An in-depth story on the situation we blogged about a while back:

It sets the situation in context – that while this is a Catholic school, it is a state school. The call is for the state to change the school over from being a Catholic school to a Muslim school, since Muslims make up 75% of the student body. I am not quite sure whether or not there is another, secular state run school nearby.

As the debate rages, the school’s headteacher, Winifred Diver, refuses to talk to Education Guardian. But the local priest, who is also the school chaplain, Fr John Gannon, represents the school’s position. "There is probably no organisation in Scotland more supportive of the notion that there should be Muslim faith schools than the Catholic church," he says. "But it may be that to poach schools is not the best way to go about it."

When Gannon was saying mass at the school recently, a number of parents interrupted the service at staggered intervals, removing 12 children. The interruption was "deliberately designed to disrupt the mass", Gannon says, and showed "gross discourtesy and contempt". He does not believe these parents were representative of most parents in the school.

Strong relationship

Gannon adds that the staff at St Albert’s has built up a strong relationship with Pollokshields’s Muslim community. "When parents say they want the school to become Muslim, they seem to think that the teachers would stay on, but of course that wouldn’t happen," he says. "There is some serious confusion about what such a change would mean."