The road to the new Madras College has been a long and bumpy one but the end is now in sight.
Later this month hundreds of pupils will leave the St Andrews secondary school’s South Street and Kilrymont Road campuses for the last time and on August 18 walk through the doors of a £55 million new building.
Talks about the need to move to a single campus began in the late 1990s.
Having the school divided across two sites – S1 to S3 pupils at Kilrymont and S4 to S6 at South Street – has long been considered problematic and both buildings are in poor condition.
Fife Council committed to building a new school for St Andrews and the Tay Bridgehead 15 years ago but suffered a series of setbacks in finding a suitable location.
Notably, these included a legal challenge which went to the Court of Session and resulted in planning permission for another site in the town’s green belt being quashed.
Building work finally began at Langlands in 2019 and despite being halted last year by the pandemic BAM Construction is on track to meet the target completion date and hand over keys on July 30.
Shelagh McLean, head of education and children’s services at Fife Council, said: “In terms of the journey to get here, looking at the building itself and what it looks like now, everybody is extremely excited by what has been achieved.
“There are a number of people who have been involved throughout the whole period to get us to this point.”
The school being created was “absolutely” the right one for pupils and the wider community, with links with nearby St Andrews University, she said.
“One of the things for us in terms of the site selection was the link with the university.
“We wanted to maintain the links that are already in place and develop those further.
“When we were able to get this site and secure this site for the new build it was absolutely obvious that that would provide the best educational benefits for our young people.”
We will have the digital infrastructure and state-of-the-art facilities… that will make their learning so much more fun.”
Shelagh McLean, Fife Council
The new school will provide the 21st Century learning environment desired for the young people of the St Andrews and Tay Bridgehead areas, but undoubtedly the biggest benefit will be having all year groups and staff together.
Mrs McLean said: “Bringing all six years together will make a big difference.
“The peer learning is quite significant but what we can also do on this site is really explore all the interdisciplinary learning and flexible use of space that allows us to deliver different types of learning that suit our young people.
“We will also have the digital infrastructure and state-of-the-art facilities and resources inside that will make their learning so much more fun.”
Progress on the build has been regularly documented with drone footage shot by a council photographer, which we have pulled together.
Old to new
The school will accommodate up to 1,450 pupils but has been designed for expansion to meet demand from planned new housing to the west of St Andrews and elsewhere.
It boasts a quadrangle – a modern interpretation of that at historic South Street – and a dining area with an impressive Hellerup staircase which can be used for seating and socialising.
The assembly hall is fitted with lecture-theatre seating which can be retracted to provide a large open space for events, performances and exams. Triptych panels from Kilrymont, created by the school’s art department shortly after the campus opened in the late 1960s, will be hung in it.
Two 3G sports pitches have been installed – one for rugby and the other all-weather.
A tree trail will be created to reflect the cherry blossom avenue at Kilrymont.
Madras College interim rector Avril McNeill said the school’s ethos would be boosted by having all pupils together on one site.
But she said: “The biggest positive is going to be the space, the views, the brand new classrooms, the brand new facilities and I know that for the young people it will be undoubtedly be the Wifi, and it will be the digital technology that’s going to be available.”
Kilrymont campus is being sold for redevelopment while South Street will be taken over by the university in a deal which involved the exchange of land for the new Madras College, and turned into a new school for social sciences, with study and library space.
Read the other reports in our three-part series about the move to the new Madras College.
