Dear parent or carer,

Following on from our welcome back to school update earlier this week, I want to update you on wider work being undertaken on primary and secondary school education provision for children and young people from Dargavel.

Our Education and Children’s Services Policy Board meets next week and will be receiving an update report, which I have summarised below.

New primary school in Dargavel

We are building an additional primary school for 800 pupils within Dargavel.

We have been in discussions with landowner BAE Systems to acquire a suitable site and these discussions are now at an advanced stage.

We expect to secure our preferred 8.5 acre site soon—located at the north end of Craigton Drive, which would be extended—as well as the transfer of 1.5 acres of land next to the current primary school to allow for potential future expansion if needed.

We will be able to provide you with more details on this by the end of next week.

We estimate the new school will be ready to welcome pupils from August 2027 and—as we work through the design and planning process—we will be able to refine our timeline and provide more details on key milestones.

We are committed to delivering this school as soon as possible and are exploring all options to do so.

We have also awarded a contract for space planning consultants to help us scope out what should be in the new school development and they will be seeking the views of parents, carers and the community on what you want from the new facility, allowing your feedback to be factored into the design.

Capacity arrangements from August 2024

The school has capacity for all pupils in the current school year (August 2023 to June 2024).

Unfortunately, as previously highlighted, current figures are indicating we will have to limit the intake for pupils starting Primary 1 (P1) from August 2024.

In May, we set out the process for managing demand, which will see us apply our admissions policy, giving priority to pupils who already have siblings in the school, and then to pupils who, for medical reasons, would have difficulty being educated elsewhere. If, after applying this criteria, the school is still oversubscribed, then we move on to a ballot process.

P1 registration takes place in November and the ballot process for places would take place in January 2024.

Children who do not get a place at Dargavel Primary will go to nearby Bishopton Primary School.

Secondary school provision

We are working to deliver an extension at Park Mains High School, which would increase the school’s capacity to 2000.

The decision to extend the school follows analysis of detailed roll projections over the next decade, across a range of scenarios, and is informed by live data, such as current school registrations and school leavers.

We continue to meet with parent councils and wider stakeholders to share the detailed data on which the extension decision was based.

We know many people within the community have said they want to see a new secondary school built within Dargavel or Bishopton, to serve those communities.

We have not presented this as an option for two reasons: 

• It would create a significant inefficiency with existing school capacity. Current feeder primary school rolls show the number of secondary pupils in the Erskine area will drop in the years ahead to the point where—if removing Dargavel and Bishopton pupils from Park Mains—the school roll would be around half of its current 1,591 capacity by the end of the decade. This would leave the school substantially under-occupied.
• A new secondary school could cost more than £90million to build, even before the cost of any land-purchase and running costs.

We therefore do not believe this is an option that offers best value for communities across Renfrewshire.

Longer-term capacity planning 

We continue to monitor the live data and consider options for additional capacity should we need them.

We are engaging with families in the early part of this school session on options for increased primary school capacity should it be needed in the longer-term once the second primary school is operational.

Updates for wider Dargavel community

You will continue to receive updates direct to you through text messages from the school.

This information is also being shared more widely in the first Dargavel community email newsletter.

Anyone who is interested can register for these updates on the link below.

Sign up 

You can read the full Dargavel Update report on the council website.

Board report

If you have any queries please contact us at our dedicated email address: dargavelcs@renfrewshire.gov.uk

I hope this is helpful. 

Yours faithfully,

Julie Calder

Head of Education and Interim Chief Education Officer

Renfrewshire Council