Edinburgh's new Maybury primary school will be model for future as part of a community hub including GP surgery

Edinburgh’s first school to share a campus with a medical centre will open later this year, setting what council bosses hope will be the model for future school developments in the city.

The new Maybury Community Hub will incorporate Maybury Primary School, with the capacity for 630 pupils as well as a 128-place nursery, along with an NHS health centre and GP surgery able to serve up to 10,000 patients.

They will share a public entrance - turn right for the medical centre, left for the school - though pupils will go in through a separate entrance on the other side of the building. It is also intended the two-storey school’s facilities, such as outdoor spaces, the sports hall and activity studios, will be shared with the community.

The school will launch with P1 pupils only, but the building won’t be ready in time for the the new school year in August 2024, so they will be based for their first term, along with their teachers, at East Craigs Primary. The new building is expected to be available by October 2024.

The council says East Craigs has enough space to accommodate the Maybury P1 pupils and staff, as well as giving them a separate office and a separate entrance. And it says starting off at East Craigs allows the creation of strong links between the schools, as well as cluster working and sharing or resources, before the pupils transition to the new building.

Maybury will also be Edinburgh’s first school built to Passivhaus standards - where high-quality design and construction makes buildings super energy efficient and also improves comfort levels in air quality and temperature, all helping towards the council’s 2030 net zero target.

The school is needed because of the large number of new homes being built in the West Edinburgh area. Its catchment area will cover the new housing developments at Cammo and West Craigs.

The council says in future, new schools in the Capital are likely to follow a similar model, as part of a community hub, not necessarily with a medical centre, but with other council services or partners like Edinburgh Leisure or the police.

Education convener Joan Griffiths said: “Community hubs are the way to go. Schools shouldn’t be seen as stand-alone, somewhere you go into and come out at 3.30pm. They should be seen very much as part of the community and I’m really pleased there’s going to be a medical centre in this hub because it is encouraging people to go in to use the facilities.

“It’s also a way of maximising resources, it’s about bringing things together and it’s making best use of resources instead of having smaller buildings all over the place, using up extra heating and extra lighting. I’m really excited about it.”