Edinburgh Council has been accused of not believing the testimony from parents and pupils of what daily life is like in Edinburgh schools where overcrowding affects the entire school.
Two pupils from James Gillespie’s High School explained to councillors on Tuesday that they sit their exams in classrooms, with other pupils who are not sitting the exams displaced around the school. Their campus is disjointed with some pupils expected to walk 15 minutes to a separate building, Darroch, where some of their lessons take place – and pupils have to sit on the floor in corridors to eat their lunch.
A parent council representative, Lucy Picken, said to councillors that she is frustrated that there has been a working group set up but it has not made sufficient progress. Rather than delaying further, the parent body called for temporary classrooms to be installed on site to alleviate the conditions now being experienced by children and young people and the school staff. This call was made despite the fact that they consider temporary classrooms to be “suboptimal”.
Council action
The council has reacted, and the Education Convener confirmed that immediate steps are being taken to procure temporary classroom units for Boroughmuir High School, where temporary classrooms may be put on open space next to the relatively new school, but with regard to James Gillespie’s High School it will take a little more time with some “further consultation” required.
Education Convener, Cllr James Dalgleish, said that there will be a more substantial update in January next year but that “Officers are working right at this moment to acquire temporary units, which was one of the options suggested at Tuesday’s meeting. It is one of the options that parents sought, albeit that no option is perfect. We are also going to meet the working group with parents and headteachers and senior officers to make sure that we are working with them, and have that trust with them, and also let them contribute.”
He continued: “At James Gillespie’s there is a conversation around temporary units, but there will need to be a bit more consultation as they would be taking up some space needed for a car park – and that might impact on teachers travelling into school. So we want to have that conversation before jumping to that solution immediately.”
Asked for her view on what the council is doing, Mrs Picken said: “As things currently stand, what is due to happen now is absolutely not enough.”
The convener was keen to stress that this is not the only action being taken – and explained that this is a short term measure. He said: “It’s about the balance between temporary measures and long-term measures, and for us, the temporary units are a temporary solution to help deal with the situation at the moment. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not looking at longer term, more strategic avenues to go down to deal with particularly that longer term capacity issue.”
The accounts of what school is like for pupils when a building is overcrowded are descriptive, and the Convener confirmed he has recently visited at least one of the schools to see this for himself.
The effects of overcrowding at James Gillespie’s
Teachers say they often take lessons in the canteen where there are already other lessons being taught – sometimes up to three classes are in there at one time. Pupils who rely on the canteen for lunch have to dash there to queue up but as one of the S5 students explained to councillors on the Education Committee: “When the bell rings for lunch people dash to the canteen trying to beat the queues. But senior pupils know that the line will already be wrapping around the corridor and beginning to build up outside the building, as the S1 pupils are let out 10 minutes earlier.
“Some pupils will spend their entire lunch queuing, only to have five minutes to eat, while others will opt not to have lunch at all. For pupils travelling to Darroch, spending their lunch times in the lunch line is not an option, so they don’t, and they go hungry. For the pupils who are on free school meals this could be an impossible decision.”
The pupils explained exactly what it is like in a school where there are simply too many pupils with corridors so full it is impossible to move. “Everybody is shoving each other, your toes are being stepped on. Half of the pupils are walking the other direction from you, and you feel like you are being crushed.
June deputation
But councillors have been told all of this before – as recently as June. In a statement then, the Parent Council explained that James Gillespie’s has the largest roll of a state school in Edinburgh. The main building operates across a split site – the only Scottish schools to do so – and pupils and staff commonly have to walk 15 minutes each way twice daily.
