Parent Council

The school Parent Council is open to all parents. The next meeting  will take place on Tuesday 27 October  7pm in the new Malala building library (entrance from Warrender Park Road). The agenda for the meeting will be available through the following link: Parent Council Website

All parents, carers and local elected officials are very welcome to attend, in particular those new to the school – this is a good way to find out more about what is going on at school.

Dress Code Consultation

I came across this article in the Edinburgh Evening News earlier today.

Interesting reading.

Funds for Syrian refugees

Huge thanks to everyone in the school who contributed to raising £865 to support Syrian refugees. Pictured are Captiva Mills (S6 Pupil Voice Leader) handing over a cheque to Victoria Telford from Mercy Corps.

Dress Code Survey

At our Parent Council Meeting on Tuesday 15 September, Eilidh Grant from our Maths department, presented a summary of the data we gathered during our recent consultation on school dress code for pupils. This link allows you to view the slides shown. In excess of 1850 responses were received. Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote and to offer very detailed and eloquently argued points of view. My senior team will now go through all of the responses and aim to make a decision on what we intended to change by 9 October 2015. Any changes will come into effect for August 2016 when the entire campus rebuild  is completed.

http://jamesgillespies.co.uk/dress-code-survey-data/

Premier League Football experience

We are delighted to be able to offer S3-4 students the fantastic opportunity of a Premier League football trip.

Follow this link for more details and how to apply.   Football excursion

Financial planning for students

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have produced a practical new guide on student finance for 16 to 19 year olds in Scotland considering studying HNC/Ds at college or degree courses at university.

A copy of the guide is can be viewed and downloaded at:

Finance Planning

Summer hols are here

'We've made it' are words I've heard from so many pupils, staff and parents over the past two days. It has been a long and challenging year so I very much agree with the sentiments contained within the words. Whilst we're away for the next 7 weeks, the building of the remaining two buildings and the continued refurbishment of Bruntsfield House will continue apace. Our senior pupils will be getting their exam results on 4 August and, fingers and toes crossed, they will achieve all they need to take them to their next stages. As parents and teachers we work together in making our pupils' dreams come true.

We wish all of our families a wonderful summer. Relax, spend time together and recharge the batteries for session 15/16.

Exchange trip to Germany

During this last week of term, around 200 of our pupils chose to travel to many exotic places including the RHS at Ingliston, Skye, Munich (two groups) and New York.

Currently we have our first ever German exchange group of students at  Hallertau Gymnasium (Secondary School) which is in the beautiful town of Wolnzach in Bavaria. When they arrived there on Monday 20 June they were made very welcome. The flag was a lovely gesture!Well done to Mike Alexander (Subject Leader for German) for organising this venture and initiating what we hope will be a long and mutually rewarding partnership with our new friends.

'The ballot is stronger than the bullet' (Abraham Lincoln)

At Gillespie's we are proud to have a very engaged and well informed pupil voice. Our Modern Studies department delivers a stimulating, engaging and often controversial curriculum to pupils throughout the school. Many of our pupils enjoy debating and getting involved in Politics. My own firmly held view is that this engagement is essential towards ensuring that the citizens of tomorrow exercise their right to become involved in discussing matters that affect them and expressing their views in confident and informed ways.

Here is what one of our parents relayed in an email to us yesterday:

'Here's further evidence of importance of Modern Studies in general, and your style of wonderfully-engaged teaching at JGHS in particular.

Hope you can keep those discussions going, in the classroom and at Assembly!'

http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2015/politicalissuesintheclassroom