Show the world what's important to you

On Wednesday night of this week I was one of around 100+ invited guests at the annual John Byrne awards to witness Cat Macdonald and Leanne Bell from Gillespie's being declared the winners for 2012. I felt so proud!
  
The John Byrne award offers S6 students a stimulus, and then challenges them to communicate the values it inspires in them through a painting, a poem, a play - or any other creative medium of their choosing. This year’s stimulus was The Proclaimers’ song, ‘Letter from America’. In the year of the US election, this stimulus was intended to encourage the students to reflect on the relationship between Scotland and America, encompassing historical themes of displacement and present challenges to identity.

This is the third year of this competition and Gillespies have enjoyed success each year having been commended for their entries in both 2011 and 2010, so it was fantasic to go one better this year. Their winning entry was comprised of a painting by Leanne which depicted a range of characters from various sectors of our diverse Scottish society. Cat complemented this by writing a futuristic political play which, skilfully and insighfully for one so young, weaved these characters together in a way that brought out some of the social injustices and inequalities that occur in Scotland.

Of the winning prize of £7000, £5000 will be used for a community based project (to be decided by Cat and Leanne) and the remaining £2000 will be used by both girls to further their own education.

An added bonus on the night for me was seeing Liberton High School (my previous school) doing so well. Liberton, represented by by Catriona Carter, Kellie Hunter and Laura Fox, was the only school with two entries in the final 8 teams.

Gaining the university place of choice..

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, I was delighted to welcome Dr Helen Wright back to Gillespie's.

Dr Wright was born in Scotland, educated at James Gillespie's High School and went on to Oxford to study Modern and Medieval Languages. After training as a teacher, she experienced a rapid rise in the education world, teaching at co-educational and boys’ schools and was appointed to the headship of her first girls’ school, Heathfield in Ascot, at the age of just 30, making her one of the youngest ever appointed public school heads.Currently, Dr Wright is Head of St Mary’s Calne in Wiltshire, which she has led for nearly a decade. She will shortly be moving to Australia to head Ascham School in Sydney, one of the country’s top girls’ schools, from January 2013.

On Tuesday morning Dr Wright gave an address to around 50 of our S5 and S6 students on 'How to maximise your chances of gaining a place at the university of your choice'.

In the course of her presentation and follow up Q and A session the following key points came through.

• We should all be ambitious
• Choose the best university and not just any university
• Hard work is required to be successful and generates choices
• Be prepared to take risks
• Read widely and explore your thoughts in  a critical forum
• When completing application forms pay attention to detail. (No spelling or grammatical mistakes).
•  Life is a long term project - look to the future
• Aim to be a global citizen
• Remember your wider responsibility and purpose
• Be resilient and relentlessly optimistic
• Gap years must be productive. Some courses, e.g. Maths do not like you to defer entry
• Drop out rates are higher for students who stay at home
• Learning must challenge - don't always play safe
• Universities want more women to study maths and engineering; Maths is one of the best core subjects
• Be prepared to take a loan out to finance your education - think of this as an investment

After the presentation to our senior students Dr Wright was taken on a tour of the school by two of our senior girls. After the tour I had the opportunity to spend an absorbing, informative and stimulating 2 hours with her discussing various educational matters.We talked at length about leadership, values in education, moral leadership, developing our staff, boarding versus day schools and single sex education.  Although the types of school we both lead are quite different it became very clear that we had so much in common. For example, both of our schools are high performing with a culture of high expectations. In both of our schools we enjoy the support of parents. We agreed that the support and engagement of parents is key if our pupils are to achieve their potential.

On Wednesday Dr Wright returned and delivered a presentation to an audience of invited staff from various local schools on 'Inspiring Leadership for the 21 Century'. This was very well received and gave all of us some food for thought as we return to our various schools.

We wish Dr Wright and her family every success and happiness in her new post in Sydney and look forward to welcoming her to Gillespie's again in the not too distant future.

 

St Andrew's day fun

I am delighted that today's St Andrew's day activities raised £447. Huge credit is due to our superb S6 students who worked so hard at making the day such a success.

All the money raised will go towards supporting less well off pupils in going on school excursions.

The photograph of the 100+ tartan clad hardy souls who gathered in the school playground at 10am will appear in the next few days.

Visit from Former Pupil

I recently had the pleasure to welcome John Macleod back to Gillespies. John graduated from JGHS in the 80s and has subsequently become a successful and well known journalist. (John won Scottish Journalist of the Year in 1991). I was intrigued to hear of John's experiences and particularly so the many happy memories he shared with me.

Some days after his visit John wrote to me and shared his reflections on his alma mater. (John kindly agreed for me to add this to my blog).

It was a very moving experience to be back on the premises again after so many years and I was quite emotional afterwards: I am no longer young, and I was very conscious not just of how many staff from my day are now dead but, sadly, several of my own classmates. The school yesterday struck me - despite what are now evidently 'tired' and rather inadequate buildings - as in many ways a far happier environment than it was in the early 1980s. 

That was of course a time of rapid social change in Scotland generally and less than a decade since the sudden conversion from a girls-only Corporation grammar to a co-ed comprehensive, which must have been very traumatic for staff at the time. It was also then socially very divided - there was real poverty in many parts of the catchment-area - and pastoral education, as we would call it now, was very token: we had one period of generally toe-curling, single-sex Social Education a week and you certainly wouldn't have confided in any teacher about problems at home. 

The change in atmosphere is palpable and the glimpse I had yesterday into that gymnastics class (and others) showed a very different and much healthier state of affairs. I was struck generally by the bearing and behaviour of pupils - they seem much more poised, and quieter - and the only jolt I got at all was the real difficulty at times in distinguishing who was teacher and who a senior pupil - children do seem more sophisticated now, and staff dress much less formally.

