Park Mains High School
Location and headteacher, contacting the school, plans to increase future capacity, future roll projections, parent and carer updates
Location and headteacher
Park Mains High School is on Barrhill Road in Erskine. Alan Dick is the headteacher.
The associated primary schools are Bargarran, Barsail, Bishopton, Dargavel, Inchinnan, Langbank and Rashielea.
Contacting the school
If you have any questions about general school matters, you can contact the school as follows:
Plans to increase future capacity
A modular unit has been built at the school to help create extra flexibility for staff and pupils. This contains new classrooms expected to be in use when the timetable changes.
We are working on plans to add extra permanent capacity to meet the expected rise in pupil numbers in the years ahead.
Councillors decided in May 2023 to extend Park Mains High School to add capacity for another 400 pupils, taking the total capacity to 2,000 pupils. We expect this to be complete by summer 2027.
In late 2023, we and our consultants held a series of surveys and workshops with hundreds of staff, pupils, parents and members of the local community to get their views on how an extended Park Mains might work.
This covered what people thought does and doesn't work well in the existing building, the types of learning environment they prefer, and what they want to see from an extended Park Mains, both as a school and a community facility.
See key findings from space planning survey. [646KB]
The next stage is for us to develop some designs for how the building will be extended, based on the above feedback. We will keep the school community engaged in that process.
That will include the Park Mains Parent Council Liaison Group, made up of members of the parent council from Park Mains and each of its feeder primaries, plus school staff and senior council officers. This group meets regularly and is a key forum to discuss current and future issues around the school.
Future roll projections
The school roll at Park Mains will increase in the years ahead, due in part to the growth of the new housing development at Dargavel. We expect pupil numbers to peak in 2033/34.
Our roll projections have been verified by external experts using tried-and-tested methodology used for other large-scale housing developments around the UK, and are informed by pupil numbers currently in or expected to attend feeder primary schools. This data is reviewed on a regular basis and will be updated as we get more live data from actual pupil registrations each year.
This data suggests the expanded capacity of 2,000 will be enough for the pupils forecast from Park Mains catchment primaries over the years ahead. If needed, we will be able to keep pupil numbers within that by managing the number of placement requests from non-catchment primaries.
You can read more on the work we've done to plan future capacity at Park Mains High School, and see the actual projections, in the report which went to councillors on the Education and Children's Services Policy Board in August 2023 (section 7 on secondary school provision is the relevant part). See Education Provision Dargavel Update.
You can also see updated projections reported to the same board in January 2024, which looked at expected demand for Park Mains places as far ahead 15 years, to 2039. See Roll Projection Update.
Parent and carer updates
We will continue to keep parents and carers updated on work to extend the school through direct updates. You can read these updates here:
Park Mains High School
Bargarran Primary School
