Four-into-one goes as Cleeves and Burnbrae celebrate new schools campus
December 10, 2009
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Cleeves Headteacher Alan Potter with some of the stars of his school's inaugural show
The pupils and staff of Cleeves Primary and Burnbrae Children’s Centre looked back to look forward at the inauguration of their £6.5m school in Nitshill.
The campus – which replaces Househillmuir, Burnbrae and Nitshill primaries and Burnbrae Children’s Centre with one building – opened its doors at Easter.
However, the school saved its best for the festive period and treated parents and guests to a musical journey down the years that included nursery rhymes and songs from The Beatles and Cliff Richard.
The Cleeves and Burnbrae stageshow was narrated by Chelsea McGarvey, with help from Alan Miller who, as a paperboy, called out the world events that passed in the heydays of their old schools. Fellow pupils George Nixon and Caitlyn Hanvidge appeared as Glasgow comic icons Francie and Josie.
The new Nitshill campus has a capacity of nearly 400 pupils and includes 12 classrooms, two general purpose rooms, a library, a media suite, a games hall and a synthetic seven-a-side floodlit football pitch.
Glasgow City Council Executive Member for Education, Jonathan Findlay, told the performers: ‘The building is not the star of the show today. The star of the show is you.’
‘Can you image a school without any teachers?’ he asked the pupils. ‘Can you imagine a school without any pupils?’ he asked the teachers.
‘The heart of any school is the people who make up that school. You are all stars today, and your school plays an important supporting role.’
Cleeves Headteacher Alan Potter said the morning’s show was a collaboration by teachers and pupils.
‘We had three schools that were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and it seemed reasonable to build that into the process. Primary 7 children had already been studying the sixties, so that was a jump ahead for us.’
Alan is delighted with his new school and the possibilities it brings for his pupils and staff.
‘Having been 26 years in one of the schools – in Househillmuir – with all the difficulties in terms of vandalism, leaking roof and so on, coming into a place like this is a breath of fresh air.’
He added: ‘For all the children who come in here, we can give them the physical environment to aid their learning so what we need is to make sure that the teaching fits in, and I think we’re already beginning to do that.’
Officer In Charge at Burnbrae, Sonya Morrison said: ‘The kids love it here. The building we came from was really old and run down by vandalism, so this is night and day.
‘For us, the move has been smooth because we’re sharing a lot of facilities within the school and, as we saw this morning, the children were quite happy to come through and sing in the hall – some of our wee ones are only three years of age. They’re used to sharing the hall with older children.’
The idea of a joint nursery and primary facility certainly has an appeal for teachers and parents.
‘When our children move on, we can have meetings about their transition, discussing their problems or offer support that may be needed.’
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