 As you can see from my own (1983-84) class photograph, uniform was not mandatory in my time, but it was officially 'encouraged' and we were expected to wear it for such photographs and for performance in such events as the annual Carol Concert - in this instance you can see there was quite a bit of stage-management to disguise those who didn't have a blazer.

St Andrew's day at JGHS

On Friday 30 November we will mark our patron saint's day by doing a number of things.

• All staff and pupils are invited to wear tartan to school. (There will be prizes!)
• During period 1 a special message will be read out to all classes to explain who St Andrew was.
• There will be face painting and henna makeovers at break time in the school library.
• Various items of baking (made by S6) will be available for sale in the foyer. 
• Our school pipe band will give an open air performance
• At 10am a group photograph will be taken in the Warrender playground to capture everyone wearing tartan
• S6 pupils from the events committee will visit classrooms throughout the morning to spare change.

All the proceeds from the day will go into the Excursion Grant fund which is used to ensure that all pupils are able to afford to participate in school trips.

Thanks to the S6 events committee (especially Jay and Lewis) for making all of the arrangements.

Carol Concert 2012

On the evening of Tuesday 18 December James Gillespie's HS and associated primary schools are staging our Christmas Carol Concert at the Usher Hall. There will be a wide range of music played and enjoyed during the evening including classical repertoire and ensembles, a FP choir (please contact the school if you are an FP and you would like to be involved!) traditional Scottish music - such as the marvellous school pipe band, clarsach ensemble, accordions and Gaelic choir- as well as some rock and pop, and this wonderful evening is set to end with an impressive 400-strong choir finale! Tickets can be reserved online at the Usher Hal box office.

An event not to be missed!

Achievements at the mod

Congratulations to all JGHS pupils who performed at the recent National Mod in Dunoon.  The following JGHS pupils achieved bronze, silver or gold awards in a variety of competitions. 

• Finlay Cunniffe S4: Silver Award in the Advanced Clarsach solo class

• Sean MacPherson S5: Bronze Award in the Advanced Clarsach solo class

• Simon and Cameron MacDonald S4/S1: Gold Award in the Clarsach Duets over 14yrs

• Romy Byron and Martha Cunniffe S1: Silver Award in the Clarsach Duets under 14yrs
• Jenny Macdonald (S1) and Tuesday Rose McDonough (S1) : Bronze award in the clarsach duets under 14 yrs
• Tuesday Rose McDonough (S1): silver award in clarsach with self accompaniment
• Ann Mackenzie and Catriona Macgregor (both S3) : bronze award in clarsach duets over 13 years
• Finlay Lawson: silver award for intermediate 1 solo clarsach
• Ceitidh McLuskey:  bronze award for intermediate 1 solo clarsach 

Parent Council Meeting

All parents are invited to come along to our Parent Council meeting on Tuesday 19 November at 7pm. I will be sharing updates with parents on:

• New Build Plans
• Consultation on School values
• Curriculum for excellence
• School attainment for session 11/12
• What we are going to do to improve further this session

Please come along and have a say in how the school is run!

Wine Tasting at Gillespies

Thank you to our Events Committee for organising a really enjoyable wine tasting on Thursday evening. It was a great opportunity for staff to meet parents over a glass of wine whilst being entertained and educated by Michael from Peter Green - a local retailer of fine wines. A discount is available on some excellent wines if you visit Peter Green's soon. Make sure you tell them you have a link with Gillespie's!

Mandarin at Gillespies

On Monday 12 November I attended the first Scottish China Education Network (SCEN) China Youth Summit at Gleneagles with Cat Macdonald and Leanne Bell, two of our S6 students. Both Cat and Leanne are two of our seniors who have opted to study Mandarin as part of their sixth year. As their S6 leadership project they have chosen to develop   Chinese Studies at Gillespie's.This is their account of the day.

Although we were a little nervous to be speaking in front of so many people – we later learned there were over two hundred delegates! – we were reassured by listening to the students who spoke first. Fortunately, it turned out that presenting was not so bad after all. We told the audience about our own personal connections to China, and explained the difficulties we had faced in studying Chinese at high school. When we mentioned the problem of finding a teacher, there were many rueful nods among the students in the crowd!

We heard so many interesting stories from other high schools. One presentation was given by students from Crieff High School and Morrison’s Academy, who had travelled together to Hong Kong to run the Wilson Trail, a gruelling and mostly uphill trek across Hong Kong. This trip was organised and partly funded by a former pupil from Morrison’s Academy who is now a successful businessman based in Hong Kong. The students had all loved their trip, and it was fantastic to hear them talking about their new found enthusiasm for learning Chinese.

Of course, Gleneagles Hotel provided an excellent spread at lunchtime, which was lovely. Leanne and I took the chance to get to know some of the students from other schools that were attending the conference. We even met a Scottish student with the same tastes in Chinese music as us! As well as other students, we also talked with the convener of Young Chinese Professionals, who had some good advice for us.

A particular highlight for me personally was the opportunity to meet Lord Wilson, former governor of Hong Kong. He was a very well-respected figure in China, and it was fascinating to hear his insights into the current and future importance of the country. We talked to him about our experiences in China, and he was interested to hear about our plans for introducing Mandarin in our school in the future.

Both Leanne and I really loved attending the conference, and we really learned a lot from listening to various people speaking. We came away with many useful contacts for the future, as well as a list of new ideas to further our goal of introducing Mandarin at Gillespie’s. 

During the conference both Cat and Leanne were rewarded for their efforts in promoting Chinese Studies by being appointed as SCEN ambassadors. Both girls intend to continue with their Mandarin studies when they begin at university in Autumn 2013.