Pop star visits Gillespie's!

How lovely it was to have Ewen Henderson, one of the band members from Manran, visit an  S2 Gaelic class this morning. Bha e sgoinneil!

Manran are performing in Edinburgh tonight, so great to have one of the boys take time out to meet our pupils.

S2 storytelling trip

Thansk to Craig Watt from our English Department for sharing details of some work he has recently been involved with.

As part of our punctuation and sentence structure work in English, our s2 pupils had to write, illustrate and create their own children's books for pre-schoolers. The most impressive work from each class was chosen to be read to the children at a local nursery ' The Meadows at Millerfield Place'. The authors went and read their work to an audience of captivated young things from the Fox and Rabbit classes. The impressive range of titles were beautifully illustrated, brilliantly written, and read with a sense of showmanship. They dealt with a range of themes from what it's like to be adopted, to the existential angst of being a spork - neither spoon, nor fork. The next generation of Julia Donaldson's , and Oliver Jeffers is clearly here! 

Below is a letter the nursery wrote to our students, who should all be proud of their efforts.

To the clever children from S2,

The Rabbits and Foxes from Meadows Nursery would like to thank all the great authors and illustrators from S2 that came to  the nursery to share their stories with us. The Rabbits commented on your great drawings and how clever you all are to make your own books. They all loved your visit and you have inspired them to write their own story. Once it’s finished we will try to get a copy to you.

Best wishes,

The Rabbits and Foxes

Official opening of Malala building

I was delighted to welcome a large number of guests to the official opening of the Malala building yesterday. Dr Alasdair Allan and Cllr Paul Godzik unveiled a plaque to mark the occasion. In the midst of the first week of the new timetable and taking our guests through a packed social space at break time I was delighted at how respectful and calm all of our students are.


This online report by STV gives a good summary of our wonderful new building. Shown in this picture is our new library.

Athletic success

I am delighted to share that two of our pupils also enjoyed success yesterday in athletics

Tom Ireland won the U14,  1500m  in a time of  4.44.49  and  Paul Ireland won the U17,  800m  in a time of   2.04.

They are now looking forward to competing for the school in the Scottish Schools Championships at Grangemouth next weekend.