Dunipace Primary School

At first the policy of the school board was to charge fees from the pupils’ parents in order to keep local taxation low, but in 1876 Denny School Board accused it of deliberately lowering them in order to attract pupils from its area.

Robert Tennant had been the teacher at the old parochial school and he continued as the head teacher of the Dunipace Public School.  He was now accompanied by several assistant teachers and pupil teachers.  In 1880, for example, Miss Jessie Haining was appointed as assistant in the Infant and Industrial Department at the school.  The total salaries in 1882 amounted to £317. 

Mr Mitchell, architect, Coatbridge, was commissioned to furnish accommodation for a further fifty scholars.  The plans were amended on numerous occasions and additional offices included in the scheme. These delays meant that is was 1903 before the new wing was added to the north of the head teacher’s house and extra ground was feued to its west to replace the open ground taken up by it.  A loan of £1,300 was agreed with the Education Department, repayable over forty years.

Reorganisation of the facilities was inevitable once education was run on the county level of Stirlingshire and in 1930 it was decided that the Advanced Division Classes at Dunipace School should be discontinued and the pupils transferred to Denny School.  The school had made use of Thistle Park for its outdoor games but in 1939 this was taken over for housing and so the playground at the school was extended and improved.

During the Second World War Dunipace School was the focus of many concerts and entertainments designed at raising funds for various aspects of the war effort.  The children also collected huge quantities of brambles and rosehips.  In 1941 Dunipace was chosen to take part in an experiment in communal feeding.  It was a huge success and as a result school meals were introduced throughout the area.

Allan Gillies attended Dunipace School in the 1950s and recalled that the part in the centre of the picture was where the head teacher, Mr Bisset, taught primaries 6 and 7 in the same classroom.  On the right was the main entrance with the teachers’ small staff room facing the photographer.  This room was also used for other purposes, including regular examinations by a visiting nurse (including those for nits).  Rosehips were weighed on the nurse’s scales.  Beyond the front classroom there was a large foyer, where the older pupils hung their coats, and to the left was the dinner hall which doubled as a gymnasium.  Behind that was a classroom for primaries 4 and 5.  At the back of the school was the third and final classroom where primaries 1-3 were taught.  This room had a folding partition (Gillies 2018, 48-49).

Rumours circulated in 1987 that Central Regional Council wanted to close the school and amalgamate it with that at Denny.  This raised local rivalries and the chairman of the Education Committee reassured the people of Dunipace that it intended to build a new school for Dunipace.  In 1990 land at Tygetshaugh was acquired and shortly afterwards building began on a new primary school.  It was built in 1992 to designs by Tom McCormack, architect with Central Regional Council.  With the opening of the new school in 1993, the old buildings were sold off: