The City of Edinburgh Council have revealed a proposal today, Friday 24 November 2017, as part of their Edinburgh Schools Review which would see WHEC join with Currie High School to form a new West Edinburgh High school on a new site.
The new South West Edinburgh High would be built either on the Curriemuirend site that was formerly proposed for housing and is currently the location of Curriemuirend Park or on a greenfield site just north of Baberton. WHEC and Currie High School would then close in August 2022 with pupils moved to the new school.
The reasons given for the proposal are:
- The Currie High School building needs to be replaced due to its condition
- The buildings at WHEC are in poor condition and need a lot of investment.
- 14% of WHEC’s catchment pupils already go to Currie High School, only 49% go to WHEC.
- WHEC has a roll of 300 pupils and space for 750. The S1 intake at WHEC in August 2017 was 66 pupils. Projections suggest WHEC’s roll may be 366 by 2030. WHEC’s roll peaked at 576 in 1999 but has been in decline ever since.
- WHEC has a small catchment area and combining Currie High and WHEC would provide a more diverse catchment area.
Letters informing parents of the proposal have been distributed to affected schools. You can read the full Proposal and how it affects different schools across the city here.
The Council is keen to hear the view of parent councils and will be holding consultations with parent councils in all the affected schools between 9 January and 9 February 2018. They ask that you contact your parent council by 22 December 2017 if you would like to take part in these discussions.
After initial consultations an update, and recommendation for moving forward, will be given to the Council’s Education, Children and Families Committee in March 2018. They state that following the update more public consultations would take place.
The Digital Sentinel has reached out to local Councillors, MSP and MP to get their position on the changes and to ask what the future plans for WHEC’s building would be should the demolition take place and how the current community assets it provides would be preserved.
This is a very bad proposal.
1 / It splits the entire community of Currie unnecessarily.
2 / Many pupils would have to travel on foot or bus on Lanark road which raises their risk of injury.
3/ Most of Currie pupils could not walk to school. They would have to trve on buses.