Scotland’s 1967 school premises rules explained
Ever wondered who decides the minimum size of a school playground or how warm a pool must be? In Scotland, the government put that into law in 1967. Signed by Secretary of State William Ross at St Andrew’s House, the School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations were made on 3 August 1967, laid before Parliament on 16 August, and took effect on 18 August, according to the official UK legislation record. They replaced the 1959 standards.
These regulations sit under the Education (Scotland) Act 1962. Parliament gave the Secretary of State power, in sections 1(2), 19(1)–(2), 76(1) and 144, to set minimum standards for school premises and to tie those standards to public funding. The Interpretation Act 1889 also applies, which means the usual legal rules for reading words in statutes apply here too.
What the rules cover is set out in the note published with the regulations. Part II requires central approval for school sites and building plans. Part III lays down the technical standards: site size, minimum teaching space, the supporting rooms every school needs, and the services-lighting, ventilation, heating, acoustics and water-that make a building safe and fit for learning.
Before a council could buy land or break ground, it had to seek the Secretary of State’s approval for the site and the plans. Applications had to include drawings, specifications and costs. Unless a case was specifically exempt, no work was allowed to start until approval was granted. In a modern planning lesson, think of this as a national ‘stop/go’ check to keep quality consistent across Scotland.
The fine print defines key phrases so that everyone measures the same thing. A ‘school building’ includes pavilions by playing fields and boarding houses. ‘Educational accommodation’ means all indoor space designed for learning-assembly halls, dining, study, music and drama rooms, PE areas, nurseries, storage for equipment, and changing and showers. A ‘teaching space’ is any space fit for teaching, except big assembly or lecture spaces.
Engineers needed shared yardsticks. The regulations explain that, for floorspace calculations, ‘area’ means the internal space in square feet measured from the inside faces of external walls to the centre line of internal walls and partitions. Site areas had to ignore public roads, footpaths and any unusable ground so that the numbers reflected land pupils could actually use.
Site size scales with roll. Primary, secondary and nursery schools each had a minimum site area set out in Tables I to III, rising with the number of pupils. Combined and special schools were to be sized case by case. If a site could not reasonably meet the standard-think tight urban plots-the Secretary of State could approve a smaller area. Playing fields had their own minimums in Tables IV and V, with primary schools needing fields close by and secondary schools needing sufficient fields available to them.
Inside the building, there were minimums for learning space too. Tables VI and VII set the least amount of ‘educational accommodation’ a primary or a full-range secondary school had to provide. Very small primaries and very large primaries could be treated case by case; so could secondaries with fewer than 320 pupils, more than 1,800, or those not serving pupils of all abilities across all stages.
Every school had to offer practical spaces beyond classrooms. Kitchens were required for cooking and serving meals and washing up. Where meals were cooked elsewhere, the school still needed proper space to serve and clean. Sanitary provision for pupils had to meet the scale in Table VIII, with schools for boys and girls sharing the total so that no more than a third of boys’ appliances were water closets and the rest urinals-each two‑foot length counting as one appliance. From beyond stage P IV, girls’ facilities had to include disposal for sanitary towels. Wash basins had minimum numbers in Table IX; staff also needed their own cloakroom and sanitary space.
Health provision was built in. Schools were expected to have suitable accommodation for medical inspections under section 58(1) of the 1962 Act unless the Secretary of State approved using another site. That room needed its own water closet and a wash basin with separate hot and cold supplies. Secondary and combined schools also needed a rest room close to a water closet and a wash basin.
Storage and daily life mattered. Schools had to provide enough space to store apparatus, books, stationery, materials, furniture, equipment and fuel, plus sensible places to hang and dry coats and keep belongings. Immediately outside the building, there had to be surfaced outdoor space for educational and recreational activities so pupils had somewhere dependable to be active whatever the season.
Light, air and heat were specified in unusual detail for the time. For learning spaces, maintained illumination had to be at least 10 lumens per square foot on the working plane. Daylight was expected to do much of the job: a minimum daylight factor of two per cent applied to teaching spaces, unless a permanently installed artificial system was approved alongside lower daylight. Fittings could not cause glare; the rules limited the luminance of light fittings, required some light to wash ceilings and upper walls, and demanded protection against glare from sun and sky. The terminology followed the British Standards Institution’s glossary and the international C.I.E. definition of an overcast sky.
Ventilation had to suit the use of each space, with extra measures in kitchens or anywhere steam or fumes might build up. Heating systems had to keep rooms at set temperatures when it was 0°C outside and the heating was moving air at rates listed in Table X. Swimming pools needed water at 24°C or warmer and air no cooler than the water. Buildings had to keep noise in check through suitable acoustic conditions and insulation. Water had to be wholesome, with warmed water at wash basins, separately controlled hot and cold at general sinks and baths, and showers between 30°C and 44°C.
The money angle is a media‑literacy lesson in itself. Under section 76(1) of the 1962 Act, the Secretary of State could make grant aid to non‑authority schools conditional on meeting these standards. Managers of grant‑aided schools had to secure approvals for sites and plans and comply with Part III-though, after consultation, standards could be modified where applying them would be impracticable or unreasonable. The regulations superseded the 1959 to 1964 rules and codified what good premises meant in that era.