College badge of honour in school link-up
Students will help create identity
Head teacher Stuart Clyde will be working with UHI for inspiration The head teacher of the new Berth Park High School is looking to the community for help in shaping its identity with special help from Perth College.
Graphic design students from UHI will have the chance to show their true colours with an opportunity to design Berth Park’s new badge in the run-up to the school’s grand opening next August.
Head teacher Stuart Clyde said it is part of a three-phase plan to give the school an identity, uniform and strong curriculum with the aid of community feedback.
Mr Clyde said: “It’s all based around the consultation process and the uniform and the school identity is only one part of our consultation process.
“Stage two will be about the uniform and the whole idea of a school identity. Because Bertha Park has never been a school before we have to invent everything from the ground up.
“I thought this would be a good opportunity to reach out and bring other people on board with us.”
Mr Clyde spoke with the head of the design department at UHI and offered an interesting design task to current students who are working towards graphic design qualifications.
“They welcomed it with open arms,” he said.
“So when the college goes back we’ll be working closely with the students to come up with designs for Bertha Park High.
“We’re hoping by Christmas to have working examples of what our identity might look like, what colours there are going to be, what the school tie is going to look like, what the badge will look like.
“The idea is to come up with three or four designs, then put them out to consultation. It means the pupils and parents will still have a huge input.”
Mr Clyde says construction on the school is currently three weeks ahead of schedule and, once completed, will create around 200 jobs.
The first two teaching staff were hired in June and will liaise with first year pupils at Perth Grammar School, before they join Bertha Park next autumn.
Mr Clyde explained: “At the moment we are looking at a different kind of problem from a lot of other schools who are having difficulties in recruiting certain types of teachers.
“It’s a nationwide problem not just a local problem.
“But it looks like Bertha Park might have the opposite problem in that we are getting calls to the council all the time to find out when the jobs are going to become available.
“Because it’s quite an attractive prospect to work in, not only a brand new building, but a brand new establishment.
“As well as the right teacher we want the right type of person who is going to embrace doing things better than they have done before.”
The school is part of a £1 billion development at Bertha Park, which will potentially see 3000 homes built over a 30-year period.
It will be the first brand new secondary school to be built in Perth and Kinross since the early ‘70s.
The new secondary school catchment area will include pupils from Bertha Park, Almond Valley and Perth West, as well as Auchtergaven, Logiealmond, Methven, Pitcairn, Ruthvenfield, Oudenarde, Forgandenny, Forteviot and Dunbarney.
Good opportunity to bring other people on board with us