A new school serving serving pupils from both the Catholic and Jewish faiths has opened in Scotland.
Catholic St Clare’s Primary and the Jewish Calderwood Lodge also shares the £17 million development in Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire, with a non-denominational nursery class.A significant proportion of pupils at the Jewish primary school are Muslim.
East Renfrewshire Council built the joint campus to provide for an increasing demand for Catholic education while at the same time relocating the current Calderwood Lodge from its previous home in Glasgow.
Paul O’Kane, the council’s convener of education told the Herald Scotland: “While both St Clare’s and Calderwood Lodge will undoubtedly benefit from the fantastic individual learning environments, it is the shared areas which most excite me. By sharing ideas and knowledge all our pupils at this new joint campus will enjoy an enriched learning environment. The new Barrhead High is wonderful and gives the pupils a school to be proud of.”
Anne Marie Absolom, headteacher at St Clare’s Primary, said: “The bringing together of these Catholic and Jewish primary schools on a single campus is a momentous initiative. It delivers a powerful message to the wider community that two different faiths can work in close co-operation whilst retaining their own unique identity. It’s an exciting venture that East Renfrewshire can rightly be proud of. We are looking forward to both schools working closely together to the benefit of our children and the wider community.”
Marion Carlton, headteacher at Calderwood Lodge, commented: “Bringing together these two faith communities on one campus is creative and innovative and I have no doubt we will all reap the benefits from this approach. We are all so excited about getting started in our new home.”
Read more about the new school here:
See a report on an interfaith school in London: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/education/jewish-school-muslims-christians-atheists/