i25 Awards filming
Having been shortlisted in the prestigious, UK-wide independent schools’ iExcellence competition, this week a film crew has spent the day at Kilgraston, creating a video for use at the awards ceremony at the Waldorf Hotel, London, on March 19.
Community passion, for all matters environmental, was conveyed by pupils, staff and Mrs MacGinty.
“We’re passionate about change, root and branch,” said the Head.
Detailing grass-roots changes, like shorter showers, wearing vintage fashion and using soap bars were all highlighted, in conjunction with larger issues like the avoidance of fast-fashion, mileage considerations and the importance of planting carbon- absorbing trees.
“We all have a responsibility,” said the Head
So true.
The video will be made available to the school in April.
Goals Week
This year’s Sacred Heart goal is ‘Character’, also known as personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom. Ann Miller led sessions with pupils across the school, including debates about character, moral dilemmas and leadership in different contexts.
The Sixth Form kick-started activities with a sunrise swim at St. Andrews (the sea temperature meant it was most definitely a character-building exercise!). Other activities included a cake sale, with the girls being asked to make cakes that represented an aspect of their character; inter-house competitions for dance and the game of castles; team-building games for boarders and movie nights (with specially chosen films that highlight the theme of character); there were opportunities to learn new skills in special tutorial sessions, led by both pupils and staff, as well as taking part in litter-picking and recycling around school; pupils also had the chance to learn more about the character of their teachers with special teacher scavenger hunts and human bingo!
The Art and Design Department made a fantastic, creative contribution to Goals Week. Preparations were made, first of all, with work stations in the Art Room and the Staff Room, then it was all systems go with paper heart crafting stations in the Art & Design Department, Locker Rooms and the Sixth Form Centre. The Library became a haven for stitching hand sewn tartan hearts filled with lavender – a great way to de-stress and lots of thanks must go to Ms Newton and Caitlin (L4) who gave expert guidance. Upper Sixth girls including Art prefect, Kirsty, scurried between the paper stations to replenish with more supplies. Clara and Natasha put together an amazing tower of paper hearts in the Art Gallery, all for the projected Installation for the Central Hall. So many pupils enjoyed the activities and they are looking forward to the installation instilling a sense of calm and happiness in the Central Hall, at the heart of the school.
This wide range of activities was planned by the Sixth Form to support the key themes of uniqueness, worth, self-development, personal formation and sharing gifts and talents – a task they have certainly risen to!
Painting of Kilgraston
Hanging in our Reception, Kilgraston School has a new painting by Bridge of Allan-based artist, Alan Farmer.
The dynamic artwork by Mr Farmer was painted in 2004. The artist has held onto it, until now, as a memory of his visit to the School
Kilgraston’s Headmistress, Mrs MacGinty said: “We are delighted to have such a striking and strong painting of our building and all whilst supporting a local artist. I particularly like the painting’s colours which represents the vibrancy of our wonderful School.”
Kilgraston School would like to thank Mr and Mrs Stein, a former pupil (pictured here with Mrs MacGinty) for their co-donation.
Business Women Scotland- introducing our second finalist
The Business Women Scotland Awards is taking place this week and Kilgraston is delighted to be sponsoring the new Inspirational Woman category. In the run-up to the event, we’re looking at the nominees for this award and now we’re talking to Celia Hodson. She is a multi award-winning entrepreneur and 2018’s Entrepreneurial Scotland’s ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ and was one of Saltire’s ‘Outstanding Women of Scotland 2019’. The mum-of-three set up Hey Girls in January 2018.
1. Tell us about Hey Girls:
I founded Hey Girls with the aim of eliminating period poverty in the UK. The social enterprise launched in January 2018 with a Buy One Give One business model, and has since donated over 6 million period products to people in need. Hey Girls has been listed in three major supermarkets, secured public sector contracts across Scotland, and run several high-profile campaigns to raise awareness of period poverty. Everything is driven by generating donations to alleviate poverty, but Hey Girls also operates to the highest environmental standards. Our products are plastic-free, sustainably-sourced, and biodegradable.
