Secondary schools West Lothian and Fife

[ByWanderingBluebell]

We’re planning a move to Scotland and need to be commutable distance to Bathgate. We’re visiting next month to view areas as we have a long list of options (Linlithgow, Bo’ness, Queensferry, Dalgety Bay, Burnitsland, Aberdour to start with).
We have 3 kids with my eldest a couple of years away from secondary school so I’m really wanting advice on the secondary schools and any schools or areas to avoid! It would be great to know about schools that don’t just focus on sport (which is a problem where we live now!) , my son is musical and loves art. Thank you for any help!

This might give you some idea:

https://datamap-scotland.co.uk/2024/05/scottish-secondary-school-league-tables/

West Lothian and Fife will both historically suffer from the “creaming off” into Edinburgh’s private schools for secondary. This may start to change with the introduction of VAT.

Linlithgow or Aberdour would be my pick of place to live. Linlithgow Academy is a well regarded school. Inverkeithing is the catchment for Aberdour, which is less desirable but I do think the changes in private school intake numbers will make huge changes in the measure tables and I believe it is the sort of school the right child will do well at. My friend in Burntisland got places for her twins in Dunfermline and they were not the only children from their primary to do that so there might be a chance of placement requests. I don’t know Fife too well to know how oversubscribed schools are.

If you can afford private, most of Fife is easily commutable to Edinburgh Haymarket (for St George’s or ESMS) or Waverley (for Heriot’s or EA). St George’s and Heriot’s are less on the sport, but still big part of school life, and have great music and art facilities.

I don't know about schools but if you are commuting to Bathgate daily I would avoid being in Fife and facing the bridge traffic in the morning/evening. It will suck the life out of you. Linlithgow is a nice place to live.

That’s helpful. I love the look of aberdour but thought the same about the commute over the bridge. We also wondered about towards Stirling?

From your list I’d go for Linlithgow and South Queensferry. Nice places with good schools. Also look at Winchburgh which is a rapidly expanding village with a brand new high school, although it won’t have the local facilities of a town.

If you’re thinking of going to Fife I’d make sure you’ve done the bridge crossing at the time you’ll be commuting to give you an idea of the traffic.

Thank you, would south Queensferry be in the Linlithgow academy catchment ?

I can't comment on West Fife schools individually as my daughter went to a school in Northeast Fife but had excellent experience with instrument tuition/extra-curricular music groups within school and dependent on what instrument is played Fife Youth Orchestra/Symphonia/Concert Band/etc provided excellent experiences - these get together over a few weeks at a time in Glenrothes and its the child's/parents responsibility to get them to the weekly rehearsals but they have a residential weekend for each group and a final concert (location varies but usually Glenrothes or Lochgelly) and for both of these they lay on coaches picking up/dropping off at the secondary schools taking part.

No it’s Queensferry high school and it comes under Edinburgh council not West lothian

I’m in Fife and agree that I’d look at the other side of the bridge to commute to West Lothian. South Queensferry and Winchburgh both have a lot of new build developments which look quite well built. SQ high school building is fairly new, even if the school is well established and Winchburgh academy opened 3/4 years ago so is still not at capacity yet. Linlithgow is lovely but I think is overpriced as it’s pretty much 1/2 way between Glasgow and Edinburgh and on the Trainline.

Ratho and Balerno might also be worth a look. Balerno High School has quite a good reputation I think.

Balerno looks really nice, definitely adding that to the list! Thank you