much need for one a decade earlier, but due to an influx of migration, students and migrant communities, there were now almost 140 nationalities in Aberdeen.  Due to the research she had undertaken over the past two years with migrant communities, minorities and religious minorities, she had found a gap in the need for a secondary Catholic school, which had become the basis of her petition.  She added that she hoped everyone would be supporting positive action for minorities, given the recent spate of race riots in the UK, noting that Aberdeen needed to show solidarity towards minorities, and the religious minorities in the city.  Identifying funding to start the first secondary Catholic school in the city would show that solidarity from a city which she noted was welcoming to migrants, oil workers, international students and international minorities.  She felt that this would show that Aberdeen cared about their needs, and concluded by stating that a secondary Catholic school was really needed and she called on all present to help make the dream a reality.

The Committee then heard from Anthony Steppie, chair of Holy Family RC School Parent Council.  Mr Steppie thanked the Committee for letting him speak, and advised that both the Parent Council and the school were very much against any faith school either closing or merging with another.  However, he stated that he was in attendance to talk about Holy Family.  He noted that it was a special school which had been in the city for a long time and had taught many citizens in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2