Parents in Peterhead have demanded an urgent rethink of school catchment areas after new figures revealed only one of the town’s 10 primaries schools has the correct number of pupils for its size.
While some of the town’s classrooms are bursting at the seams, others have empty desks.
Councillors will meet this week to push ahead with plans to reshuffle the zones in the town to give youngsters the best chance at a good education.
Buchanhaven Primary School is the busiest in the area with 445 pupils.
John Davidson, whose Hope Street home looks onto the school, said he was worried about cramped conditions.
“The school is in quite a built-up area and is at maximum capacity. It’s a shame for the kids,” he said.
“My daughter Amy just started primary one and there are more than 80 kids who have started with her. Then my son Liam has 35 in his class.
“Do you keep extending a school that’s at maximum capacity or do you start building a new one?
“I would say something needs to be done.
“They’re building new houses but not the services to go with them.”
His thoughts were echoed by neighbour Naomi Summers-Seddaoui, a nursery worker and child minder whose son Gabriel is in primary seven.
She said: “Gabriel’s been at the school all along but I started to notice the difference in primary five when the class sizes went up.
“Since then he’s been split up twice in composite classes. He wasn’t looking forward to going back after the holidays because he didn’t know the class.”
Members of Aberdeenshire Council’s education, learning and leisure committee will meet on Thursday to discuss a public consultation on amending catchment areas in time for the next academic year.
Under the proposals, pupils already at schools would not be forced to move, but primary-one-aged children and youngsters who are new to the area would be educated in their new zone.
In a report to the committee, council education boss Maria Walker, said: “Due to the scale of developments in the Peterhead area there had been a suggestion that an additional school would be required at a cost in the region of £8-11million depending upon size.
“The rezoning process will allow the existing capacity within the network to be redistributed, substantially delaying if not altogether removing the requirement for an additional school.”
Of the 10 primary schools in Peterhead, Buchanhaven and Burnhaven are both over-capacity and Central and Dales Park will both exceed their limit by 2015 and 2017 respectively.
Boddam, Clerkhill, Meethill and Port Erroll are all under-capacity and Longhaven only has 15 pupils.
In total across the five schools, 364 spaces are available. Only St Fergus is in the capacity range.
Emma Bruce secured a place for her daughter at Clerkhill. She said: “Buchanhaven is quite overcrowded so I wanted to get Demi into Clerkhill because of the reputation of the school and because she has a cousin there.
“There aren’t many more important things for a parent than getting your kids into the right school.”
Independent Petehead councillor Tom Malone, a member of the education committee, said: “It’s very important because there’s a changing demographic and growing population in Peterhead.
“The consultation engages with the whole community, with parent council and with schools themselves so the process is robust.
“But as part of the proposed plan no child is going to be shifted from their existing school to another, that’s for sure.”