£169m boost for city's education

Eight new schools, costing £169m, are to be built in Edinburgh.

The Council and Axiom Education have agreed a deal to build six secondary schools and two new primary schools.

The first of the schools will be open in August 2008 with the remainder coming on stream by January 2010.

The new schools will embrace many facets of new technology. For example, the old traditional blackboards will vanish.

In their place will be a single board that caters for writing, interactive tasks as well as projections.

On the sports front, there will be two new swimming pools, fitness rooms, and grass and all-weather pitches.

The contract also covers maintenance of the buildings, grounds and sports facilities, cleaning, waste management and catering.

The new schools are not just new buildings – with special features built in they should really impact on how teachers teach and pupils learn:

• traditional blackboards will be replaced by a single wall in the class room to house writing, interactive and projection surfaces
• adjustable furniture will improve posture to help concentration and long-term health
• as well as hard wiring, schools will have a wireless network
• most secondary and primary six/seven classes will get interactive white boards and data projectors
• excellent games halls, gym halls, fitness rooms, two swimming pools and a variety of grass and all weather pitches will be available for community use out of school hours.

In environmental terms it is important that the new schools were designed to meet the Council’s carbon target.

It is likely that seven of the eight schools will use biomass fuel for heating while the eighth school, Tynecastle High, will draw waste heat from their next door neighbours, the North British Distillery.