Parents' fear of child's abduction from Lairg Primary School

PUPILS at a small Sutherland primary school are being placed at risk because of a lack of playground supervision, parents have claimed.

Norman and Sanaa McLeod are deeply worried about the safety of their five-year-old child and others at Lairg Primary School because no adult is present outside at break times.

The couple, of No 2 Dalchork Farm Cottages, are now trying to persuade Highland Council to provide supervision at the 32-pupil school.

Mr and Mrs McLeod, who have one child in primary one and another due to start next year, claim security in the playground is lax and are demanding improvements be made.

Offshore worker Mr McLeod said: “I don’t want to be sitting on an oil rig worried about the safety of my children. I’m going to take this as far as I can because at the end of the day my child’s safety is the most important thing in my life.”

Legally, local authorities do not have a duty to provide supervision at lunchtimes if a school has less than 50 pupils.

Mr McLeod says he was aghast to learn, after his oldest child started school in August, that no adult was present in the playground while children waited for school to start at 9am; nor during the 15-minute mid-morning break; nor at lunchtimes.

He and his wife were even more distressed to discover that gates leading to the school were often left unlocked, fencing surrounding the playground was damaged in places and that members of the public regularly used the playground as a short-cut to Lairg Learning Centre and Milnclarin Way.

“The school can be considered more hazardous than other schools due to the close vicinity of a main road, a public car park, public toilets and shared entrances with the adult learning centre,” maintained Mr McLeod. “Although it isn’t an answer to the problem, at least if the gates and fences were secured and closed with child-safe catches, it would provide a safety net.”

Mr McLeod said a child could easily wander away from the school, but his biggest fear was abduction.

“Call me irrational, but the worst scenario is that one of the children could easily be abducted. Less serious is that they might wander out of the school themselves. I have been told of at least one instance when a child left the school and was found in the doctor’s surgery,” he said.

“There’s also the issue of bullying in the playground – although the head teacher has introduced a buddy system where older children buddy up with the younger ones.”

The McLeods have raised their concerns with the primary’s parent council as well as the local authority and North, West and Central Sutherland councillor Hugh Morrison,

In addition, Mrs McLeod spoke out on the issue at a Lairg Community Council meeting.

The couple have also contacted constituency MP John Thurso who met them at the school last week.

Possible solutions discussed have been to recruit a rota of volunteers to supervise the playground or to use classroom assistants.

But Mr McLeod warned that he would take his campaign higher if necessary. As a last resort, he is considering placing his children in another school.

“There is a commissioner in Edinburgh who deals with issues like this and that’s my next port of call,” he said.

In a letter to the couple, Lairg head teacher Ruth Adams stated that staff members were always available for pupils to speak to if need be and that a teacher supervised children in the canteen for the majority of the lunch break.

She said gate monitors had been appointed to make sure gates were closed. Ms Adams added that the school’s fences and gates had been looked at last session and funding had been made available to improve the boundary fences.

The head teacher indicated that she was trying to establish whether members of the public had a right to use the playground as a short-cut.

She revealed the parent council had looked at the possibility of employing a “play ranger” using wind farm funding.

“This request, I believe, went to national level before it was rejected as a possibility.”

Ms Adams concluded: “While I fully appreciate your concerns about your child’s supervision during breaks, I can assure you that we do comply with practices elsewhere in a school of similar size.

“Until this matter is considered at national level, I cannot see policies changing in the near future for Highland Council or Scotland-wide.”

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