2. What impact does the organisation have?
Hey Girls actively supports other social enterprises and value-led businesses. We offer paid internships to women of colour, and are currently hiring mums returning to work. Our branding and packaging features real people who are part of the Hey Girls family – partners, employees, volunteers, and friends. Our education is trans-inclusive, and we work closely with our network of over 200 donation partners, partners to support marginalised women, refugee communities, and women of colour, to ensure that everyone has dignified access to high-quality products. No one should have to compromise their health and wellbeing.
3. What was your career path to setting up Hey Girls
I worked in social enterprise for over 15 years with roles including CEO of SSE Australia, Chief Executive of Journeys for Change, Chief Executive of the Suffolk Development Agency, Founder of the Eastern Enterprise Hub and Deputy Chief Executive of Social Enterprise UK.
An interview with Mrs McHugh for International Receptionists’ Day
“August 2013 marked the end of the motherhood ‘protective bubble’ which had surrounded my babies and me for seven years. Today, Mummy was going to work!
Kilgraston’s driveway was the start of my new journey; the trees lining the road providing a useful countdown to my grand arrival at the front door.
What could possibly happen, I thought, that life had not already thrown at me? Four years of University teacher training; ranked in the UK’s top ten for kayak slalom; eight years’ in the finance sector and, the one from which I would mainly draw strength, the ability to react, adapt and smile, gained during motherhood.
Hopefully, I am well presented, punctual and have the ability to communicate effectively with staff, pupils, parents and visitors. Knowing the names of almost every pupil in the senior school makes it easier to deal with the day-to-day demands of a busy office environment.
Kilgraston, as with any school, continually presents different situations - from girls sustaining a knock on the hockey field, to unexpected visits from former pupils and the arrival of School Inspectors. There is never a ‘same’ day and I truly love every minute.
Each term brings something new. Summer, for me is the most exciting time with the promise of longer holidays, House competitions and end-of-year talent showcasing concerts. The expectation of exams has gone, replaced with the emotion of saying goodbye. In the air is the hope that we’ll have good weather for both Sports Day and picnics on the front lawn at Speech Day. Summer brings the school together and it is at these times, when it really does become one body.
It’s not always smooth running though. Head of Maths, and Queen of Stats, Mrs Speed, runs an annual Maths Stats Course, where teachers from other schools come to Kilgraston to work through the latest coursework.
By coincidence, one year, on the same day, Kilgraston held Mass, with both events generating several visitors. Within minutes of the scheduled start of the service, a lady arrived. I enquired as to whether she was here for the start of Mass. “Yes indeed,” she responded. Quick as a flash, I scooped her up and travelled at break neck, high-heeled, speed to deliver her safely to the chapel door, which she entered and was not seen again for another hour. She never did make the beginning of Mrs Speed’s Maths Course. In fairness, it does sound awfully like ‘Mass’!
It would be difficult not to be impressed by the grandeur of the entrance to Kilgraston or the recently redesigned elegant, yet informal, waiting area. Mrs MacGinty has influenced many of the spaces within the school and Reception is just one in which her vision is reflected, producing a lovely place to work.
Here, it is easy to shut-out the influences of the wider world and become absorbed in the pupils and staff, who are collectively striving towards a greater future for woman in the world.”
Summer Term, 2019
Head of Kilgraston, Mrs Dorothy MacGinty, quoted in Sunday Times piece about independent education in Scotland
A letter to parents from the chairman of governors on Tuesday confirmed that Beaconhurst School in Bridge of Allan, a good school and an important local employer for 100 years, has “reluctantly” taken PwC’s advice to enter administration.
The closure, traumatic for pupils and their families and for the 60-plus staff, highlights the fragility of a sector whose contribution to Scotland’s economy, to curricular support for local state schools, to international connectivity, to Scotland’s social capital and to our faltering attainment statistics, are all easily demonstrable.
