A SCHOOL is to have a full-time security guard after parents expressed fears about attacks on the pupils.
Calderwood Lodge Primary School, which is Scotland’s only Jewish faith school, is based in Glasgow’s south side, but run by East Renfrewshire Council.
Last year the school felt targeted when anti-Israeli stickers started appearing on lamp posts around the vicinity of the school.
Police and officials from East Renfrewshire council put the school on high alert following the attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the siege at a Kosher grocery store in Paris in January.
The Community Security Trust, a charity that seeks to protect British Jews from anti-semitism and related threats, said there were 31 reports of anti-semitic attacks in Scotland in 2014.
Of these, 21 were in Glasgow, up from just two in 2013.
Although a Jewish faith school, where pupils study Hebrew and Jewish culture on top of the standard curriculum, a high percentage of the 150 pupils who attend the school are Muslim, Christian or come from no religious background.
Tim Lovatt from the school’s Parent Council said there was significant support for the move: “We held a parent forum meeting to ask for a mandate to ask the council for the security guard and there was overwhelming support to have security. You can’t protect your children enough.”
A recent poll suggested that 64 per cent of Jews in Scotland had “witnessed or experienced more anti-semitism than in previous years.”
A East Renfrewshire council spokeswoman said: “Following feedback from parents and the release of additional funding from the UK Government, it has been agreed that a security guard will be employed at Calderwood Lodge to support the school’s existing security procedures. The funding from the government is in place to support existing security measures at Jewish schools and organisations across the UK.
“There has not been any security threats at Calderwood Lodge or in the local community.
“This decision has been taken as a result of parental feedback and takes advantage of the additional funding available.”
Money was first made available for security guards for Jewish schools in England and Wales in 2010. In March David Cameron announced an extra £11m funding for security. A total of £7m will be provided for security guards outside more than 100 Jewish schools while a further £3million will pave the way for the same provision outside synagogues. At the time Cameron said: “Once again the Jewish communities of Europe feel vulnerable and when anti-Semitism is at record levels here in Britain I will not stand by. I will not turn a blind eye to the threats that the community faces. If the Jewish community does not feel secure then our whole national fabric is diminished. It is a measure of the health of our democracy and of the vigour of our institutions that the Jewish community feels safe to live and flourish here.”
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