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Kilgraston Boarders visit Glasgow

Over the weekends our boarding community are introduced to the beauty of Scotland and recently we travelled to the Glasgow Botanical garden and the Kelvingrove Art Museum.

Our first stop was the Botanical Garden, which is full of mystery and knowledge across every corner of the garden. Not only does it remind us of the beauty of Scottish nature but it has also given us the opportunity to learn something new. We roamed through every rose and plant and branch taking in all the glory of the garden. It has brought us all together and so much for everyone: the girls who enjoy biology and science commented on every flora and fauna that they found, and the girls who enjoyed art took many photos to take inspiration from later on in their creative journey.

Our next stop was the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. It was truly an inspiring trip. Not only have we collectively found new artists and movements of art to research about later on, we have also found ourselves mesmerised by the diversity of knowledge that the museum had to offer. From statues made of clay from the 13th century to the skeleton fossils of dinosaurs, everyone has found something to look at and to read about. The museum has given us a better understanding of our surroundings and the big world that is yet for us to discover and conquer.

Written by Lower Sixth boarder, Esma

Find out more about boarding at Kilgraston.

Kilgraston boarders Easter weekend 2021

Kilgraston boarders kicked off their Easter weekend with an energetic zoom Bollywood dancing session organised by Kilgraston’s drama teacher, Miss Smith. It was part of the OnFife Spring Fesitval 2021 and was led by Edinburgh based dance teacher, Tanwi Bhattacharya.

Inspired by Holi – the Hindu festival of colours – Tanwi led us through a series of short routines with some classic Bollywood Dance moves. It was great fun and the Mater boarders got to learn about a new style of dance.

But of course, Easter wouldn’t be complete without an egg hunt and so in the afternoon, Miss. Smith organised an Easter Egg Hunt for the Mater boarders. Each team had six cryptic clues to find which would send them to a location such as the tennis courts (“What a lovely place to eat strawberries and cream!”), the front of school (“I want six pillars outside of my front door”) or the forest (“Red tape? Is there a VIP nearby?”). Once they had reached their location, they then had to look for a plastic wallet with one or two plastic eggs and a clue to their next location.

With all six wallets and clues collected, the teams ran back to Miss Smith to collect their first, second, third, and fourth place prizes – a bag of chocolate eggs of various sizes and their choice of Easter Egg to share amongst the team. So, who was victorious…?

In first place, the Green Team (Ana, Valentine, Montse, Greta, Maria, and Martina) with the Blue Team (Ambika, Maria, Maddie, Maddie, Erin, Anais, and Maia) came an incredibly close second. The Yellow Team (Emma, Lilly, Jemima, Amalia, Antonia, and Clara) was third and last but not least (and with a little bit of help from the Easter Bunny), the Orange Team (Kelly, Esma, Jenny, Maggie, and Meteor).

Afterwards, it was lovely to see the teams enjoying the early Spring sunshine and sharing their winnings!

Boarding in Mater - dancing and laughter

What is boarding in Mater like? Fun, energetic and full of laughter is probably the best way to describe it.

So when Boarding Mistress Miss Smith opted for a virtual session with Strictly Come Dancing winner, Oti Mabuse, we knew it was going to be all of the above and much more.

We started off with a vote on whether to learn a ‘The Greatest Showman’ themed dance or a ‘Frozen’ themed one, the girls went with ‘The Greatest Showman’. Oti and her husband, Marius Lepure, led us through a series of moves to create a one minute 30 second dance routine to ‘The Greatest Show’. It was very dramatic and it was a lot of fun.

Later that day, Miss Smith led the girls in a series of improvisation games and activities. We started with a bit of ‘Wish, Wash’ before moving into a game called ‘You! Yes!’ – both of these games got the girls thinking about the importance of eye contact, and clarity of voice and gesture. We then moved onto playing a game called ‘Sevens’.

Then Montse bravely led us in a rhythm game, which tested our ability to keep a rhythm AND listen closely to each other. We then played a game simply called ‘Numbers’ – the aim of the game was to try and get the ‘Queen’ out of her chair by catching her out. If you spoke too slowly or you hesitated in your decision, then it was the ‘Peasant’ chair for you!

Our last game of the day was the hilarious ‘Emo-Taxi’ – with Maria as the taxi driver. This game means every time a new person gets into the taxi, the rest of the taxi has to adopt the emotion of that new person whilst carrying on with their conversation. This results in the mood of the taxi changing at warp speed and someone who was previously very angry about their destination suddenly becomes incredibly happy about their destination.

