|
Dear parent/carer
As you’ll be aware we are working on plans to expand Park Mains High School in the years ahead. Before we get to the end of term, I wanted to update you on work so far, and on what we expect to happen next.
This update is going to current parents and carers at Park Mains High, and to those of you whose children are at a catchment primary school and so expected to attend Park Mains at some point in the future.
Work so far
A modular unit has now been established at the school to help create extra flexibility for staff and pupils which contains new classrooms which will be ready for the start of the new school year in August.
Longer-term, we are working on plans to add extra permanent capacity to meet the expected rise in pupil numbers in the years ahead. Councillors decided in May 2023 to extend the school to add capacity for another 400 pupils, which will take the total capacity to 2,000 pupils.
In late 2023, working with our consultants, we engaged with hundreds of people including school staff, pupils, parents and local residents to capture your views on how this might work.
This covered what people thought does and doesn't work well in the existing building, the types of learning environment they prefer, and what they want to see from an extended Park Mains, both as a school and a community facility.
We have also been engaging with parents through our Park Main Parent Council Liaison Group, made up of members of the parent council from Park Mains and each of its catchment primaries, plus school staff and senior council officers. This group is a key forum to discuss current and future issues around the school.
Next steps
Over the past few months, our project team and our architects have developed some early designs for the expanded school. We will continue to develop these over the months ahead.
A rough timetable for next steps is as follows:
- We will submit a planning application for the work next year. As part of the preparation for that, we will hold two public information events towards the end of 2024, at which parents and the local community will be invited to see and comment on the designs
- We have started to the work to procure a building contractor, and aim to appoint one early 2025
- Construction is expected to start in 2026, with a target completion date of summer 2027.
Throughout the process so far, the head teacher, his staff and pupils, have been key to planning how an expanded school will work, and we will continue working closely with them to make sure the needs of pupils and staff are at the heart of everything we do.
School roll projections
We know the school roll at Park Mains will increase in the years ahead, largely through the growth of the new housing development at Dargavel. Pupil numbers are anticipated to peak into the mid 2030s.
We are currently reviewing school roll projections across Renfrewshire and have commissioned external experts to review our data based on methodology used for other large-scale housing developments around the UK. These will also be informed by pupil numbers currently attending and expected to attend catchment primary schools. We are currently working through this data to verify the findings and will make this available once complete.
The data we have suggests the expanded capacity of 2,000 will be sufficient for the pupils forecast from Park Mains catchment primaries over the years ahead, however we will continue to regularly track live data from early years and pupil numbers to check against these projections.
If required, we will manage the number of placing requests for Park Mains in line with admissions policies. You can read more information in the last update we issued to Councillors in January 2024.
I hope this update was helpful, and I wish all of you and your children a good summer break.
Gerry Lyons
Interim Head of Education
Renfrewshire Council
|
