Pollokshields or Shawlands primary

[Goscat]

Hello!

We've just moved to Strathbungo and need to apply for primary for next year soon. Apparently our catchment area falls between pollokshields and Shawlands primaries. Does anyone have any insight into which is better?

TIA

If you have a choice, I'd go for Shawlands Primary. Don't know much about the two primary schools in recent years (Pollokshields Primary is actually the one closest to me, but weirdly, we were in the catchment for Glendale Primaru - which was fine by me as it had an excellent reputation and used its highly mixed demographic and high proportion of English as an Additional Language to create a positive learning environment) but because the secondary school for Shawlands Primary would be Shawlands Academy, while Pollokshields Primary is a feeder to Bellahouston Acadrmy.

I had to do a placing request for ds for him to go to Shawlands but I think it's now close to, if not at, capacity so placing requests can't be guaranteed.

Caveat: ds is now 23 so things may have changed

I seen this thread title and thought of prettybird straight away . Glad you are still here.

FWIW we are further out but I'd choose Shawlands too.

We lived in Strathbungo 10 yrs ago. I probably would have chosen shawlands over Pollokshields. Where do the other families send their kids? A lot used Hutchie during our time there. We couldn't have afforded that, but we moved out of Glasgow for my husband's job. I loved Strathbungo.

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@prettybird Thank you so much for taking the time to give such a comprehensive answer! You've actually made up my mind as I didn't realise pollok fed into Bella and we definitely want shawlands academy for proximity and reputation (though lots can change in 7 years!). Thanks again

@Brightredtulips we're loving it so far! I think I'm going to start accosting some parents in the street to ask 🤣. Hutchy not on our radar currently, we're not fans of private if we can avoid it.

@ssd thank you! Vote counted 😉

FWIW I was very happy with Shawlands Academy: ds did well there, both academically and sportingly, made good friends (of all sorts of different ethnic and demographic backgrounds which helped him recognise how privileged he was/is ), went to Aberdeen Uni where he graduated with a good degree, straight into a good job in his niche field.

I know the headteacher has changed since then but according to SIL (who comes across the headteachers in a work capacity), the new headteacher is also good

Most Strathbungo kids goes to Shawlands so I’d probably go with that. However, in 2018 GCC did a review to secondary admissions and now (if your child started school after then) you go to your catchment secondary dependant on postcode rather than feeder primary. So if your child went to Pollokshields, your secondary school would still be Shawlands.