Newsletter February 2014

During the past three weeks, prelim exams have taken place for pupils in S4, 5 and 6 and, over the past week, we have held parent consultations meetings to discuss prelim performances. Those meetings have focussed on ensuring that pupils are aware of what they now need to do to achieve their potential in the final exams and have the necessary support and resources to do so. Thank you all who have contributed to this process and we are sure crossed that our continued support and encouragement of pupils bears fruit when the results are declared in August.

Many staff, as usual, are offering extra classes at lunchtimes and after school each week. Again this year, we are offering a programme of classes during the Easter Holiday. Details of these additional classes will be shared with pupils and placed on our school website.

In response to feedback from parents over the past 12 months we are currently setting up a database of email addresses for all of our parents. We will, in the next few weeks, devise a way of ensuring that all the addresses we hold are up to date and accurate. We will continue to use texting in tandem with our website to draw your attention to and share key information. If any of your personal details, including email address or mobile number, has changed recently then please let us know either by emailing the school or sending a note in to the school office with your child.

In regard to feedback I would remind you to please complete the ‘Annual Survey of Parents and Carers’ which has a link on the front page of our website. This particular survey is being organised by Council Officers on our behalf and the deadline has been extended until Friday 28 February. Please take a few minutes to complete this anonymously: the information gathered is vital to ensuring that our school continues to grow and flourish.

As part of this newsletter we are, once again, hugely proud to highlight the many and varied achievements of our pupils. These successes are also highlighted on our school website. As parents and carers please continue to share news with us of our pupils’ successes – it is really important that these are shared with our wider community. We are a high achieving school and it is good for us all to be aware of the incredible people we have in our school community.

During the February break this year’s 90 strong delegation will, for the 12^th consecutive year, journey to South Africa. We are enormously grateful to Mr McCallum for continuing to coordinate this excursion. Thank you to everyone who has contribution gifts that will be shared with our South African friends next week.

I am delighted to report that the rebuilding of our new school continues apace. The programme is on schedule and we look forward to moving into the main teaching block in just over a year.

I take this opportunity to remind all our pupils, staff and visitors that they must keep valuables in their possession at all times. The school cannot be held responsible for the safety of personal possessions such as mobile phones, jewellery etc unless a staff member has taken possession of the item.

Although the incidences of loss or theft in the school are low my advice is not to bring valuable items to school and if you must then to keep them with you at all times. Whilst at PE, staff offer a secure box in which valuables can be safely stored.

And finally, I take this opportunity of wishing you all a most enjoyable and rejuvenating February break.

Donald J Macdonald (Headteacher)
February 2014

Fidelis et Fortis

In the past few weeks there has been much speculation and, at times, heated debate about the origins and most appropriate translation of the current school motto - Fidelis et Fortis. I am grateful to John MacLeod (Writer, Journalist and former pupil of JGHS) for researching this matter and offering this detailed description of how our motto has evolved over the past century. (John is currently researching the archives of the school as preparation towards writing a book on the school's history. This book will be published to mark the opening of our new school in the summer of 2016 and will, I'm sure, be available 'in all good bookshops'.

Contrary to surprisingly widespread belief – in a 2003 Radio Scotland documentary about the school, one senior teacher even claimed it had been replaced* – the motto of James Gillespie’s High School remains ‘Fidelis et Fortis.’ Which means… but we will cross that dicey bridge in a minute.

Oddly, it isn’t – by historic standards – particularly old; it was not even the school’s first motto; and, like many other venerable school tropes, it dates only from the reign of Thomas J Burnett, headmaster of Gillespie’s from 1915 to 1936.

In what has long been a most British hobby, Mr Burnett excelled in inventing ancient traditions. In 1926 he introduced a Founder’s Day ceremony in honour of James Gillespie and his beneficence – this endured until the retiral of Burnett’s successor-but-four, Dr Patricia Thomas, in 1991 – and, besides, a ‘House’ system, to encourage healthy competition between pupils. The four houses were Gilmore, Roslin, Warrender and Spylaw – all redolent of the locality or linked to Gillespie himself – and survived until ‘school community’ rebranding in the current century.

The 1927 Founder’s Day ceremony was particularly grand because the school was able to unveil its own marble bust of the merchant of Spylaw (sculpted by a distinguished former pupil) and, before year’s end, the school had adopted not just its abiding maroon-and-gold colours but the unicorn-badge and ‘Fidelis et Fortis.’When, precisely, Mr Burnett so decreed is impossible now to ascertain; no dates are given in the school magazine nor in the handwritten log kept by the  successive head teachers from 1908 to 1975.
 And no doubt many former pupils felt keenly the demise of the original motto, ‘Forward,’ established by the issue of the first school magazine in 1911. But the meaning of the new motto is still keenly disputed – especially between alumni of the girls-only Corporation Grammar Gillespie’s, from 1930 to 1973; and veterans of the subsequent and enduring co-ed area comprehensive. Mr Burnett, in his notes of introduction to the 1930 school magazine, declared that ‘Fidelis et fortis’ means ‘faithful and strong.’ The 1977 school magazine, however, would state no less ambiguously that it means ‘faithful and brave’; and that is certainly what we were told as pupils in the 1980s. 
And the word ‘fortis’ does indeed bear both constructions.So what was going on?
 Mr Gillespie himself, of humble birth, never boasted either coat of arms or proud ‘legend’ below; and it seems that Thomas J Burnett simply opened up some gazetteer of Scots surnames and found both that Gillespie was associated with the crest of a unicorn’s head and the motto, ‘Fidelis et in bello fortis’ – which means, ‘Faithful and in war brave.’ 

