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.

 

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

 

Extracted from Mackay Country website.

 

 

 

My Granny Fanny Mackay attended Erribol side school at the same time as George Mackay. She and her brothers and sisters walked barefoot to school in the summer and wore boots in the winter. The school was heated by a pot bellied stove round which the children hung their wet socks to dry. To get to school they had to pass a small lochan which was called the Leeches Loch by the parents to keep the children from playing in it. On the way to school my Granny’s brother used to jump over the wall to lift a turnip from the field, wipe the earth off, cut it in to portions with his penknife and share it out with the other children to eat at playtime.

 

Frances Gunn