Jordanhill School

Jordanhill School educates children from age 5-18. It is located on Chamberlain Road in Glasgow, Scotland.

Uniquely among mainstream Scottish schools, it is funded directly by the Scottish Executive, rather than through the local authority, in this case Glasgow City Council. It is categorised as a non-denominational school, although at the end of each term the school attends the local Church Of Scotland for a brief service.

The School consists of a primary department and a secondary department. In the primary, P1-P3 have three classes of twenty-two pupils each while P4-P7 have two classes of thirty-three. Pupils in upper Primary spend a substantial part of their week working in the Secondary department. The secondary school takes in an additional thirty-three pupils in S1 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. [ [http://www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/inspection/JordanhillSchool.html /Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education: Jordanhill School Report] ]

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 [Donnelly, Max (1987) "Jordanhill - A Historical Sketch" (2nd ed) (Glasgow: Self-published (printed at Strathclyde University))] , although the school was actually founded a year earlier, in 1920. [ [http://www.jordanhill.glasgow.sch.uk/ Jordanhill School History page] ]

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 to the Education Faculty. [http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/JHLibrary/archives/] coord|55|53|04.48|N|04|20|01.53|W|display=title

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 its estate. An all-weather pitch was completed in August 2007 and a Refectory extension in October 2007. A new teaching block will open in May 2008 providing custom built facilities for Art, mathematics, Modern Languages and Social Subjects.

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. In early 2005 the school acquired the former Laurel Park games hall on Anniesland Road, in partnership with the Glasgow Academy.

Music

Jordanhill School is also renowned for its high proportion of students participating in curricular and extracurricular 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. [ [http://www.jordanhill.glasgow.sch.uk/ Jordanhill School Music Department Page] ]

A number of notable Scottish musicians attended Jordanhill School. These include Justin Currie of the band Del Amitri, Isobel Campbell (formerly of Belle & Sebastian), Amy Lindop (formerly of the Alice Band), and Roddy Hart.

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 extracurricular 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.

Miscellaneous

The school's Latin motto, beneath its coat of arms is "Ad summa nitor", which translates to "Strive for the Highest". The school uniform is ¨unique¨ and consists of dark trousers for boys, a brown skirt for girls, a white shirt and a brown blazer. The tie is yellow, brown and green for everyone except the seniors who have a brown tie and award-winners who have a green tie. All pupils are required to wear the uniform at any time when they are inside the school or its grounds except for on very special occasions.

Jordanhill's Senior Management Team currently consists of:

Rector Dr. Paul Thomson; Depute Rector Mr. Derek Brown; Depute Head Teacher (responsible for Senior Secondary) Mr. Douglas Brown; Depute Head Teacher (responsible for Junior Secondary) Ms. McDade; Head of Primary Mr. Gordon Smith; Depute Head (Upper Primary) Mr. Paton; Depute Head (Lower Primary) Miss Gairns;Ms. Henrietta Galbraith, the Bursar.

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

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

The school recently won a football honour, with the under 14s age group winning the Glasgow Cup.

References

External links

* [http://www.jordanhill.glasgow.sch.uk/ School website]
* [http://www.scottishschoolsonline.gov.uk/schools/jordanhillschoolglasgowcity.asp Jordanhill School's page on Scottish Schools Online]
* [http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&t=k&ll=55.884296,-4.332991&spn=0.002943,0.00869&t=h Satellite view of school] on Google Local (UK) (requires JavaScript)