Former pupil to train with senior Great Britain hockey squad
Former Kilgraston pupil Emily Dark is to train with the senior Great Britain hockey squad. Emily, who graduated from Kilgraston in 2018, said: “It has been an ambition of mine to play for GB for so many years, so to be offered this opportunity to train with them for the next three weeks is unbelievable.
“I am incredibly excited to get started, not only for high-quality hockey, but to meet everyone too. This is a big opportunity for me to show what I can bring to the game and I want to embrace it and have fun.”
Emily, who is now studying Physics at St Andrews University, was selected for the GB Elite Development Programme (EDP) in 2018, and the opportunity to train with the GB women’s team presents an excellent opportunity to develop, and impress, at the top level.
It has been an outstanding few years for Emily, with her representing Scotland at international level winning her 23 senior caps. Her international career has also seen her be part of the team which won gold at the EuroHockey Championship II in 2019 with Emily winning Young Player of the Tournament.
Speaking on the Scottish Hockey website, Emily said: “Winning gold with Scotland at the home Europeans last year has definitely been a highlight for me, and I loved working with the team before and during the tournament to make sure we were in the best position possible to perform at our best.”
Commenting on Emily’s achievements, Kilgraston’s Headmistress, Mrs Dorothy MacGinty said: “We have watched Emily’s progress through the ranks with great interest and enthusias, and watching her move on to this next, very demanding, level of the game is hugely exciting for all the staff and pupils here at Kilgraston. We wish her every success with the future and will be following her progress very closely!”
Image by Mark Pugh
Kilgraston’s commitment to the environment
Kilgraston’s Junior School has been busy charting the growth of a hedge planted in 2009, part of Kilgraston’s on-going commitment to the environment and educating our pupils on nature.
Speaking in the Catholic Universe, Ms Dana Cooper, Junior Years’ teacher and head of the school’s Eco Committee said, “We thought it would be demonstrated particularly well if we showed our eleven-year-olds what nature can do in the same period. Our pupils are particularly interested in natural habitats for indigenous wildlife, which we have an abundance of here at school, but they are also keen to create artificial habitats and, additionally, are currently building a ‘bug hotel’ out of palettes and recycled materials.”
The hedge, which is made up of hawthorn, common lime, hazel and the guelder rose, stretches along the Kilgraston beautiful countryside campus next to the school’s swimming pool. Now, eleven years since it was planted, the hedge reaches four and a half metres high in places and is almost 80 metres long.
Upper Third’s Edith, who is Head of the Junior Years Eco Committee, said: “We have been learning how the hedge provides wildlife with a natural larder.
“Birds such as thrushes, blackbirds and fieldfares love the rose hips, while bees enjoy nectar from the hawthorn and robins, red squirrels and rabbits enjoy the berries.”
This story also featured in the November issue of magazine, Scottish Field.
global poetry competition - winner
Kilgraston pupil Anna has won a top prize in a global poetry competition. Upper Sixth’s Anna was the only Scottish winner in this year’s Foyle Young Poets of the Year award and was one of only fifteen winning young poets from over 6,000 people who entered.
Anna’s poem, Total, was about exam stress, reflecting the experience as a balance sheet.
Speaking in an article on STV, Anna said: “The poem was written the week before results day, it’s a poem about exam anxiety. Every line was given a monetary value to equate to the emotional strain I was experiencing.
“However, you can’t put a price-tag on personality; I am so much more than just results. The final line – ‘trying to add up the breeze’ – represents the impossible, like catching smoke, it’s a poetically expressed concept of being unquantifiable.
“I think the judges all had their own results day memory so this struck a chord.”
The global poetry competition news featured in a number of press outlets including the BBC’s Newsround where Kilgraston’s Headmistress, Mrs Dorothy MacGinty, said: “Anna has been an inspirational pupil to teach throughout her seven years with us. We have witnessed her talent and enthusiasm for the subject of English rapidly develop and could not be more thrilled for her.”
The competition’s virtual award ceremony takes place Thursday 22nd October, where Anna will read her poem to the other 14 winners, guests and judges.
In an article in The Herald, Anna said: “It will still be a very moving experience. Such a shame not to actually be with the other winners and to meet the judges face-to-face but it will be a momentous opportunity nonetheless.”
Anna wins a place at a writing residential course at the Arvon Centre, The Hurst set to take place in early 2021 and you can read Anna’s winning poem below:
⁎///TOTAL///⁎
All slow summer long £9.99
I have been living £6.90
in a glass jar of anxiety £16.60
and dreading £7.68
a day in August £6.57
when a devious envelope £12.90
with a barbed paper tongue £3.76
will slither through the door £2.46
to determine my fate £6.83
with only a few £5.80
letters: grades that might £5.45
be as sharp as blades £9.90
or as soft as rising dough. £5.67
At the end of the day, is this £3.54
all that I amount to? £12.80
Five letters on a flimsy £6.53
ghost of paper? £6.45
The narrowest indication £3.87
of my past £7.90
and my future. £14.90
God, these £1.65
endless days of waiting £8.76
and balancing on these tenterhook £17.76
cobweb tightropes just won’t do, £4.50
they just won’t do. £14.90
⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎
I don’t want to be calculated £8.76
counted, £6.84
or summed up £7.36
in cold numbers and letters £3.56
that are typed by robotic fingers £4.90
that have no grace nor growth, £23.90
because I am breathtakingly £16.00
three dimensional, and £5.35
to total me £2.95
would be like £0.90
trying to add up the breeze. £??.??????
⁎//Please retain receipt for your records//⁎
You can read further press articles on this news in The Scotsman, the Evening Express, The Courier and the Independent School’s Council website.
Kilgraston’s Headmistress discusses 2021 exams on Radio Tay
Kilgraston’s Headmistress, Mrs Dorothy MacGinty, featured on local radio station, Radio Tay, discussing the recent 2021 examination announcement.
You can listen to what Mrs MacGinty said via the link below, at around the one hour mark.
You can also subscribe or register to the Catholic Universe and read more about Mrs MacGinty’s response to the exam announcement and you can read some of our other press articles here.
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.