Following the recent public meeting in Kirkliston, Council education officials are currently working on two options for P1/nursery provision in the village:
- Nursery on the Leisure Centre site with modular P1 classrooms also on the Leisure Centre site;
- Nursery on the Leisure Centre site with modular P1 classrooms on the main school site.
The public meeting showed there a clear desire for the nursery on the leisure centre site but people were less convinced that P1 pupils should be based there too. The officials heard the concern in particular about the logistics of operation on the Leisure Centre site, the accommodation the P1 classes would have access to and the timescales for delivery.
Accordingly, they are working on progressing a design for the layout of the Leisure Centre site that will allow them to discuss in more detail how the proposal would work in practice; the timescales for delivery and the financial implications.
In terms of current work;
- They have appointed a full design team and project management.
- Site investigations on the leisure centre site to identify ground conditions, services, etc. are about to start.
- They are contacting Edinburgh Leisure to discuss school use of facilities within the Leisure Centre (regardless of the solution progressed) – how this would be managed, what this might mean in cost terms, etc.
- They have met with SportScotland and had a positive meeting in regard to the use of the “playing field” as a nursery and P1 classroom site.
They have told us that more developed design layouts should be back in the next few weeks which they intend to discuss with school management in the first instance.
They also plan to set up a working group with representatives from the Parent Council that would feed into the early design process and assist the school particularly in the transition to the new accommodation.