School Rolls In The News

24/11/09 22:11
At least half the desks in more than one in ten city schools are lying empty, new figures have revealed.

City education leader Marilyne MacLaren said: "Under-occupied schools are very expensive so we must be sure that Edinburgh's schools are full of pupils to offer the best possible education.

"Whilst school closures are painful, the process helps to reduce the number of costly empty places and enables us to offer greater breadth in the curriculum.

If the Council’s proposal to close Fort is approved, they will certainly achieve their aim to have full schools! Using the Council’s own figures and methods for predicting school rolls and capacity, next year Victoria will have just 3 spaces and Trinity will have just 17 spaces with the council predicting 439 children in a school that had capacity for 415 children for many years. Using the original capacity as guideline, Trinity would increase to 106% occupancy!

Fort have put forward an alternative proposal to retain Fort but reduce the surplus capacity. This proposal reduces spare places in this area but retains a school that will be required as the population in this area is expected to grow significantly over the next few years. In their first paper the Council anticipated that an additional 150 places will be required.



It’s also worth reading the Fighting for Fort website for their views on this article and for news on the closure proposal.

Please email or write to Steve Cardownie, Cammy Day, Allan Jackson and Elaine Morris or your own local councillor if you are not in Forth Ward - ask them how they intend to vote on this proposal and make it clear that you want them to vote against the closure of Fort as your elected representative.

Remind them that:

  1. Financially, the Closure Proposal is an extremely weak case.
  2. The Closure Proposal is only a temporary one, and not a cost-effective long term solution.
  3. The merger is not in the best interests, educationally and socially, of the pupils and community at Fort or Trinity.
  4. If this goes ahead there will only be around 20 spaces available in an area where the Council predicts 150 spaces will be required in the very near future.
  5. There is an alternative! The proposal to retain Fort removes surplus spaces from this area, generates capital savings but retains the capacity that the council anticipates will be required in this area.

You can read more of the background detail behind these points in our detailed submission to the council.