Proposals and Consultation for Education Provision at Blairingone Primary School

School closure decision

As of Friday 28 June 2019, Blairingone Primary School will be permanently closed. Pupils of Blairingone Primary School catchment area will permanently receive their education at Fossoway Primary School from 1 July 2019. The Blairingone catchment area will be permanently rezoned to Fossoway Primary School from 1 July 2019.

This decision follows the completion of a statutory consultation undertaken in line with the requirements of the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010. The decision was not called-in by Scottish Ministers and the Council received consent to implement its decision on Tuesday 21 May 2019.

Notice of decision of Lifelong Learning Committee

The Lifelong Learning Committee considered the findings of the statutory consultation Report No 19/92 (PDF, 321 KB) and Appendix A (PDF, 549 KB) on 27 March 2019 and approved the implementation of the the proposal to close Blairingone Primary School with effect from 28 June 2019 and was satisfied to do so for the reasons set out in the Committee Report 19/92 (PDF, 321 KB) and Appendix A (PDF, 549 KB) in accordance with Section 11A(3) of the Schools Consultation (Scotland) Act 2010, as amended.

Notification and representation to Scottish Ministers

As a result of the Lifelong Learning Committee's final decision made on 27 March 2019 to approve the proposal to close Blairingone Primary School, the Council has informed Scottish Ministers of this decision in accordance with Section 15 (2) and 2(A) of the Schools Consultation (Scotland) Act 2010, as amended.

The legislation allows for any person to make representations either against or to support the closure to Scottish Ministers within three weeks of the Council taking their final decision to implement a closure proposal. Any representations to Scottish Ministers need to be with the Ministers within three weeks of this date. Therefore, any representations must be made to Scottish Ministers by midnight on Tuesday 16 April 2019.

Anyone wishing to make representation to Scottish Ministers during the three week period referred to above should do so by email to  schoolclosure@gov.scot or in writing to:

The Scottish Government
School Infrastructure Unit
Area 2B (North)
Victoria Quay
EDINBURGH
EH6 6QQ

The Scottish Ministers have a period of eight weeks following an authority's decision in which to decide whether to call in the decision or not.

Further information is available by contacting:

The Schools Consultations Team
Tel: 01738 476218
Email: ECSStatutoryConsultations@pkc.gov.uk (please indicate Blairingone Primary School in the email subject header)

Publication of consultation report

The next stage of the consultation process below was the publication of the report on the outcome and findings of the Statutory Consultation. This Consultation Report (PDF, 1 MB) was published from Friday 22 February 2019 until Friday 15 March 2019.  This allowed for a full three week review of the document prior to a final submission to the Lifelong Learning Committee on Wednesday 27 March 2019.

Proposals and Consultation for education provision at Blairingone Primary School.

The Lifelong Learning Committee on Wednesday 24 August 2016 approved Report No. 16/347 (PDF, 184 KB) which proposed a review of Perth and Kinross Council's School Estate. Further approval was given by the Lifelong Learning Committee on 2 November 2016 ( Report No. 16/485 (PDF, 1 MB) refers) to the development of a number of Options Appraisals, including for Blairingone Primary School.

Following this, Report No. 18/155 (PDF, 232 KB) was presented to the Lifelong Learning Committee on Wednesday 16 May 2018. This report presented an Options Appraisal (PDF, 925 KB) containing an Educational Benefits Statement regarding Blairingone Primary School. As a result, the Committee approved to prepare and publish a proposal paper (PDF, 4 MB) and commence formal consultation on the following proposals:

• Provision of a school at Blairingone Primary School be permanently discontinued with effect from 28 June 2019, or as soon as possible thereafter;
• That the pupils of Blairingone Primary School catchment area permanently receive their education at Fossoway Primary School from 1 July 2019, or as soon as possible thereafter; and
• That the delineated catchment area of Fossoway Primary School be permanently extended to subsume the whole delineated catchment area of Blairingone Primary School from 1 July 2019.

Formal consultation

The Consultation was undertaken in line with the requirements of the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010.

The consultation period ran from Monday 27 August 2018 until Friday 5 October 2018, which included a period of 30 school days.

A Public Notice (PDF, 238 KB) was placed in the local press.

Public meetings

Two public meetings were held to discuss the proposals and the proposal paper (PDF, 4 MB). The meetings were an opportunity for interested parties to:

• Hear more about the proposals;
• Ask questions about the proposals; and
• Have their views recorded so that they could be taken into account as part of the consultation process.

Anyone wishing to attend was invited to do so.

 The public meetings were held as follows:

A note of questions and views were taken at the meetings. The notes will be published on this site (as above) and a printed copy will be made available upon request to the Schools Consultation Team (details below).