by Catriona Stewart

CONSTRUCTION of the new Blairdardie Primary started this week as education bosses call for north-west Glasgow parents to enrol their P1s.

Council chiefs said the school would “become the heart of the community” on completion.

Blairdardie Primary School will be built adjacent to the existing school and is due to be completed by February 2019 with 18 teaching spaces in the new school, drama room, flexible breakout space and cooking kiosk.

The school will also have enhanced community facilities including a four-court sports hall and an 11-a-side synthetic pitch as a phase two following completion of the new school building.

Construction also started this week on a new Carntyne Primary, set to open in the east end of the city in October 2018.

Garscadden/Scotstounhill councillor Chris Cunningham, Glasgow City Council’s convener for education, skills and early years, said: “The two new schools will be a real asset to both local communities and an incredible new learning environment for the children and school staff.

“Glasgow is extremely proud of the new schools. I want to thank the Scottish Government for the SFT’s contributory funding that has made the construction of the schools at Carntyne and Blairdardie possible.

“These new schools will become the heart of the community and help teach our children in modern, fit for purpose buildings.”

Meanwhile, parents have until Friday to register their children for P1 to begin in August 2018, reports our sister paper the Evening Times.

This year, for the first time, enrolment can be completed online using an digital copy of the child’s birth certificate.

Cllr Cunningham said: “We know that registering your child for starting school can be a very emotional time for parents and carers and we try to make this as easy a process as possible.

“This year we have introduced a new online enrolment form as an additional way to register children who are due to start P1 from the new school term in August and as part of Glasgow’s registration week.

“The forms have been available for a few days now and are proving popular with parents.

“Nowadays, the majority of our processes are carried out digitally and the new process will also help to reduce duplication of forms at school level.

“Schools will continue to host open days for parents and carers, help families with forms who are not able to access online or have language difficulties and paper copies are still available to download from the Glasgow City Council website.”

Parents and carers will have the chance to visit their local catchment school.

Check visiting days with the school.