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Cash awards to build inspiring spaces

Facilities
Twenty projects across Scotland have received money from Inspiring Learning Spaces, a fund to improve facilities and forge closer links between schools and further education.

The schemes cover a wide range of areas from ICT to engineering and STEM subjects to hospitality.

The awards include £260,000 for Aberdeenshire council for remodelling four classrooms into an innovative and flexible teaching and learning environment, and £300,000 to Angus to go towards extending STEM provision through a construction training skills centre facility within the new Brechin Community Campus.

Elsewhere, Falkirk is receiving £300,000 towards creative industry and STEM campuses in up to three secondary schools, a project being carried out in partnership with Forth Valley College and the University of the West of Scotland.

Meanwhile, Glasgow has been awarded £300,000 to create four Learning Spaces of the Future, facilities that are to be incorporated into existing vacant classrooms, and West Dunbartonshire is receiving £45,000 towards three state-of-the-art STEM Learning Centres.

Among the other projects to be given funding, East Renfrewshire has been awarded £300,000 towards a shared faith space.

East Ayrshire, meanwhile, has received £100,000 for a new hospitality training suite to help pupils make more informed choices for their senior phase courses.

Grant Robertson, schools programme director at the Scottish Futures Trust, said: "In helping co-ordinate the Inspiring Learning Spaces programme, we have been impressed by the many thought-provoking ideas being put forward by local authorities, and are very much looking forward to working with those who have been awarded funding, to see their ideas become reality."

Scotland's education minister Angela Constance said: "It is encouraging that many of the submissions from local authorities involve working with partners including further and higher education institutions and schools across their areas, so more pupils can benefit from these new spaces. Many of the spaces will also allow staff to develop their skills and will provide facilities the wider community can use."

Visit www.scottishfuturestrust.org.uk