These nine primary and secondary schools in Fife are most over capacity

There are more than 100 overcrowded schools across Scotland, including nine in Fife.
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The latest figures from the Scottish Government shows that 5% of Scotland’s 2,354 primary and secondary schools are over capacity.

While some of these 128 schools are oversubscribed by just one or two pupils, others have hundreds of extra pupils on their registers.

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In Fife, the most overcrowded primary is Wormit with a pupil roll of 171 against a capacity of 150.

Balwearie High School, KirkcaldyBalwearie High School, Kirkcaldy
Balwearie High School, Kirkcaldy

And the busiest secondary is Viewforth High School in Kirkcaldy where the total number of pupils stands at 669 against a capacity of 600.

It is one of three high schools facing overcrowding issues.

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Auchmuty High School in Glenrothes has 1355 pupils and a capacity of 1300, while Balwearie’s 1593 limit has been stretches to accommodate 1617 youngsters.

Primaries under pressure include Pitreavie in Dunfermline (321 pupils/292 capacity), Capshard in Kirkcaldy (514 pupils/484 capacity) and Kirkcaldy West with 494 pupils - about its limit of 485.

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The data is based on the latest government School Estate data published in September 2021 and represents pupils on the school roll from the previous September.

School capacity is a measure of how many pupils can be taught in a school and is based on the number and size of teaching spaces available.

Some schools with special units may include these pupils in the overall pupil numbers, but exclude the special unit space from their capacity calculations.

This may make their capacity figures look higher than they are in reality.

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The most overcrowded school in Scotland is Kinnaird Primary School in Falkirk which has an additional 299 children on top of its 434 capacity.

Shelagh McLean, head of education and children's services, said: "We continually monitor the capacity of our schools and work to manage the challenges that rising school rolls can bring from time to time.

"Some flexibility is built in to our modelling to help us manage pupil numbers and in some settings we can reconfigure the existing space in schools to create additional classroom spaces.

"Where that's not possible we may consider temporary modular accommodation or a permanent extension to the school building, which is part of future planning for Viewforth."

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