Clermiston, Fox Covert or East craigs primary school

[amyabc123]

Hello.
We have a 2 years old boy and recently bought a house in Drumbrae.
No idea about these primary schools. According to school guide, Clermiston primary is more or less average, Fox covert and East craigs are slightly better.

Our house is in a catchment of Clermiton and The Royal for secondary but it's in border.

We are thinking about placing request (of course we understand may be refused as we are not in catchment)

Does anyone who has child /ren go to these primary school? Are your child/ren happy about their school?

Also I and my husband both mother tongues are not English. Our son is bilingual but his English is not as good as other same age children.
If you know anything about language support at primary school, please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

Hi my kids are at Fox Covert. Great school but growing very fast. Had to build new classrooms to fit everyone in. Now have two classes in P1 and think both have 25 kids in them. You might struggle to get an out of catchment place as a result. I've never heard of there being language support. The school shares a campus with the RC school and they have a bigger catchment which covers Drumbrae. They might have language support. It would be worth visiting both schools and asking.

There is EAL support but it's centrally run so will be allocated to each school depending on their need. Not sure what that means in practice but you could certainly ask.
If you get a placing request for primary, I don't think you automatically get into that secondary, do you? I suspect the RH still has a better reputation than CM, though I have known people happy with both schools. How are you judging whether the primaries are average or not?

Thank you for the information.

Im going to ask a placing request. If they accept my son, lucky if not, Clermiston primary is ok.

I don't know anybody who send their child(ren) to these primary schools so only way I can judge if the school is good or not is School guide and Rezzio.
I found out 20％Clermiston primary school pupils receive free school meal which is an Edinburgh average. Truancy level is higher than average which makes me worry. (Truancy level of East Craigs and Fox Covert are very low)

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I would learn more about them before deciding, you are some time away yet. Why not send your dc to the nursery of the school you prefer (nurseries don't work on catchments) and get a feel for the school that way.

I'm not sure what you mean by truancy - that must be pretty rare at primary, not so much by secondary! In the schools guide it gives a figure for unauthorised absence, that doesn't mean the child playing truant though, it means the adult has kept them off without a good (enough) reason - that could refer to the parent not bothering to take them, or going on a term-time holiday, or staying off because granny is visiting. As long as it's not a really high number I wouldn't be influenced by that.
Try the inspection reports too - education.gov.scot/what-we-do/inspection-and-review/reports#k=

To be honest most of the schools in that area are pretty good.

Nursery waiting lists were a bit of an issue after the closed Drumbrae Primary but think things have eased since the Early Years Centre opened. Although there is concern about the staff turnover at the early years centre.