Woodmill High School is a local authority ran

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

in Dunfermline, Scotland. It is one of the city's four high schools. Designs were proposed for the school in 1958 and construction finished in 1960. It was built to serve the expanding estates of Abbeyview, Touch, Brucefield and Garvock. The name Woodmill comes from the former purpose of the land it was built on. It was initially a secondary school, but was upgraded to full high school status in 1968. The catchment area includes Duloch, Carnegie, Touch and Linburn.

Former pupils

Singer and actress

Barbara Dickson Barbara Ruth Dickson (born 27 September 1947) is a Scottish singer and actress whose hits include 'I Know Him So Well', 'Answer Me' and ' January February'. Dickson has placed fifteen albums on the UK Albums Chart from 1977 to date, and had a ...

attended the school in the early 1960s. She dedicated her debut album to Sandy Sadler, one of her music teachers at Woodmill. In her autobiography, she quotes Sadler as telling her "you may not be the best singer in the class, but you are certainly the loudest". Former pupil Murray McCallum has played international

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

for Scotland.

Possible replacement

Fife Council Fife Council is the local authority for the Fife area of Scotland and is the third largest Scottish council, with 75 elected council members. Councillors are generally elected every five years. At the 2012 election there were 78 councillors ele ...

has confirmed that they are replacing the current school buildings. A March 2019 proposal suggested building a new campus, which would host Woodmill, St Columba's Roman Catholic High School, and

Fife College Fife College is a further and higher education college in Fife, Scotland. Campuses The college's main campuses are located in Dunfermline, Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy with smaller campuses in Leven, and Rosyth. The college also operates commun ...

2019 fire

Woodmill was seriously damaged by a large fire which started on 25 August 2019 which was reported on 5:05 p.m. and continued to burn to the next day. The fire originally started in the school's Department of Additional Support (DAS) which was for people who needed additional support with learning difficulties. The fire completely destroyed everything in the DAS and had spread over other parts of the school including the E, F and G corridors, the cafeteria and the catwalk. Over 80 firefighters fought the fire, many of those firefighters came from different parts of Scotland. During the fight with the fire, surrounding homes around the area had their water supply affected as the firefighters used many hydrants which affected the local water supply.

Aftermath and local impact

The school was closed on 26 August 2019. Fife Council announced a plan to determine where pupils and staff would work and learn on 31 August. All 1400 pupils were back in full-time education at other schools and sites across West Fife just 5 days after the fire. Following the blaze, a 14-year-old boy was charged with wilful fire raising. The boy's father turned him in to the police. The local community provided additional support to pupils. £9000 was raised in a crowdfunding campaign hosted on Just Giving by over 470 backers which has superseded the original £1000 goal. The school reopened in January 2020.

References

External links

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Woodmill High School
Fifedirect,

{{Authority control Secondary schools in Fife Buildings and structures in Dunfermline School fires Educational institutions established in 1960 1960 establishments in Scotland 2019 fires in the United Kingdom 2019 in Scotland