John Swinney to announce funding for fire damaged Woodmill High School

John Swinney will visit the Fife school gutted by a fire to announce government funding to replace the building lost.

John Swinney is to visit Woodmill High School in Dunfermline today. Picture: Micheal Gillen/JPI Media

The education minister will meet with Headteacher Sandy McIntosh of Woodmill High School in Dunfermline and Fife Council chiefs later today.

The blaze broke out on Sunday night, 25 August, destroying the majority of the school. It had spread from the department of additional support, a single storey extension to the building.

Mr Swinney will also go to Fife College, to talk with pupils and teachers who have been accommodated by the Dunfermline branch.

A 14 year-old-boy from Kirkcaldy appeared in connection at Dunfermline Sheriff Court the following week, charged with wilful fire raising to danger of life. He made no plea and bail was granted.

Meanwhile, Sky bosses based in Dunfermline contact centre donated £50,000 to support the rebuild, and a crowdfunding campaign to buy new equipment and resources for the school topped over £13,000 within days of being set up.

Fife Council had allocated £50 million towards a secondary school replacement and refurbishment plan, but that budget is dedicated to a proposed £90 million joint campus which would host a new Woodmill High, St Columba’s High and Fife College, and four others.