For a chunk of students in St Kent’s now, you won’t remember a fully complete school. A school with no portacabins and a PE lesson that doesn’t mean you have to get on a bus. Well, this is all about to change. 

As of the 14th of April, the new building will be open for everyone. New PE spaces, a canteen and brand-new offices for the senior leadership. It’s going to be a clean and fresh space that we all will get to experience for the first time. This building has been a long time coming; the current S6’s will have been in S3 when the old building was first closed, and next year’s S6’s will have been in S2 at the time. 

When the building was first originally closed, at the time, there were masses of rumours around the whole school closing. Of course, this hasn’t happened, and we’re now just a few weeks away from being able to step into this new space. 

Now, this building hasn’t just been at the effort of a singular person – lots of people have been involved in creating the new building. Of course, we have the builders outside working hard to finish everything in time for the new wing to be opened, but pupils and staff alike have worked hard to progress the building along, with people like Mrs Cameron being at the forefront of the charge. Mrs Cameron has been the communication hub for this whole new build project, going back and forth between the building site and our main school building to talk to everyone affected by this build: staff, students and builders. 

We contacted Mrs Cameron to see if she would be willing to speak for this article, and agreeing, we gained her thoughts on the whole progress with the building site. 

When we asked her about how her experience working on the new wing, she came back with a positive answer, clearly speaking from a good place as she told us about how she enjoyed the creativity and problem-solving needed to do this project. She has apparently loved watching us all make this space our own and is ready to see us do the same with the new wing – an exciting prospect if we do say so ourselves. 

So many changes have happened since the new building project began. Music has changed places so many times we’ve lost count, similarly with CDT and PE, and then the current offices for senior leadership used to be the empty library. It’s a remarkable change to see in just a few years, with lots of things changing again in the coming months with the opening of the new wing. Senior leaders will move to their final destination – new offices in the new build, similarly with things like the hub. 

We then asked Mrs Cameron about what her favourite thing about this whole crazy building process has been, and by looks of the response we got from her, she’s mainly loved working with us as people. From us pupils and staff in school, to the builders, to even the contractors and architects from the start of the project. 

Speaking to us, Mrs Cameron said that she’d found great privilege in getting to help be a part of this project, working closely with pupils especially, and being a part of building site tours that the pupil voice group have been on. The pupil voice group over the last few years have worked closely with Mrs Cameron over the last few years to make sure that the building is right for everyone. From speaking to the architects, to having an input on the murals in the science and Art/HFT corridors, the pupil voice group have worked in tandem with Mrs Cameron to also help progress the building project. Both of us have been lucky to be a part of this work, bringing forward our views to the meetings and have been lucky enough to go on multiple building site visits. 

It’s been really exciting and positive to see the progress that’s made during every site visit, and we can both agree with Mrs Cameron when she says that this looks to be an amazing space to be receiving. 

The final thing we asked Mrs Cameron was what her favourite part of this new build is. Her response mentioned three things – the canteen, the new PE space and specifically the plaza furniture. The canteen looks to be this nice big space for all of us to have our lunches, with even an area outside for all of us to sit – so, be ready to get your tan on in the Scottish May/June sun everyone. The PE space, in her words, feels fresh and inspiring. It’s got an all-new fitness suite, a MUGA pitch and two lovely new game halls for the PE department to use. We’ve even got roughly 90 changing cubicles, a nice swap from the uncomfortable and open changing rooms. The plaza furniture also seems to be nice and fresh, a change from the bland and boring furniture everywhere else in the school by the sounds of things. 

Exams will be taking place in the new wing in just a few short weeks, using large amounts of the new build, but don’t worry, the other spaces will still be open for use in the meantime, so we’re not all missing out between the start of the Easter holidays and the start of June. By the sounds of things though, this new wing is the space this school needs – something fresh, and both of us think that it’s going to be a lovely space to do anything in. We just need to take care of it and keep it clean! 

In a way, it is bittersweet to truly be saying goodbye to this stage of our school careers as the building has restricted so much of school life. We can only look up from here though, with the new spaces looking to make an amazing, and more impactful, evolution to our schooling. Change can be good, with this new building being one of the remarkable examples, so we hope to see everyone enjoy this new space.