Cornbank St James Primary School, Malcolm Fraser Architects, Edinburgh

Cornbank St James Nursery : Architecture

Scottish Nursery, Penicuik, Midlothian Building design by Malcolm Fraser Architects, Scotland.

post updated 17 April 2025

Building Schools for the Future

Cornbank St James Primary School building photos : Andrew Lee

Cornbank St James Primary School

Malcolm Fraser Architects’ new nursery in Penicuik for Midlothian Council: subject of an article (May 2003) in the BD by Johnny Roger which proved to be controversial.

Penicuik School Building information received 12.05.03 from Malcolm Fraser Architects

Cornbank St James’ Primary School is a non-denominational and co-educational school. It was opened in June 1968 and serves the Penicuik community providing full-time Early Learning and Childcare for 48 children.

For the 2023- 2024 session the school has 10 classes from Primary 1 to Primary 7. The school’s role for 2023-24 is 320 including Nursery.

Curriculum Levels

There are national levels to describe different stages of learning and progress. For most children, the expectation is:

• Early Level – pre-school to the end of P1
• First Level – to the end of P4
• Second Level – to the end of P7
• Third and Fourth Levels – S1 to S3, with the fourth level broadly equivalent to SCQF level 4
• Senior Phase – S4 to S6, and equivalents in other settings, where they can continue to develop the four capacities and achieve qualifications

Malcolm Fraser Architect

Architect Malcolm Fraser studied architecture at the University of Edinburgh. He then worked as a community architect in its big Wester Hailes social housing scheme; with architect and theorist Christopher Alexander in Berkeley, California; on conservation work in Edinburgh; and with poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay at his garden, Little Sparta, in the Scottish Borders.

He founded his first architecture practice, Malcolm Fraser Architects, in 1993. Major buildings by him are the Scottish Poetry Library, Scottish Storytelling Centre, DanceBase and Dovecot Studios. These designs are all to be found in Edinburgh’s Old Town.

source: https://fraserlivingstone.com/about/people/malcolm-fraser-architect

Malcolm Fraser was born on 21 July 1959. He was the founder of Malcolm Fraser Architects, a firm of architects based in the Old Town of Edinburgh from 1993.

The company entered liquidation on 21 August 2015. Fraser worked with Halliday Fraser Munro Architects before setting up anew with Robin Livingstone as Fraser/Livingstone Architects in January 2019.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Fraser_(architect)