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Dounby Primary School – West Mainland

The West Mainland is the gateway to a civilisation stretching back over 10,000 years and the legacy of Orkney's ancestors can be experienced in three archaeological gems – The Ring of Brodgar, Maeshowe and Skara Brae.

To the south, the ferry pier at Houton is a popular destination taking visitors on the car ferry to Lyness on the island of Hoy. The villages of Orphir, Dounby and Finstown provide a taste of local community life, not least in the many tearooms serving delicious lunches, snacks and high teas.

Dounby Community School is a primary school nestled within the West Mainland of Orkney. The school was extended in August 2000 to provide a wide range of facilities for the local community in addition to providing primary education for the children of the parishes of Birsay, Harray and Sandwick.

The school is a local authority, non-denominational school run by Orkney Islands Council. The school has six classes, five composite classes and one class that is of a single year cohort. There is an attached nursery which is run by an onsite manager who is line managed directly by the Education Department in Kirkwall.

The school has strong links with Stromness Academy, the secondary school to which almost all of the children transfer following their Primary 7 year. The two schools work closely on a range of transition projects to support pupils moving to the secondary sector.

Class sizes at Dounby Community School are presently between 20 and 24 pupils in a class.  Most children travel to and from school by minibus.

In “normal” times, the school runs a number of activities for children outside of its core opening hours. These take place before and after school or at lunchtime – for example football, netball and badminton. In addition, further activities are run through the community facility and these include two youth clubs, and football and rugby training, again when restrictions allow.

Dounby Primary School has a roll of 160, a teaching staff team of 9 and caters for nursery, pre-school and primary pupils up to P7.