Info on Trinity primary/ St. Mary's Leith primary

[Misamisagrl]

My daughter is due to start P1 in 2016, we are trying to naturally decide on whether to go with our ND state school - Trinity Primary (Trinity Sec.)or go with RC - St Mary's Leith (Holyrood Sec.) There is also Gaelic Primary to throw into this occasion.
I would really appreciate if any parents here whose kids go to any of these primaries and/or secondary could give me more details about their positives and negatives. Ta.

My dd is starting at the Gaelic primary in August. She has been at the pre-school (sgoil-araich) for two years and I think it is great. School buildings are great and they have a lot of space (for now...), assembly hall, gym hall, it suite, music room, cooking room, parent's room. They have wrap around care/after school club (Oganan) on site for age 3 upwards which my dd loves. Head teacher seems very approachable and on the ball. It took us a long to make the decision to go to Gaelic Medium Education but I have no regrets at all.

Our catchment primary was Trinity primary when dd was about to start P1 last Aug. We went to look round with open minds but came away unhappy.

I was very concerned that dd1 might be placed in a composite class (mainly p2s with 5/6 p1s) because they couldn't accommodate everyone. The teacher couldn't explain how the 5 or 6 children would be selected. We were shown a composite class in operation. It appeared chaotic, noisy as 2 teachers tried to teach 2 different groups, (and this was on the open day). We also experienced classes (a French class) being held in the corridor outside the open doorway to the loos. This was in the recently opened extension, and to me posed a H&S risk as it partially blocked a corridor and route for a fire exit.

The playground has had a poorly fenced pile of rubble in it for at least 2 years. However, I believe a playground refurb is planned.

All in all I was a bit shocked as Trinity is supposed to be one of the better state primaries. We decided to go private which was a big decision and not one we have taken lightly. We have had to adjust our lifestyle and finances accordingly. But we are much, much happier.

Thank you very much for your replies,

Starfish, I will no doubt check Trinity again during their open day as I had a quick looking last year, shown around by students which were very lovely but haven't seen any teachers or classes in action :/ I did noticed P1 or P1/2 marked classrooms. That would be a worry indeed. My husband went to see their May fair this weekend and took a good looking around, saw the plans for the playground, they will be starting to update pretty soon. May I ask which private school you went with ?

Purple scarf, About the Gaelic medium school, we are looking into it, unfortunately there seems to be lack of communications between the head teacher and the office. After 3 days I am still waiting to hear to arrange a visit to school. My daughter is already in another nursery and apparently their nursery is very full and might be hard to get a particular day we ask for. I don't know if this means she will be overlooked and not be accepted there without following through their nursery route.

We went with George Watsons and have been very, very happy so far. Having seen the progress dd has made in P1 this far with regard to reading and numeracy, it's hard not to wonder how far she would have come had she ended up in a composite class. That was my biggest concern, esp in a formative year such as P1 when they have very little to go on as to how a pupil would cope.

Another thing that I forgot to mention in my earlier post was that the school mentioned that with projected intake and demand for places, they could not guarantee a place for dd2 when she is due to start in 2017. That comes as no great shock as that is the case for a lot of Edinburgh but that was another case for looking elsewhere (although a place isn't automatically guaranteed at GWC either but is likely all being well).

On the open day, the girl who showed us round was a P6 who was leaving to go to Heriots in P7. According to her, that was quite common. That was one of our original plans too in fact, to do Trinity for primary then consider a move to private for secondary.

Composite classes seem to be pretty common - and becoming more so I think. Our catchment primary was originally a single stream school but thanks to the birth boom now has more pupils than fit in a single P1 class so they are trying all sorts of combos!

2 years ago (2013 starters) they had 2 P1 classes
2014 - they had a p1, a P1/2 and a P2
2015 - a p1, p1/2, p2 and 2 p3 classes

So the class composition has changed every year. The P1 and the P3 (as at 2015) are both really big (over 40) so are unlikely to ever shrink to one class but they're hoping that the 2015 P2 cohort will as there will only be 7 in the composite this year, so with bigger class sizes for older kids and the fact our school has a fair number vanishing to private school at various stages too they'll probably get that year down to one class.

Personally the composite itself doesn't put me off (we had these when I was at school) but the chopping and changing I'm not so enamored with!

Indeed I also heard from other friends about their own catchment primary also having P1/2 classes.
We are very torn now, currently we can't realistically afford private education without myself doing 5 full working days. This isn't what I want as I want to be there for my daughter when she comes back from school and study together. She is bilingual and I need to keep a language balance too through being with her as much as I can and helping.
Hopefully this baby boom is slowing down I mean I heard very reputable primaries having to teach in the corridors because of over subscription.

Are you RC? Can't see why you would want to send your child to a religious school of it is not your religion.

Can see rationale for Gaelic school if you want tomorrow language ability. Otherwise catchment area or private are usually easiest.

Yes, I've heard the gaelic nursery is getting full. They offer 5 mornings (preschool year) or 5 afternoons (ante-preschool year) rather than full days. There is wraparound care though for the time they are not in nursery at Oganan - they speak gaelic there too.

I believe that the catchment area for the school is Edinburgh City and it shouldn't matter if you use the nursery or not. Although, I think if you were serious about gaelic medium you should try and get some sessions so your dd can pick up Gaelic before she starts school. There are lots of bilingual (other than gaelic) kids at the school too which is great.

I think that most kids go to P1 having been at the nursery but by no means all of them.

I will be very happy putting her 2-3 mornings or afternoons to the Gaelic nursery. Mainly because she is very settled on her current nursery and we love it there. It is good to know the school have a wraparound care. Once we get to see the school, we will make a decision but if we go with it then I will be trying to learn Gaelic before she even starts to school there next year so I can be prepared. It seems already quite a few friends of her might be heading there.
I think it will help to nurture her bilingual side so will see, let's hope she gets a place if we choose to go with it.

Suspect we are at statisticallychallenged's school.we just had a fab year in the p1/2, very happy with the social dynamic, teaching, and academic progress made by my dc. Our HT's dd goes to Trinity which is a positive indicator for the school imo, and I know it has some excellent teachers.

My DS goes to a small school outside Edinburgh but still Edinburgh council, with only 5 classrooms, so there are always composite classes and I have to admit I just don't get the angst about them.

The amount of physical space at Trinity would be more of a concern, but afaik it is a good school. Lots of my friends' DCs go there and are happy.

Oh that's interesting fukkingup, I didn't know that!

That's interesting indeed. I am hearing good things about Trinity primary so we will definitely check it up again during their open day but also quite seriously considering Gaelic medium.
Mainly because I am not sure how well Trinity Academy is academically if there are students heading out to private schools instead after primary. It is hard not to think about the secondaries when choosing the primary.
No idea if RC secondary option is any good, or if we would be considered that late stage as we aren't Catholic.
Considering how full all of the schools in Edinburgh and will be even more around my daughter's age group, this issue will follow us through her education.

Pretty much all the High Schools have that problem though OP - the figure that gets bandied about is usually 25% of all secondary school DCs in Edinburgh are in private ed, which is very high indeed.

Out of interest, is there a gaelic medium secondary?

The Gaelic medium secondary is at James Gillespies. Which is probably part of the reason it's quite so popular - there was uproar when the possibility of moving it to Tynecastle was discussed

Admittedly some schools will be more affected by the children going to private school than others though.

Ah yes, I forgot Bruntsfield's enduring link with the gaelic culture there for a moment Stat

LonnyVonny, I don't know how you could have missed it's beating Gaelic heart!

I know! Crofts in every garden, cannae move for plaids at the Meadows Festival...

If the crofts are posh children's playhouses then maybe . The Bruntsfield equivalent of a hand crafted treehouse?!

Gillespies is not Gaelic medium - it just has Gaelic as a subject with all other subjects in English. For true Gaelic medium secondary you need to go to Glasgow

Fair point catdil - it is still the high school for children who have Gaelic primary education though isn't it?

Yes it currently is StatisticallyChallenged. Who knows in the future.

25% is high indeed. Wish there is a publish stats but I reckon, percentage of students from the well-known good primaries going to private secondaries is way lower than compare to schools like Trinity, Broughton etc.

I have read that the 25% figure isn't entirely accurate - I think it's based on the total number of pupils enrolled at the private schools rather than Edinburgh residents if I remember correctly. So it's an artificially high number due to large boarding schools (a lot of the boarders won't be Edinburgh residents otherwise and a fair number will be international) plus you get a fair number of children from outwith Edinburgh being brought in to the private schools as there aren't many in the Lothians/Fife.

Stewarts Melville has a huge line of coaches outside every day and runs buses to Fife, Bathgate, North Berwick, Dunbar, parts of the Borders etc. George Watson's does similar and I suspect many of the others do too.