Jordanhill School

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Jordanhill School Crest

Jordanhill School is a non-denominational school for children from 4 to 18, located on Chamberlain Road in Glasgow, Scotland.

Uniquely among Scottish schools, it receives funding directly from the Scottish Executive, rather than from the council, in this case Glasgow City Council. It is categorised as a non-denominational school as distinct from Faith schools, such as nearby Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic school.

Jordanhill School consists of a primary school and a secondary school. In the primary school, each year has three classes of 22 pupils, while the secondary school receives an additional 33 pupils from other local schools in order to bring the number per year up to 99.

The school regularly tops the list of academic performance for state schools in Scotland. In a recent inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education the school received a very good report.^[1]

1 History
2 Music
3 Modernisation
4 Local community
5 Miscellaneous
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

Jordanhill School was formerly a "demonstration school" for Jordanhill College of Education. It was known as the Jordanhill College School.

The college was an out-of-town location that sought to merge two teacher training centres that were heavily influenced by education training pioneer David Stow, a Glasgow merchant. These were the Free Church Normal Seminary and the Dundas Vale Normal Seminary, two of the earliest teacher training colleges in Scotland. This merger was a government-sponsored initiative of 1905, when it was decided that teacher training should be taken away from the church and placed under the control of a provincial committee.

The site of the college - and now the school - was on the old Jordanhill Estate grounds. The old Jordanhill House was demolished around 1915, with the Glasgow Provincial Committee effecting purchase of the land to build their new college, though the plot had been for sale since 1911. The school buildings were completed in 1921^[2], although the school was actually founded a year earlier, in 1920.^[3]

The school remained under control of the college until 1988, when it became independent. In 1993 the college itself merged with the University of Strathclyde, with the Jordanhill Campus serving as home of the Education Faculty.^[4]

[edit] Music

Jordanhill School is also renowned for its high proportion of students participating in curricular and extra-curricular music activities, with many of its pupils taking part in school, regional and national orchestras. Jordanhill students and music groups regularly excel in competitions such as the Glasgow Music Festival.^[5]

[edit] Modernisation

Jordanhill School has recently been recognised for integrating IT in education by Becta with an 'ICT in Practice Award'. It has also been recognised as a 'Centre of Excellence' for the use of interactive whiteboards.

The school is in the process of modernising and expanding the premises in order to replace its ageing huts which provide classrooms for the school's Modern Languages and Social Science departments, but which are fast becoming a hazard due to damp throughout the structures.

Another addition in recent years is the Macmillan Building, a small building behind the school; housing a classroom used for RE and additional sports changing facilities.

As part of its estates plan, in early 2005 the school bought the sports complex at Laurel Park and acquired a site adjacent to the existing science building to allow for an expansion of facilities in the near future.

[edit] Local community

The school and its pupils have a very active involvement with the local community - with senior pupils undertaking community service as part of their extra-curricular activities. Each year a committee of senior pupils produce the 'Jordanhill School Magazine', a not for profit venture, with submissions from pupils in primary, secondary and staff. It records the year’s events from the viewpoint of the pupils in article and photographic form. It is professionally published and sold to the school community. In the 2006 edition of The Times Good Schools Guide the magazine received a favourable comment in their assessment of the school.

[edit] Miscellaneous

The school's Latin motto, beneath its coat of arms, "Ad Summa Nitor", means "Strive for the Highest". Jordanhill's school uniform is brown.

Jordanhill's Senior Management Team currently consists of: Rector Dr. Paul Thomson; Depute Rector Mrs. Marylin Brown; Assistant-Depute Rector (responsible for Senior Secondary) Mr. Derek Brown; Assistant-Depute Rector (responsible for Junior Secondary) Mr. Bailie; Head of Primary Mr. Gordon Smith; Head of Upper Primary Mr. Paton; and Head of Lower Primary Miss Gairns.

The school's board of managers has recently begun to introduce a number of new policies. These include placing limits on the pupils' ability to move to, from and even around the school during their free periods, and the new "Personal Development Plan".

The railway station closest to the School is Jordanhill railway station.

The school is featured is the 1996 film adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting.

The longest serving teacher at the school was Mr. Michael Paterson (History Department) who retired in 2006. He served for a total of 31 years.