Edinburgh school closures: plans for exams in place

Plans have been drawn up to allow Edinburgh students to sit exams after their school buildings were shut over safety fears.

Around 7,600 primary and secondary school children have been affected by the 17 closures enforced at the end of the Easter holiday.

All were back in classrooms this week after the council drew up temporary arrangements to accommodate them.

Now Edinburgh City Council has moved to assure students and parents that contingency plans are in place for the start of exam season in May.

All pupils will be sitting their exams in the schools where they are currently attending.

Royal High, Drummond and Firrhill pupils will use their schools

Gracemount and Craigmount pupils will be sitting their exams at their host schools of Liberton and Tynecastle respectively.

Education convener Paul Godzik said: "Despite the hugely challenging situation the council have tried to ensure our pupils are given every chance to prepare properly and that as far as possible they are not impacted by the school closures.

"We will be outlining in detail to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) the arrangements we have put in place and how this has affected pupils, as well as providing additional study support to pupils where we feel this is necessary."

The council said structural surveys of the buildings affected are continuing and further information will be provided to parents once the full reports have been received and assessed.

The schools were all built or refurbished under the same PPP scheme around 10 years ago by Edinburgh Schools Partnership, which revealed it was unable to provide safety assurances for the premises, sparking the closures.

Meanwhile, all of Scotland’s main political parties are backing a public inquiry into the school closures.

The issue of PPP/PFI contracts was raised during an education hustings last night organised by Scotland's largest teaching union, the EIS.

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