Wednesday 18 December 2013

'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.



Christmas Concert 2013



I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to making last night’s Concert at the Usher Hall the outstanding success it was.

Ten months ago, when I met with Mrs O'Brien (Leader for Performing Arts) to lay the initial plans for this year’s event, we knew that staging this year’s concert would present particular challenges. The words of the great Nelson Mandela - ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done’ - spring readily to mind. Now that ‘it’s done’ I can confidently say that last night’s concert was amazing, fantastic,.. The superlatives are easy to find.

None of this would have been possible without the efforts of so many. Thank you for all that we achieved last night. Seeing our young people on stage at one of the country’s finest venues made it all worthwhile. They, and all of you, really did us proud.

Thanks, in particular, to all of your Music staff (teachers, instructors etc.) who have worked so hard over the months in preparing our pupils. The parents too, deserve special mention. The chauffering of pupils to and from lessons and rehearsal and the continuous encouragement to practise, are but two examples of what parent sdo to support their children develop musical their talents.

I take this further opportunity of wishing all our friends a wonderful Christmas and a very happy and prosperous new year.

Saturday 14 December 2013

Progress on new school

I'm delighted to report that the building of our new school is now progressing very well. The unseasonably mild weather has resulted in more progress than anticipated being made over the past 6 weeks. Pupils and staff have readily adapted to moving around a smaller Lauderdale campus and, pleasingly, all have adapted well to the addition travelling involved in moving to and from Darroch.

During the demolition work workers have uncovered an ice house. This underground, dome shaped structure constructed out of stone would have been used to keep food fresh throughout the summer months.

Wikipedia describes ice-house as follows:

'The ice house was introduced to Britain around 1660. Various types and designs of ice house exist. However, British ice houses were commonly brick lined, domed structures, with most of their volume underground. Ice houses varied in design depending on the date and builder, but were mainly conical or rounded at the bottom to hold melted ice. They usually had a drain to take away any water. It is recorded that the idea for ice houses was brought to Britain by travellers who had seen similar arrangements in Italy, where peasants collected ice from the mountains and used it to keep food fresh inside caves. Ice Houses may be known as Ice Houses, Ice Wells, Ice Pits and Ice Mounds.'

Following agreement with the relevant authorities, our ice house will be carefully packed and recovered, thus preserving it for the future.

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Tribute to Nelson Mandela

On Thursday 12 December I will present a tribute to Nelson Mandela at a special S6 assembly. I felt this was appropriate given our school's long standing and close links with South Africa.

During my research on this wonderful man, I read and reread Barack Obama's eulogy from earlier this week. Here it is in full.

To Graça Machel and the Mandela family; to President Zuma and members of the government; to heads of states and government, past and present; distinguished guests -- it is a singular honor to be with you today, to celebrate a life like no other.  To the people of South Africa -- people of every race and walk of life -- the world thanks you for sharing Nelson Mandela with us.  His struggle was your struggle.  His triumph was your triumph.  Your dignity and your hope found expression in his life.  And your freedom, your democracy is his cherished legacy. 

It is hard to eulogize any man -- to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person -- their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone’s soul.  How much harder to do so for a giant of history, who moved a nation toward justice, and in the process moved billions around the world.

Born during World War I, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding cattle and tutored by the elders of his Thembu tribe, Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20th century.  Like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement -- a movement that at its start had little prospect for success.  Like Dr. King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed and the moral necessity of racial justice.  He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War.  Emerging from prison, without the force of arms, he would -- like Abraham Lincoln -- hold his country together when it threatened to break apart.  And like America’s Founding Fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations -- a commitment to democracy and rule of law ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power after only one term.

Given the sweep of his life, the scope of his accomplishments, the adoration that he so rightly earned, it’s tempting I think to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene, detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men.  But Madiba himself strongly resisted such a lifeless portrait. Instead, Madiba insisted on sharing with us his doubts and his fears; his miscalculations along with his victories.  “I am not a saint,” he said, “unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”

It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection -- because he could be so full of good humor, even mischief, despite the heavy burdens he carried -- that we loved him so.  He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood -- a son and a husband, a father and a friend.  And that’s why we learned so much from him, and that’s why we can learn from him still.  For nothing he achieved was inevitable.  In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, and persistence and faith.  He tells us what is possible not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well.


Mandela showed us the power of action; of taking risks on behalf of our ideals.  Perhaps Madiba was right that he inherited, “a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness” from his father.  And we know he shared with millions of black and colored South Africans the anger born of, “a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments…a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people,” he said.

But like other early giants of the ANC -- the Sisulus and Tambos -- Madiba disciplined his anger and channeled his desire to fight into organization, and platforms, and strategies for action, so men and women could stand up for their God-given dignity.  Moreover, he accepted the consequences of his actions, knowing that standing up to powerful interests and injustice carries a price.  “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination.  I’ve cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and [with] equal opportunities.  It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.  But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” 

Mandela taught us the power of action, but he also taught us the power of ideas; the importance of reason and arguments; the need to study not only those who you agree with, but also those who you don’t agree with.  He understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls, or extinguished by a sniper’s bullet.  He turned his trial into an indictment of apartheid because of his eloquence and his passion, but also because of his training as an advocate.  He used decades in prison to sharpen his arguments, but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others in the movement.  And he learned the language and the customs of his oppressor so that one day he might better convey to them how their own freedom depend upon his.

Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough.  No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions.  He was practical, testing his beliefs against the hard surface of circumstance and history.  On core principles he was unyielding, which is why he could rebuff offers of unconditional release, reminding the Apartheid regime that “prisoners cannot enter into contracts." 


