A PROTEST march will be held to stop education bosses moving a primary seven class from an overcrowded school.

Parents and pupils will walk on Friday from Hillhead Primary School to George Square to confront Glasgow City Council education chief councillor Stephen Curran.

They want a move to shift youngsters to Hillhead High a year early scrapped and other solutions to the space issue examined.

As previously reported in the Evening Times, the Otago Street school is severely overcrowded and the city council is consulting on a soloution.

One option is to close Kelvin Park Early Years Centre (KPEYC) and use its classrooms on the site for primary pupils. Kelvin Park parents have set up a protest group to oppose to the move.

Another suggestion is to move the primary seven class to Hillhead High.

Parents and pupils from nearby primaries -Garnetbank, Anderston and Oakgrove - are expected to turn out to support the rally.

Space for Hillhead organiser Sarah Lowndes, who has two children at the school, said: "Parents from other schools are supporting us because their children will be at a disadvantage - ours will know the layout of the school and the teachers, while theirs won't.

"We also have around 50% of the parents from Kelvin Park Early Years Centre on our side too and they will be marching.

"Even though these parents have children at the nursery they accept the only solution that isn't going to disadvantage anybody is to move the nursery."

Hillhead Primary was relocated from Cecil Street to Otago Street and merged with three other primaries but pupil numbers at the largest primary in the city were underestimated.

Youngsters are being taught in the library, art room, music room and IT suite, and break out spaces have all been converted into classrooms. Lunch time sees pupils queue for most of the break for food and there are too few toilets.

Kirsty Matheson, a KPEYC and Hillhead Prim-ary parent who supports relocation of KPEYC, said: "No one wants the nursery to close. No one wants the primary to be overcrowded.

"Glasgow City Council should do the right thing and relocate the nursery in its entirety giving the school the space it needs.

"As a parent of a two-year-old in the nursery and a parent of the primary I would be inconvenienced but that is far better than negatively affecting the education of hundreds of students."

Hillhead parents believe the early years centre could be moved to a site at Anderston Primary School and are petitioning the council to consider it.

Mr Curran, executive member for education and young people, will be at the City Chambers at 4.30pm to accept the petition. A city council spokeswoman said it would be added to all responses received during the consultation which ends on Monday.

catriona.stewart@ eveningtimes.co.uk