A survey was conducted by education union, The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), of teaching staff, and these are just samples of some of the comments collected from it:
| Having to switch rooms every lesson, not being able to set up or get organised ahead of lesson, getting to and from rooms in amongst the pupils who don’t move out of the way. | Moving classroom 5 times a day is very stressful and means that lessons can not be prepared and set out properly. Having to move resources multiple times during the school day cuts into lesson time. Having to teach in classrooms not labs means that the full practical science course cannot be delivered. |
| There are not enough classrooms for the staff and pupils so we have to move rooms between lessons which means a significant amount of time is taken from the start of each lesson (10 minutes). | No spare space for break out or de-escalation. Corridors and toilets not big enough. Constant squeeze and noise. No social spaces as open spaces used for classrooms now. Canteen too small. Theatre too small. Increased workload as have to manage all remit responsibilities in less space with less options eg exams, support sessions, presentations, speakers/guests etc |
| Corridors are a nightmare. Pupils sitting on filthy corridor floors to relax and eat – highly unhygienic Not enough classrooms in department No additional space for pupils to work Crushes in corridors during break, lunch and movement between lessons Pupils arriving late to lessons due to sheer volume of pupils moving between lessons impacts starts to lessons Pupils know not to go to toilet at break and lunch due to volume of pupils in toilet areas so ask to go during lessons when it’s quieter so it impacts learning Pupils hungry as waiting in queues too long so arrive to lessons still eating food/drinking. Corridor noise between lessons due to sheer volume of pupils lining up. Storage issues in department due to too many classes/folders/coursework Workload Issues of pupils travelling between two campuses -it’s tiring and time consuming. | |
Pupil survey
Another survey was conducted of more than 300 pupils at Gillespie’s about the overcrowding. There was no positive feedback offered. Here are some of the comments from pupils:
| Please make more spaces to socialise, eat and study (booths). There are none and it’s impossible for senior pupils. The younger years should be in the canteen, and people shouldn’t have to sit on the floor. It’s not fair to ban us from sitting in classrooms if there’s nowhere else indoors to eat/sit. | I find it harder to get through the throng of people to get to my next class |
| The toilets are very dirty and impossible to use even if you really need to use it. As an s6 I can’t study anywhere and makes me question the point of study periods if we can’t study in school and it is not possible to leave when our free periods is p4-p5, it is not possible for some people to leave school because they have classes p1-p2 and p6-p7 but there is no space. When I walk though the corridors I always end up being slightly late because there are too many people and it feels like one can’t breathe when walking through the corridors when getting to your next class. | We need bigger hallways as many get very overcrowded and then teachers shout for us to move and it all gets chaotic The ‘S6 section’ in the school is basically off limits all the time even for people who wish to revise because there is always classes on beside it. It should either not be there or s6 students should be allowed to revise in it. |
| It’s too busy I can’t breathe | |
| I’m in S2 and it’s been rubbish because we’ve only been able to cook food about 10 times in two years and we’ve not been able to do woodwork so much because we have to just been in normal classes because there isn’t enough practical room because there are too many people. Also the corridors are insane to walk in because there are so many people pushing to try to get to there class in time and at lunch you can’t get to there canteen in time to eat before your next class so we just sit in the maths corridor to eat our lunch and spend the lunch time there. | |
Lucy Picken is also a parent, and was representing James Gillespie’s Parent Council and the Rising Rolls Sub Group at Tuesday’s meeting. She said: “Some of you may remember that I was here in June to try and explain the impact that overcrowding at James Gillespie’s High School is having on the quality of our children’s education and the stressful environment that the pupils and your staff are experiencing on a daily basis.
“If the council officials believe that the quite frankly current minimal intervention in relation to the scale of the problem is sufficient. We can only draw the conclusion that the council officers quite simply did not believe the actual lived experience of the pupils and the staff that we tried to convey at the last education committee meeting.”
After the two senior pupils gave their account of a typical day at the school, Mrs Picken said: “Now try to imagine the experience of over 800 pupils in the school with additional support needs, many of whom are completely overwhelmed by their environment.
“We urge the council officials to stop seeing the pupils and your staff as simply numbers on a spreadsheet to be constantly shuffled around and crammed into spaces not fit for purpose.”