This contribution has not stopped Scottish officialdom and compliant bodies like the SVCO from seeking to undermine independent schooling, although plenty of their personnel use it, for good reasons.
A significant part of the Scottish Government’s support base considers spending on education – as distinct from say, four-by-fours or Florida holidays - to be ideologically undesirable, or even “obscene”, as one Scottish Parliament petitioner put it.
This ill-will was made official last August in the guise of the Barclay Review of non-domestic tax rates, which recommended that independent schools should no longer be eligible for an 80% charitable rates discount, despite their conforming to the letter and spirit of what OSCR considers charitable purposes entail.
The Review’s only justification for proposing a five-fold increase in schools’ rates bill was a facile comparison with the rates “paid” by state schools under their control, a wholly notional figure that makes no difference to how local authority heads adminster their schools.
Barclay’s unsubstantiated assertion that tax breaks for fee-paying schools are “unfair” is suspiciously ideological for a review led by an ex-RBS banker. Especially so as the increased extractions, although burdensome to hard-pressed schools, are mere rounding errors within the Scottish budget.
Documents released under FoI in January suggest that the proposal, currently “under consultation”, was shoehorned into the “independent” Review against the advice of the Scottish Government’s own legal experts, who cautioned that it amounted to an inequitable “2-tier system for charities” that was “difficult to justify”.
In an email dated 8 June, 2017 one official from the Charity Law and Volunteering team advised: “It is worth bearing in mind that independent schools have already been the subject of s a specific thematic review by OSCR and have either (re-met) the charity test or have made the adjustments required to allow them to do so. In other words their charitable status has already been the subject of greater scrutiny than that of other charities. Removing rates relief would mean that, despite this we were creating a class of charities who receive less favourable treatment than others.”
However much independent schools clearly feature in the demonology of some Scottish politicians, even they must face the reality that there are pockets of Scotland where their contribution to local economies would be hard to replace were more schools to follow Beaconhurst into history.
Dorothy MacGinty, headmistress at Kilgraston School near Perth, is one of those increasingly prepared to challenge what she sees as an officially-endorsed “threat” to independent schools and to draw attention to its, presumably unintended, “serious implications” for local economies. She has highlighted the fact that Perth & Kinross Council area’s 10 independent boarding and day schools one of the biggest direct and independent employers and visitor attractors, but schools like Kilgraston provide significant support, in terms of the teaching of music, art, drama and other subjects to local state schools, also loan of facilities, all of which, along with the provision of career-essential exam subjects lacking at the higher end of the state system. All of this is threatened by the political whim of the Barclay Review.
Along with other Perthshire schools, Kilgraston is commissioning new research this autumn to update previous research by Abertay University that detailed the “extreme importance” of the sector and its 850 jobs, especially to rural areas where schools generated nearly a quarter of all employment.
While hiding behind Barclay, the Scottish Government also prepared to shuffle responsibility for the sector’s health to local government. A leaked letter from Derek Mackay to John Swinney, writing in May on behalf of an anxious school in his constituency, suggests that the school apply to their hard-pressed local council to reduce business rates under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act, 2015.
It is odd, but characteristic, that this “not my problem, pal” solution should only be proposed in private correspondence rather than public debate, but no odder than Scottish ministers’ failure to engage in any substantive way with the sector itself before attacking it.
Active and passive aggression towards the Scottish independent school sector seems to fit the immediate needs of political messaging, but its supporters may find it detracts from the interim economy-boosting goal on which their ultimate goal depends.
Emily & Scotland win gold
Today our Upper 6 leaver Emily Dark won GOLD with Scotland U18 Girls’ at the EuroHockey Championship II in Rakovnik.
Taking on Austria in the semi-final Scotland won 2 - 1 in a very close and competitive game and today Scotland played Russia with Scotland winning 2 - 1 again to lift the trophy.
An amazing achievement for Emily and the team and we pass on our congratulations.