Parents from Eastern Dunfermline have been told that Fife Council hopes to have a new school up and running for the north Dunfermline East area by August 2009.

The proposal would see children from this new school taught within Inverkeithing Primary School for the next two years until their new school is built.

The school would run within the Inverkeithing building as a completely separate unit, with its own headteacher, staff and school identity.

An unprecedented amount of children applying for Primary 1 places in Duloch and Masterton Primary Schools has meant that without action both schools will be over capacity at the start of next school year.

A new school would ease the pressure on Duloch but will not have any impact on the dual catchment arrangements for Masterton, which were previously agreed by the Education and Children's Services Committee. Officers will now have to decide whether parents would prefer to retain the nursery at Masterton and have only one Primary 1 class or to close the nursery and using the space to have a sustainable two stream Primary 1 entry starting in August 2009.

-- Advertisement --

There is ample nursery provision in the surrounding area and all potential Masterton nursery children can be accommodated elsewhere.

Parents of both schools were invited to information sessions on Monday and Tuesday this week and Masterton parents will be given a further opportunity to discuss their options at a public meeting on Thursday evening this week.

Garry Crosbie, Education Senior Manager, said: "In order to create the least disruption possible to the children one of our proposals is to set up and run a new school as a separate unit with its own separate school identity but within the Inverkeithing building. This means that when the children do move to their new building they will be moving with their classmates, teachers and headteacher and only the learning environment will change.

"Parents will also still have the option of making a placing request to any other primary school of their choice."

The Council has approved £10m to build a new primary school for East Dunfermline but so far it has proved extremely difficult to find a suitable site.

Parents heard yesterday that the Council is still working hard to identify an alternative site for the new school.

(GK/JM)