This section provides a little flavour of the history of these schools and the variety of their locations.

A side school is a small school in a corrugated iron hut, often staffed by pupil teachers or unqualified staff who were overseen by qualified staff in the main school. Side school education was also delivered in all manner of places, like people’s own houses or estate buildings, such as the Tack Room at Skelpick. In later years qualified staff were more likely to be appointed. In the winter months, in the early years of this provision, in areas like Strath Naver and Althnaharra, an itinerant teacher went from house to house, boarding with each family for a few days, since it was impossible for children to walk the long distances to school in the short winter days in bad weather conditions.

We have started a map of Mackay Country side schools. Since they came and went in many instances according to changes in the population, it is not easy to identify the actual site of several of them. 

 

SIDESCHOOL

 

Suffering exile to be educated
shipped out to yet another edge
of buildings Sutherland the Gaeltachd
to pupils passing like lambs
to the sale at Lairg
to the side of the middle of the North
& the trembling lips of so many worlds

 

you cannot see the stars over Faraid
or hear the tide at Balnakeil
for the blinding deafening melancholy
of something that does not fit
even the sole of the shoe of knowledge
pressing down as they walk the children
out of their own lives

 

© George Gunn 2013