Primary education to end at Loanhead catholic school

Councillors have approved a recommendation to end primary education at St Margaret’s Roman Catholic Primary in Loanhead from July 1, 2022.

Loanhead's St. Margaret's R.C. Primary School, which will close this summer.

The school currently has no primary pupils.

The decision, at the full Council meeting on Tuesday comes after councillors considered the outcome of a public consultation on the proposals, which ran from September to November 2021.

Councillors heard no members of the public came along to an in-person meeting about the plan or an online meeting.

A total 71 people filled in an online survey about the proposals and one response was emailed to the education team.

Of the survey responses, 30 agreed or strongly agreed with the proposal to end primary education provision, 38 disagreed or disagreed strongly, two gave no opinion and one did not answer.

The council will now notify Scottish Ministers of the decision. Scottish Ministers then have eight weeks to decide to call-in the proposal. Within three weeks of the council decision, anyone can make a representation to the Scottish Minister about the proposal.

In 2019, the council’s education service started a review of denominational schools in Midlothian against a backdrop of a national shortfall in availability of teachers with approval necessary to teach in Roman Catholic (RC) schools.

Informal consultation meetings were held with staff and parents over 2019 and 2020. The school roll at St Margaret’s RC Primary School fell from 40 to 18 pupils and is now none.