But as he showed in painstaking negotiations to transfer power and draft new laws, he was not afraid to compromise for the sake of a larger goal.  And because he was not only a leader of a movement but a skillful politician, the Constitution that emerged was worthy of this multiracial democracy, true to his vision of laws that protect minority as well as majority rights, and the precious freedoms of every South African.

And finally, Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit.  There is a word in South Africa -- Ubuntu -- a word that captures Mandela’s greatest gift:  his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.

We can never know how much of this sense was innate in him, or how much was shaped in a dark and solitary cell.  But we remember the gestures, large and small -- introducing his jailers as honored guests at his inauguration; taking a pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV/AIDS -- that revealed the depth of his empathy and his understanding.  He not only embodied Ubuntu, he taught millions to find that truth within themselves. 

It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well, to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion and generosity and truth.  He changed laws, but he also changed hearts.

For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe, Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate a heroic life.  But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection.  With honesty, regardless of our station or our circumstance, we must ask:  How well have I applied his lessons in my own life?  It’s a question I ask myself, as a man and as a President. 

We know that, like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation.  As was true here, it took sacrifice -- the sacrifice of countless people, known and unknown, to see the dawn of a new day.  Michelle and I are beneficiaries of that struggle. But in America, and in South Africa, and in countries all around the globe, we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not yet done. 

The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality or universal franchise may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less important.  For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger and disease.  We still see run-down schools.  We still see young people without prospects for the future.  Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs, and are still persecuted for what they look like, and how they worship, and who they love.  That is happening today.

And so we, too, must act on behalf of justice.  We, too, must act on behalf of peace.  There are too many people who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality.  There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people. And there are too many of us on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.

The questions we face today -- how to promote equality and justice; how to uphold freedom and human rights; how to end conflict and sectarian war -- these things do not have easy answers.  But there were no easy answers in front of that child born in World War I.  Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done.  South Africa shows that is true.  South Africa shows we can change, that we can choose a world defined not by our differences, but by our common hopes.  We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity.

We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again.  But let me say to the young people of Africa and the young people around the world -- you, too, can make his life’s work your own.  Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me.  It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today.  And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be a better man. He speaks to what’s best inside us.

After this great liberator is laid to rest, and when we have returned to our cities and villages and rejoined our daily routines, let us search for his strength.  Let us search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves.  And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach, let us think of Madiba and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of his cell:  “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

What a magnificent soul it was.  We will miss him deeply.  May God bless the memory of Nelson Mandela.  May God bless the people of South Africa.

Reflections on 2013



As 2013 at Gillespie’s draws to a close I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on what has been a most enjoyable, successful and busy year. I continue to be impressed by the strong sense of community and unity of purpose that prevails in the school. Since August this year we have been operating across three sites. At Lauderdale we teach S1-S3 and deliver practical subjects for seniors; at Darroch our senior pupils take non-practical subjects and we transport all pupils to Meadowbank Stadium for Physical Education. Throughout these past months the response from pupils and staff has been magnificent and I would like to take this opportunity to record my appreciation of their efforts. Pupils and staff are immensely proud of the school and enjoy working together. Parents are engaged in the life of the school and they are quick to support when their child needs that little bit of extra encouragement to do his/her best.  This united approach will ensure that our school will continue to grow and develop and overcome the challenges that lie in store.

The challenges overcome this year include adapting to our new accommodation arrangements and the continuing successful implementation of Curriculum for Excellence.  I am delighted at the progress all pupils are making. Pupils and staff will be working hard between now and May 2014 in order to ensure that all will be successful in the new exams in the summer of 2014. The prelims in January 2014 will help prepare pupils in S4, 5 and 6 for what lies in store.

Towards the end of the summer we learned that our examination results were, once again, among the best in Scotland.  Our Higher results for this year were the best we’ve ever achieved. Well done and thanks to everyone. From what I have witnessed as I visit classrooms across the school and talk to pupils, staff and parents, I am confident that next year’s results will be equally as good, if not better. We will achieve this by continuing to work hard, aiming higher and having the highest expectations of each other. Of course, without parental backing, the efforts of staff and students, sterling as they have been, would have been less effective. I am grateful for the excellent support I’ve had from the Parent Council. In particular, Mrs Cath Downie and Mrs Audrey Gilmour as the co-chairs of the Parent Council, during the past session, deserve special mention for their unfailing support.

After the summer we bade farewell to a number of long serving staff and welcomed several new staff to our wider team. As we prepare pupils for a world that is rapidly changing it is essential that we continuously challenge, review and adapt the service that we provide. Throughout the year we have benefitted from the new perspectives and innovative ideas brought to the school by the new staff who have joined us.

I hope that all of you will join us at our Christmas Concert in the Usher Hall on the evening of Tuesday 17 December. This grandest of venues is a fitting stage for our talented pupils to showcase their wonderful talents.

We are all looking forward to a restful and rejuvenating break over Christmas with our families and loved ones.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank all staff, pupils and parents for your continued hard work, support and endeavours throughout 2013 and I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a prosperous and successful new year. (Bliadhna mhath ùr agus Nollaig chridheil dhuibh uile).

Flying the flag for Gillespie's!



Following success at a talent competition in London in October, Lisa He will be one of five young people to represent the UK Chinese Youth in the World final in China from 16 – 30 December 2013.  Lisa’s prize for winning the UK competition is an ‘all expenses paid’, 14 day trip to Xiamen, China.

This is a fantastic achievement given the level of competition across the entire UK.

Well done Lisa - we are proud of you!