Overcrowding at Boroughmuir – plea to explore vacant land
Boroughmuir High School was opened in 2018 by then Education Convener, Shirley-Anne Somerville, MSP, with an initial school roll of 1,200 pupils. The school moved from a Victorian building on the other side of the canal to a purpose built campus.
But even at the opening – when it was proudly announced that the whole school could fit into the atrium for assemblies, the anticipated school roll had already risen. Moves were made to extend the building, almost before it was open. Now the roll is increasing towards 1,800 pupils.
Karen Galloway, from Boroughmuir High School Parent Council, emphasised the need for additional space due to a 50% increase in pupils and a “lack of strategic planning”. She spoke directly to the Convener who has visited the school recently to see for himself the conditions there, but she also made an impassioned plea: “We truly appreciate your willingness to engage with us, and we would like to extend the offer to any committee members who would like to visit with us. However, I must be honest: this is far from the first time parents have stood before this committee raising these exact concerns, and it leaves our school community asking a simple, frustrating question: How many deputations does it take before the council starts listening?”
Ms Galloway continued: “Whilst probably the only viable solution from a teaching and learning perspective is dropping modular units onto our grounds, it is yet another classic sticking plaster solution.”
One suggestion has been to stagger lunchtimes. Ms Galloway was direct in addressing that suggestion, saying: “Proposals in this paper, such as split lunches to manage dining hall overcrowding, is yet another sticking plaster, and let us be completely clear: split lunches are entirely unacceptable. You cannot solve a physical land deficit by fragmenting the school day.”
The Parent Council suggested a way to alleviate the problem. There is land to the side of the school which is lying vacant – and it has been vacant for some time.
Ms Galloway explained: “It makes absolutely no sense for land to lie unused for decades while our children and staff are squeezed into a site failing basic space standards. With a lack of willingness to address role-related questions such as catchment and placement requests, an apparent desire just to fill the seats, we formally urge this committee to break the cycle of repeated temporary fixes and commit to utilising adjacent land to permanently expand the school’s footprint. You have an opportunity to fix this properly.”
This request is not new – Ms Galloway confirmed it was first made in 2012.
At Boroughmuir there is no space for sports, except the rooftop courts, and instead the pupils are taken by bus to Meggetland some distance away.
At the meeting council officers confirmed that the school roll at Boroughmuir is likely to drop – and that while a projected 340 pupils were to join this year the actual figure was only 320.
Solutions?
Cllr Margaret Graham questioned council officers who have “come up with a solution of temporary units that are going to cost in your report £1.5 million and you’ve not got any idea what the associated running costs of the units are. How is that viable? And at this moment in time you’ve not even identified how they can be funded. So this is a practical solution that nobody is happy with and it is going to cost a lot of money that we can’t identify.”
After a meeting in June, suggested options were identified to deal with the shortage of accommodation in both schools.
One of those was to stage break and lunch times, and the other was to change the structure of the school day. Yet another was to identify alternative accommodation which might prove suitable and which could be leased to deal with some classes – for example an empty unit at Fountain Park which lies close to Boroughmuir.
The Convener said at the end of the meeting: “It isn’t satisfactory by any means that you’ve got young people facing some of the pressures than they do in Boroughmuir, with it being close to capacity, more than the numbers, more than the graphs going up and down in our reports in terms of numbers behind each of them, is a young person, and it’s about giving them the best quality education. So that’s one of the reasons around these changes.”
June meeting
Due to a difficulty with the tech the first part of the June deputation was not recorded – the full text of the June deputation by James Gillespie’s Parent Council is reproduced below:
Convener, councillors, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
I’m here on behalf of the James Gillespie’s High School Parent Council.
First, I want to recognise the extraordinary commitment of staff and pupils. Despite exceptionally
challenging circumstances, they continue to achieve.
But resilience should not be mistaken for sustainability.
James Gillespie’s is now the largest state secondary school in Edinburgh. It is also the only
school in Scotland operating permanently across two campuses, fifteen minutes apart.
