Two new schools on one shared site in Wishaw were officially opened last week by North Lanarkshire Council Provost Tom Curley.

Wishaw Academy and St Ignatius Primary School had individual official openings on Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 November. And on both evenings Provost Curley was joined by North Lanarkshire councillors, staff, pupils and invited guests at the new shared campus which opened in August last year.

With 320 pupils at Wishaw Academy Primary and 220 pupils at St Ignatius' Primary, there are also nursery facilities for 50 full time equivalent places for children aged three to five years.

Both schools have their own impressive, semi-open plan teaching areas with the unique feature of demountable partition walls. These allow the head teachers to reconfigure the teaching space to accommodate changes in class sizes and age profiles or any other particular learning and teaching requirement.


In addition, both schools also have totally independent facilities with their own pupil entrances, tutorial rooms, noisy/quiet rooms, staff rooms, deputes' rooms, staff resource rooms, admin areas, storage areas and ICT network. There are also two gyms/assembly halls which can be used separately or combined for major events and the use of either or both schools.

Pupils and the local community are also making very good use of the large all-weather floodlit pitch.

At both official openings pupils from Wishaw Academy and St Ignatius Joint School Choir entertained guests with wonderful singing, while blessings and dedications were given by Rev Klaus Buwert, Chaplain of Wishaw Academy Primary School and Bishop Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell. Monsignor Michael Conway was also in attendance at the St Ignatius opening.

Opening proceedings on both evenings, Convener of Learning and Leisure, Councillor Jim Logue said: "l am delighted to be at the opening of yet another new joint campus school in our Education 2010 project.

"These marvellous schools and community facility demonstrates the investment the council is putting into Wishaw and its surrounding communities and the importance it places on the education of our young people across North Lanarkshire."

On both evenings a representative from Transform Schools (North Lanarkshire) Limited, the company who built the schools, presented the head teacher with a commemorative plaque and thanked Balfour Beatty for their construction work and Haden Facilities Management Limited - the company responsible for managing and maintaining the new schools.