About the new school
We're building a new primary school in Dargavel Village. The new school will be called Thistle Primary School, as chosen by local pupils and residents after a public vote.
The new school will have capacity for around 800 pupils and will include a full-size sports pitch and facilities for use by the wider community. We expect Thistle Primary School to be open by August 2027, in time for the start of that year's new school term.
You can see our fly-through video below, which shows how Thistle Primary will look once complete.
The new school will be additional to the existing Dargavel Primary School and is needed to meet future demand as more new houses are built in the area in the years ahead.
The new primary school will be non-denominational. The denominational school for the Dargavel area will continue to be St John Bosco Primary School, in Erskine.
The associated high school for the new primary school will be Park Mains High School.
Thistle Primary School catchment
The location and catchment area for the new school were decided after a formal consultation with the community, which ran in early 2024.
Read more information about the consultation on the new primary school in Dargavel
You can see the agreed catchment areas for the new and existing primary schools in Dargavel on the map below.
These new catchment areas will come into effect when the new school opens in 2027. Until then, the existing Dargavel Primary will continue to be the catchment primary school for all of Dargavel Village.
Parents of children due to start Primary 1 in August 2027 will be able to register their child for Thistle Primary when the Renfrewshire-wide P1 registration period opens in November 2026. Any other family living in the Thistle Primary catchment whose child has already started school will have the opportunity to move their child there should they wish.
Community engagement
We're committed to working with the community throughout the design, planning and construction of Thistle Primary School. This has included:
- a detailed space-planning exercise in late 2023, which included a series of focus groups and a community survey, where we asked what people wanted from a new school with community facilities
- the formal consultation on the school's location and catchment in early 2024
- a 12-week period of engagement in summer/autumn 2024 in advance of the the full planning application being submitted. This included 2 public events and a series of focus groups.
Parent and carer updates
We're keeping parents and carers updated directly on our work to increase school capacity in Dargavel.
If you would like to receive these updates you can sign-up for our Dargavel community email newsletter.
Location
Address
Contact
If you have any questions or would like more information on school capacity in Dargavel, you can contact us by:
- email: dargavelcs@renfrewshire.gov.uk.