The Council is holding a statutory consultation on a proposal to relocate Victoria Primary School to a new building in the Western Harbour area and undertake catchment changes in the Western Harbour and North Leith areas of the city. The public consultation period will run until 5pm on Friday 17 March.
The Council has a legal obligation to carry out a statutory consultation under the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 as amended by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. The proposal put forward will have implications for families at Trinity Academy and they want to hear the views of anyone affected.
Parents at Trinity Academy have been advised of the consultation because of the proposed changes that will add Western Harbour to the school’s catchment area. Traditionally Victoria Primary’s roll has been drawn from housing to the south and west of the school and sections of the Western Harbour area are currently not contained within any catchment area. The primary pupil population in the Western Harbour has increased by 500% between 2009 and 2015; some of those students are now in P6 and many will soon be welcomed to Trinity Academy as their neighbourhood secondary school.
Two public meetings on this proposal are planned:
- Trinity Primary School – Tuesday, 21 February 2017
- Victoria Primary School – Monday, 27 February 2017
The Parent Council will be discussing this consultation at our next meeting and and we welcome your views on the changes.
What are the implications for Trinity Academy?
The Council report highlights that all of our cluster primary schools (Trinity, Wardie and Victoria) have faced “accommodation pressures” in the last few years, exacerbated by the closure of Fort Primary in 2010. Each of our feeder primaries has had extensions added to cope with this growth in school rolls and some of these children will soon be moving to secondary school — many of them to Trinity Academy. in the last 6 years the cluster primaries have seen their rolls rise by by as much as 70%. The new Victoria Primary School is proposed to allow that school to cope with increasing numbers. Trinity Primary has had four classrooms added and plans are in place to add a further extension in August 2018.
As a Parent Council we wish to ensure that the Council has a strategy in place to cope with increasing intakes to Trinity Academy given the majority of children at Trinity, Wardie and Victoria primaries will move to the Academy.
Trinity Academy currently faces pressures coping with it’s current roll with regard to general purpose space and PE provision. We want to ensure that when we welcome increasing numbers of students to the school they are provided with the appropriate environment.
This consultation provides parents at Trinity Academy with an opportunity to comment on the proposed change to the Trinity Academy catchment and to highlight any concerns about the impact of rising school rolls in the area and request that the Council consider a strategy for the secondary school estate in addition to primary schools.
To give the council your views visit the consultation website or email new.victoriaschool@edinburgh.gov.uk. If you wish to share those views with the Parent Council send an email to trinityparentcouncil@googlemail.com.
