Glasgow Primaries

[orh1]

Hello!

My wife and I are moving to Glasgow in a couple of months, and we're trying to work out where to live. We have 2 sons, one nearly school age. A few nice flats have come up in the Dunard catchment area, which we don't know know anything about, and there doesn't seem to be a huge amount online about the school. Does anyone have experience of sending their kids there? Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Don't know much about the primary - but I see it feeds into Cleveden Secondary. If I had a choice, I'd go for a primary that fed into Hillhead (which has apparently just had a great HMI report) or Hyndland.

If you look South Side then Langside, Shawlands, Battlefield Primaries all seem to have good reputations and feed into Shawlands Academy which I've been impressed with for ds.

Glendale Primary has a good reputation but if your child is due to start in August, will be full already. You'd also need to do a placing request when the time comes for Shawlands Academy (as we did) rather than the feeder Bellahouston Academy - but to date, all placing requests have been accepted.

A friend sends her son there and is very pleased. She says they do quite a lot of outdoorsy things and it's a good all round education. Her only quibble is that class sizes are quite large, but I think that's an issue throughout the city.

Will your DC start in August this year?

My own advice to you is DO NOT RELY on placing requests! All I seem to hear from other parents is that so many placing requests are being rejected when it would have been quite commonplace to have been accepted before.

Do you mean the greater Glasgow area, which contains several local authorities ? Or Glasgow City Council, which covers the inner city ?

Not sure about Hillhead or Hyndland, but to date (which I recognise you can't rely on as it can change year on year), most placing requests on the South Side of Glasgow City have been accommodated.

Kingspark usually gets about 2 classes worth of placing requests for pupils that are in the Shawlands catchment (to do with bus routes: difficult for them to get to Shawlands, involving 2 buses/ a long walk, whereas it's an easy single bus journey to Kingspark ; I think there are also placing requests to Holyrood for similar reasons) while Shawlands gets c2 classes worth of placing requests from various places on its periphery - some to do with its academic reputation, others to do with its School of Rugby (and other sporting endeavours).

And then there are also those that put in placing requests for schools in East Renfewshire that may or may not more probably not accepted.

From everything I have heard I would focus on the secondary you want and move in to the catchment for that
Ideally suburb in East Dunbartonshire or East Renfrewshire or perhaps Hill head /Hyndland

Generally just go South or West.

South: Newton Mearns is a good town with good schools. Giffnock too.

West tends to be more expensive. Actual west end of city is very pricey but has amazing schools. Bearsden/Milngavie too.

If they’re a bit too pricey, Bishopbriggs.

The better schools in Glasgow are not in Glasgow city council ( with the huge exception of Jordanhill). East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire place high.

Start at secondary schools then work back through feeder primaries would be my advice.

I have regularly posted about not assuming that you need to go to the outlying suburbs to get a good education. In addition to Hillhead and Hyndland (and Jordanhill, but it's a special case), Shawlands Academy also does well by its cohort, developing well rounded young people (academically, sportingly, artistically and who are motivated and self starting), many of whom go on to good Unis (including Oxbridge) to study medicine, vet science, law, engineering, PPE, Politics & International Relations, Languages.....

Shawlands, Newlands, Strathbungo, Pollokshields, Langside are all nice places to live, with good public transport and lovely parks and much cheaper than the West End

BTW - I was brought up in Bearsden/Milngavie and went to Bearsden Academy

Lots of options and good to hear of them
But as a safety first cautious type so advise anyone to go for the accepted safe options of East Ren,East Dunbartonshire Hyndland Hillhead

Agree with everything that's been said about East Ren, East Dun and the west end. Just outside Glasgow, Balfron also does very well as does the gaelic school. And, unless you are down for Jordanhill already you won't get a place.