We ended our day with a Karaoke session in the Theatre. The girls danced and sang to pop-tastic hits like ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ by One Direction and ‘Waka Waka’ by Shakira before someone suggested a few rounds of ‘Just Dance’. Cue all the girls lined up in the theatre following the Russian folk-dance moves for ‘Rasputin’ by Boney M then strutting their stuff to Kei$ha’s ‘Tik Tok’.

What a day: we all fell into our beds exhausted but certainly well entertained!

You can find more about boarding at Kilgraston here.

Boarding activities at Kilgraston

Boarding at Kilgraston offers girls so many advantages such as building up confidence and independence.

In lockdown, Kilgraston boarders have also been able to take advantage of our superb campus and facilities along with enjoying a fun-filled diary of events.

Recently, Miss Smith, Kilgraston’s Drama Teacher, organised an exciting afternoon of competitive Games and here is a round-up of the event below.

After a warm up round of ‘Evolution’, the boarders moved onto an energetic round of Musical Plates (just like Musical Chairs but with paper plates).

It was a close match – Montse and Ambika fought it out in the final round but Ambika just got her foot on the plate first. It was a win for Team KFC.

Then came ‘The Best Game’ – teams had to nominate one person from each team they thought would be the ‘best’ at something. These categories ranged from ‘The Best Crab Walk’ to ‘The Longest Hair’, ‘The Furthest Paper Aeroplane Flown’ to ‘The Tallest Thumb’. It was a close call, but this time, it was another win for Team KFC.

The next round tested boarders’ patience, their creativity, and their precision – The Toilet Paper Mummy Game. Who can create the best Toilet Paper Mummy using one roll of toilet paper and a time limit of (around) five minutes? Team KFC created a very expressive mummy, Team Get Out of My Kitchen a very pretty mummy, but it was the Golden Quad who committed to a patience unravel of the toilet roll to win points for precision and historical accuracy.

Our fifth round was called ‘Bring Me’ involved Miss Smith saying ‘Bring me… something gold’ or ‘Bring me… something that is living but is not human’ or ‘Bring me… something that feels cold’. It was – in the end – Team KFC who successfully finding and bringing the most things.

The final challenge was to design an outfit using only old magazines, some sticky tape, and a couple of pairs of scissors. All three teams did a sterling job, with Team KFC producing an outfit reminiscent of a Gladiator, complete with sword – they won the points for the most inventive outfit; Team Golden Quad produced an outfit that would have made Louis Vuitton’s Bridal Collection jealous – they won the points for the outfit with the most integrity; and Team Get Out of My Kitchen went for a glamorous number that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a Black Tie Gala – they won the most points overall for this challenge.

So, who won this exhilarating afternoon? It was Team KFC with a whopping 28 points! (Team Get Out of My Kitchen were super close behind with 26 points, and Golden Quad came in third with 22 points).

A huge well done and thanks to everyone involved including Miss Smith for organising and all staff.

Boarding activities

Boarding activities at Kilgraston can be fun and fast-paced, offer a chance to unwind or somewhere in-between. Once school is finished, we offer a schedule of events for our boarders with sight-seeing trips around Scotland interspersed with more relaxing activities in-school. So to keep our boarders entertained, we recently organised a Murder Mystery night.

Channelling their inner Sherlock Holmes, our teams had to solve the mystery of what happened to Baroness Arabella Porkingon III, and who should claim her inheritance.

It was a night straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, with each student taking on the role of a colourful character. Each character had a key clue to the mystery, and key information that they had to discover from one another. They had to question each other to discover the information, before contributing what they found out in the final denouement.

A big thank you to all the students who participated, and put so much effort into dressing up as their character. A special mention must be given to our very own Chaplain, Mr Allaker, who made a very dramatic confession when he was revealed to be the villain of the night!

You can find out more about boarding activities and what it’s like to board by listening to Libby’s story, you can watch this here.

Kilgraston’s boarding activities also featured recently in the Daily Telegraph. Following a ballot amongst our boarders, pupils opted to bring back traditional games such as tag and rounders rather than quizzes or film nights. In the article, Mrs MacGinty said: “We were very surprised by the answer. They voted to organise traditional games more commonly found in playgrounds when I was a child. Girls of all ages love them. They’re now laughing together, working as a team, enjoying the competitive nature without match pressure.”

You can read the article by registering at the Daily Telegraph here.