Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce

The new Gaelic language Parkside School (Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce), based on a renovation of the old Bonnington School, which closed in 2008. I took this picture yesterday, but before you all go rushing off to report me to blipcentral, what I mean is that I took a version of this picture yesterday before I saw the delights of a late night Playfair Library, so I went back to retake it today, but this time with added earth-moving for interest.

Now, I'm all for the renovation and renewal of old Victorian school buildings, and certainly when the school opposite us closed, we thought that the heart of the community had in many ways been ripped out. The area where you can see the earth moving equipment on the right hand side was a sort of 'dead' space between the playground, which was fenced off, and the path which leads from Bonnington Road into Pilrig Park, and it had gradually become increasingly filthy over the years as a dumping ground for rubbish tossed away over the fence. So it's great to see that this area is being properly incorporated into the school, and it looks as if it is going to be used in some ways for cultivation or a garden. Hard to tell as yet. This could significantly improve the environment for all.

And of course, I have no objection in principle to Gaelic language education, especially since it is going to be based on a total immersion principle. The benefits of bilingualism are well-established and clearly the children attending a Gaelic language school in largely English speaking Edinburgh are going to be minimum bi-lingual if the total immersion works. No matter that Edinburgh was, of course, never a Gaelic speaking part of Scotland. My only worry, though, is that it becomes, ironically, a school of choice for parents seeking a more mono-cultural and middle class education for their children, away from Edinburgh's increasingly multi-cultural and diverse society. There won't, I fear, be that many children from Polish-speaking, or Chinese-speaking, or Urdu-speaking families at Parkside School. Children who are *already* bi-lingual, of course. This is not a 'community school', but a school for a particular (and largely self-selecting) community.

My other concern is car traffic. Very nimby of me, of course, but the previous Bonnington School saw children arriving overwhelmingly on foot. I don't know what arrangements are being made for this, but these will be children overwhelmingly brought by car from different parts of Edinburgh. Hundreds of them. The prospect of chaos on Bonnington Road at various times of the day looms from August.