Here we teeter into a debate both about Latin and the social attitudes of Mr Burnett’s day – and our own.In the context of war, ‘brave’ is the obvious translation of ‘fortis’ in the fuller Gillespie motto.But Mr Burnett deliberately deleted the words ‘in bello,’ as an early historian of Gillespie’s primly observes, ‘as they were not suitable for a school motto.’

 In the same spirit, he was almost certainly averse to the translation ‘brave’ – as for physical courage on the field of battle – in the context of an all-female academy. (To complicate things still further, the word chiefly used by the ancient Romans for bravery is ‘virtutis’ – which also means ‘manly,’ so defining was thought the quality of courage for the dudes of the day.) So it was ‘faithful and strong’ – with connotations less of Joan of Arc and battling Amazons than the lip-wobbling, throttled-vowel, leaning-on-the-tweedy-manly-shoulder feminine coping of Mrs Miniver and Brief Encounter. 

It would be 1945, though, – to lyrics by Annie S. King Gillies and the stirring sub-Elgar strains of John D Macrae – before ‘Fidelis et Fortis’ became not just the maxim but the majestic school song. And then, when the staff and school community of the new comprehensive order adapted to wave upon wave of boys from 1973, it was tacitly – and perhaps unconsciously – decided that, in translation, ‘faithful and brave’ was of more appeal to the laddies than the previous pasteurised version. 
Now that women and men serve in the Forces on equal terms, in the seventh decade of a Queen’s reign and having experienced a formidable woman Prime Minister, might we settle on Fidelis et Fortis – ‘faithful and brave’? Even at the risk of being pelted with scones? 

*deposed, he claimed, by the pieties of ‘We respect and care for each other and value the diversity which exists among people.’ But you’d barely have space to stitch that on the side of a bus.

Congratulations to Damien Hoyland

Earlier today we were delighted to learn that Damien Hoyland (former pupil at JGHS) signed up for Edinburgh on a 2 year contract.

Born and raised in the capital, the former James Gillespie’s High School pupil is considered one of the top Scottish prospects to have come through the region’s player pathway while playing for former club, Boroughmuir and attending the rugby performance course at Telford College.

Well done to Damien - your country needs you!

Is your child a genius?

This perspective on the pressures of being a parent and a teacher in 2014 makes interesting and entertaining reading.

Is your child a genius?

I'm sure that all of us, as parents, have at some point, enjoyed something wonderful that our children have done or said.  Sharing with friends and family is all part of what we do.

Thank you to John MacLeod, former pupil of JGHS and now an award winning journalist for drawing this to my attention.

'Gaelic - the indigenous, endangered and wondrous language of Scotland'

I came across this article by Stuart Cosgrove (Journalist and Broadcaster) earlier today.

It got me thinking about what it means to be Scottish/British in a year when big decisions will be made about our future as a nation.

Professional pressures

Earlier today a friend posted this link to her Facebook wall. It got me thinking. Though the anonymous writer of this article worked in England I worry that many of our staff in Scotland also struggle to find a healthy and sustainable work life balance. Increasingly, more and more is expected of teachers. Against a backdrop of public sector budget cuts, increased expectations from parents and an education system that is changing more rapidly and extensively than at any time in my previous 32 years in Education, we need to retain and recruit the best people to our classrooms. We also need to ensure that we do more to develop the future leaders in our schools.

Overall though, and certainly based on my experience at JGHS, I am confident that Scottish Education is going from strength to strength and that our young people will continue to benefit from a well qualified and caring profession. I'm delighted to have the privilege to be leading James Gillespie's High school through a time of significant change.

Fundraising for worthy causes

I am always very proud of the fundraising that takes place at our school. Throughout the year we raise thousands of pounds to help a variety of worthwhile causes. These causes are all chosen by our pupils.

For example, in December 2013, in addition to raising funds for The Sick Children's hospital and our South African link schools we  also raised money for 'Children 1st'. ('Children 1st', formerly the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, work with children, young people, their families, communities and other organisations to improve the lives of vulnerable children and young people in Scotland.)

Well done to everyone involved in this venture. I am sure that every penny raised will contribute to improving life for the youngsters involved at a trime of year when it would have been most appreciated.

'The Spark'

Earlier this year, our pupils relaunched the school's pupil newsletter. Newly renamed as 'The Spark' - named after Dame Muriel Spark, one of our most famous Alumni - this publication gives our pupils additional opportunity to share their views and perspectives on our world with a wide audience.

The latest edition of the newsletter, fresh off the presses and onto our website today covers a wide range of topics.

The latest Winter edition.

They include:

1. Senior Drama Production
2. A Tribute to Nelson Mandela
3. Gaelic at Gillespie's
4. The case for and against Scottish Independence
5. Feeelancers
6. Press Regulation
7. 'Doctor Who' review
8. Film and Book reviews
9. Book Week Scotland activities
10. Local Cafe review and
11. Christmas around the world -  various perspectives

This latest newsletter offers a wonderful insight into some of the issues we are talking about in classes and assemblies. Importantly too, I like the balanced perspectives that are presented.

Annual Gaelic Christmas Service

Along with many parents and staff, I had the privilege yesterday (Tuesday 17 December) of attending the annual Christmas service for Edinburgh's Gaelic children at Greyfriar'sTolbooth and Highland Kirk. Our High School pupils joined the younger children from Bun Sgoil Taobh na Pairce to mark this special time of year.

It was lovely to hear the wonderful Gaelic singing and to share the morning with the 300+ children who were present. The service, a mix of old and new songs and carols, brought smiles to the faces of all who attended. The Children's rendition of 'Feliz Navidad', sung in three languages,  was a particular highlight!

Sincere thanks to Revd. Dr, Richard Frazer for welcoming us so warmly to his church.