\n Midlothian education chiefs had urged councillors to consider scrapping the “informal agreement” to take pupils from Loretto RC Primary School in Musselburgh or set up a new deal, after they said they could not find any evidence of a formal cross-county agreement.\n<\/p>\n
\n But a meeting of Midlothian Council on Tuesday\u00a0heard a plea from the parent council of St David’s RC High School\u00a0in Dalkeith\u00a0to carry on the tradition, as they said that the Loretto students were part of the community and insisted that Catholic secondary schools cast a “wider net” when it came to catchment areas.\n<\/p>\n
\n And Councillor Ellen Scott, the council administration\u2019s education spokesperson,\u00a0 warned that removing Loretto pupils from the St David\u2019s\u00a0roll could put its very future at stake, as one in eight of its students came from the Musselburgh primary.\n<\/p>\n
\n Councillors heard that, prior to the abolition of Lothian Regional Council and the setting up of new local authorities, Loretto RC had been considered part of St David’s catchment and that had continued for decades without challenge.\n<\/p>\n
\n But a review of school admissions policy across Midlothian raised concerns about the practice and asked for views on whether it should continue.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Midlothian Council\u00a0meeting heard from the parent\u00a0council at St David’s\u00a0that, despite the consultation results not being put to members for a decision, transitional visits by P6 and P7 pupils from Loretto had already been stopped on the order of Midlothian Council.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ian Thom, representing the families, said that meant children from Loretto who made up part of this year\u2019s new S1 missed out on vital visits to meet their new teachers and get to know the school, adding that these were also children who had missed out on years of early class experiences because of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n<\/p>\n
\n East Lothian Council has confirmed that transition visits have not restarted for the current crop of P7 pupils preparing to transition to St David’s next summer from Loretto so far this year.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is estimated that between 20 to 30 pupils from Loretto transition to St David’s every year, with more than 100 of the 759 pupils on the current St David’s\u00a0roll coming from the Musselburgh school.\n<\/p>\n
\n The school has a capacity of 890 pupils and Ms\u00a0Scott said that the 80-year tradition of taking Loretto pupils had established a “moral obligation” to continue admitting them.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, Councillor David Virgo questioned what would happen if growing populations led to the school reaching capacity and Midlothian pupils missing out on a place because Loretto was closer, even though it was in East Lothian.\n<\/p>\n
\n He told the meeting: \u201cOur priority has to be Midlothian children, I was not elected to represent East Lothian children or the Catholic Church.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms\u00a0Scott moved a motion that the council retain the status quo and continue accepting Loretto pupils, arguing that the fact the practice had gone on for generations established it was within the school\u2019s catchment area.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Alan Turpie, the local authority\u2019s legal advisor, strongly urged members to agree to hold a new consultation to formally place Loretto in St David\u2019s catchment, warning they left themselves open to a legal challenge without it.\n<\/p>\n
\n After a break in which elected members held cross-party discussions, they returned with a motion led by Councillor Kelly Drummond\u00a0to carry on the current arrangements with Loretto as part of St David\u2019s catchment, subject to a formal consultation and new agreement with East Lothian Council being put in place.\n<\/p>\n
\n They also agreed to hold talks with East Lothian Council to recoup costs of educating pupils\u00a0at their secondary school.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms\u00a0Scott said: \u201cI think it is important that we get this right and I think the parents and pupils of Loretto RC and St David’s will understand the strength of feeling we have in this matter and bear with the process for a little longer.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n A spokesperson for East Lothian Council said: \u201cWe are aware of the discussions that took place at Midlothian Council\u00a0in relation to school admission policy consultation for Loretto children attending St David\u2019s RC High School.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe look forward to a productive discussion with Midlothian colleagues to find a mutually agreeable way forward to the points from the meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Midlothian education chiefs had urged councillors to consider scrapping the “informal agreement” to take pupils from Loretto RC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-412215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115178090170919643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}