Radical shake-up bid for schools catchment to ease capacity crisis

Addresses in west Fife will be rezoned to ease pressure

Education chiefs have proposed a dramatic shake-up of school catchments in west Fife in the latest attempt to resolve a capacity crisis.

Addresses across the area will be rezoned to different high schools under the plans to be discussed by councillors on Tuesday.

A previously-rejected suggestion to send children from Kings Road Primary in Rosyth to Inverkeithing High is back on the table but this time they would be joined by youngsters from neighbouring Camdean Primary.

Both schools are within the Dunfermline High School catchment and Kings Road parents won a fight to retain the status quo after a 250signature petition was submitted.

If the new proposals to redraw catchments for Woodmill, Dunfermline, Inverkeithing and Queen Anne high schools are approved, a public consultation will be held between April 17 and May 29 and the changes would be implemented by August 2019.

Education officers were sent back to the drawing board in May after councillors refused plans to send pupils from Masterton Primary to Inverkeithing High instead of Woodmill.

Head of education Shelagh McLean warned change was necessary as 8,000 homes had been built in west Fife catchment since 2000 and a further 10,000 are planned.

Fife Council is continuing to press the Scottish Government for money to build a new secondary school to help ease the pressures but Woodmill is already at capacity and children from five primary schools due to start there this August have been told there is no room.

Instead they have been offered places at Inverkeithing High for the 2018-19 session, although the new plans will see the affected primaries rezoned to either Woodmill or Dunfermline High next year.

Ms McLean said: “The previous set of proposals for changes to school catchment areas in west Fife were not accepted by councillors so we have looked again to see if there is another way catchments could be arranged.

“If councillors give the go-ahead to consult there will be many opportunities for parents, pupils, teachers and the wider community to make their views known.”

Public meetings will be held in the assembly halls of the following schools:

Dunfermline High on April 19; Woodmill High on April 23; Queen Anne High on April 24; Inverkeithing High on May 23.

The previous set of proposals for changes ... were not accepted by councillors so we have looked again to see if there is another way catchments couldbe arranged. HEAD OF EDUCATION SHELAGH MCLEAN