The main building was designed for around 1,150 pupils. Today, the school roll stands at 1,860
– an increase of almost 62% – and numbers are still rising.
Nearly 80% of pupils and staff are based on the main campus. That is where overcrowding is
felt most acutely. Classrooms are running at around 90% frequency of use, far above the
Council’s own target of 70%.
But this isn’t really a story about buildings. And I’m not here today to talk to you about numbers
on spreadsheet.
It’s about what happens when numbers outgrow space.
I ask you to consider the statement that A school is more than just a collection of
classrooms.
More than 300 pupils responded to a recent survey. Their words paint a stark picture.
One pupil wrote: “It feels like there are people everywhere all the time.
to go and nowhere to escape.
”
“There is nowhere quiet
Another simply told us: “School feels crowded all day, every day.
”
8And one pupil reported hiding in a classroom and waiting for the crush in the corridors to
disperse because they felt unsafe.
Perhaps the most striking response was just six words: “It’s so busy I can’t breathe.
”
These aren’t complaints about inconvenience. They are warnings about wellbeing.
Staff feedback tells the same story.
Sixty-five of your own employees responded to a recent EIS survey, circulated to teaching staff.
Teachers spoke about pupils arriving distressed because of incidents in crowded corridors. They
reported increasing numbers of anxious pupils deliberately missing classes.
One teacher said: “Pupils have approached me to say they are scared in certain corridors.
”
Another wrote: “Overcrowding is detrimental to the health and wellbeing of staff and students. It
damages learning and undermines support for pupils with additional support needs.
”
One teacher described a pupil becoming so overwhelmed by the environment that they simply
froze.
That word stayed with us.
Because behind all the percentages and capacity calculations on a spreadsheet are children
trying to learn in an environment that isn’t always meeting their needs.
The pressure extends directly into learning.
Most practical spaces are operating at 100% capacity, and the roll continues to rise.
Twenty science teachers share ten laboratories.
A science teacher told us: “Teaching practical subjects outside practical spaces has a huge
impact because pupils miss out on hands-on experiences.
”
Another said: “Teaching in classrooms rather than labs means the full practical science course
cannot be delivered.
”
Current S1 pupils are receiving practical Food and Health Technology lessons only once per
term because there are only two teaching spaces available. In some other Edinburgh schools,
pupils cook every week.
9I could go on…
Study areas have become makeshift classrooms.
And opportunities that help define a school experience have disappeared.
The S1 residential is gone.
Activities Week for S1 to S3 is gone. I could go on….
These are not luxuries.
They are the experiences that build confidence, friendships and belonging.
Your staff are under immense and unsustainable pressure too. Teachers and pupils commute
between campuses every day. Timetabling across two sites adds huge complexity. Teaching
time is being lost. Increasing amounts of leadership time are spent managing logistics rather
than driving improvement.
The school community has engaged constructively to try and make suggestions. We have done
our best to be part of the solution. But parents should not have to do the Council’s estate
planning.
We welcome the short-term working group and the additional practical classrooms planned for
2027.
But pupils are experiencing these pressures now. The current situation is unacceptable and the
response to date has simply not matched the scale or urgency of the problem.
So we ask the Council to take three urgent actions.
First, in advance of the next ECF Committee provide a formal written response to the concerns
raised by pupils and staff, setting out what action will be taken and when.
Second, commission and publish an updated assessment of the capacity of James Gillespie’s
and of the educational, operational and wellbeing impacts of permanent two-site working.
And third, bring forward immediate measures to reduce pressure before 2027, while longer-term
solutions for the South Edinburgh high school population are addressed.
Because waiting several more years is not an acceptable response to problems affecting
children every single day.
10This is not simply about finding more desks.
It is about ensuring that every young person has access to the full educational experience they
deserve.
The school community stands ready to work with the Council to find solutions.
But that work requires much greater urgency.
Not next year.
Not next term.
Now.
Thank you.
The next meeting of the Education Committee takes place on 3 November.
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