Celebrating and honouring founders and traditions
The origin stories of some of Scotland’s finest educational establishments may be unique, writes Sarah Devine ,but they all share a reverence for the beliefs and values of their initial benefactors
Each Scottish independent school is unique, from its curriculum, sports, faith and accommodation, but it is the founding ethos and timehonoured traditions that sets each one apart truly.
St George’s School for Girls in Edinburgh recently revisited the school’s founding values to celebrate its 130th year.
Led by Dame Sarah Mair in the 19th century, St George’s founders campaigned for girls to access a full curriculum and places at universities, and established a school where girls could develop all of their talents.
Alex hems, the current head mistress, says: “We have had a really big push on looking back at our founding values and thinking very much about the pioneering women who set schools like this up.
“We have been thinking about how we translate those sorts of values into the lives of the girls now in the 21st century, and it has been really interesting.”
The school’s Chaucerian values – “Trouthe & Honour, Fredom & Courtesy” – comes from the portrait of the knight in The Canterbury Tales.
“At the heart of all of them, is respect for one another,” Hems observes.
“The absolute key thing is respecting individuality, but also seeing yourself as part of a working community and that is at the heart of the school.”
Many of Scotland’s independent schools were established during the 18th and 19th centuries, each usually financed by a generous benefactor for children of all backgrounds to attend.
This inclusive approach is still at the sector’s heart, upheld by methods such as means-tested bursaries covering up to 100 per cent of school fees.
“It doesn’t change the schools’ ethos to provide as wide as possible a subject choice and broaden the pupils’ opportunities in life,” believes John Edward, director of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools. “In that respect, the schools are very wedded to the philosophy or ethos of their founders.”
At Perthshire’s Strathallan School in Forgandenny, headmaster Mark Lauder also has a keen interest in how the founding principles extend into the 21st century.
The school was established at Bridge of Allan in 1913 by Harry Riley before moving to its current site in 1920, with some 120 boys.
Lauder says: “[Riley] didn’t like the Victorian approach to school mastering, which would have been quite tough and traditional and focused mostly on academic output with other interests as secondary.
“He talks about the education being enjoyable in that the way you teach children is with them not at them, and that is still true.” Lauder points to the school’s motto,
labor omnia vincit, which translates as “work conquers all”. He says: “The best way to put it is, hard work and adversity wins through.
“When it is tough, the hard work and ingenuity you bring to problem solving, and that graft you put into solving the problem, is what will bring you through in the end.
“That is about unlocking potential. You can apply that these days to sport or preparing for a music exam.”
House systems, usually named after a prominent figure, are longstanding traditions that instil a sense of belonging among pupils, while providing the basis of healthy rivalry.
House competitions are important to St Leonards School, a co-educational boarding and day school in St Andrews. The school was created by the St Andrews School for Girls Company in 1877 to provide girls with an “education as good as their brothers’, if not better”.
Headmaster Dr Michael Carslaw maintains: “Being part of a house is important at St Leonards, and we have house music competitions and internal sports competitions.
“A big day for us is St Leonards’ Day, which is usually in September or October, and that is when the whole school comes together for a series of competitions before it finishes up with a house tug of war.”
Traditions harking back to a school’s founders are important in helping all pupils feel a sense of pride and
“The key thing is respecting individuality, but also seeing yourself as part of a working community”
loyalty, believes Jonathan Anderson, headmaster at Merchiston Castle School.
Customs at the all-boys Edinburgh institution include the playing of cricket and rugby, ties for different occasions and donning the school tartan, based on the Napier design.
This stems from the school’s former location, at a 15th-century tower in the Capital’s Merchiston district, which was the birthplace of mathematician John Napier, to whom the school’s coat of arms is also linked.
Anderson says: “We have families here who are maybe fifth-generation Merchistonians, and so there is a great sense of pride and link to previous generations. There are traditions that we have that tie our boys to those generations of the past.”
The sector has long-embraced internationalism, which has been at the centre of Kilgraston School at Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, since it began in 1930 with 40 boarders.
It was created by the Society of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic congregation for women established in France, and the school’s ethos today stems from those Sacred Heart values.
“The whole premise of a sacred heart Education is its faith around the world and its faith in others – not necessarily a religion but this personal growth and social awareness,” explains headmistress Dorothy Macginty.
Kilgraston girls chose to put those values into practice last term when they collectively donated Secret Santa funds to go towards training a teacher in Africa via the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund.
The origins of Erskine Stewart’s Melville Schools in Edinburgh, were developed from three institutions: The Mary Erskine School, which formed for poor daughters of the city’s merchants in 1694; Daniel Stewart’s College and Melville College, both allmale establishments.
In 1972, the two boys’ schools combined and established a crest with two halves and a motto of “Never Unprepared”, before conjoining with The Mary Erskine school in 1978.
Principal Linda Moule says: “[Our values] are very traditional in that we expect children to show respect, appreciation, and a willingness to get involved. We have high expectation of them in terms of their behaviour, courtesy and manners.”
All schools focus on educating the whole person, through developing skills in all areas, including sports, music and arts. And it was in this spirit that Ardvreck School in Crieff was founded in 1883 by one W E Frost, who believed the school could allow boys –and later girls – to achieve the pursuit of truth, as he termed it.
Barvicks, named after a local burn, have formed an integral part of the school’s extra curricular activities since its foundation. For more than 135 years, the entire preparatory school has set forth on frequent Saturday adventures in Scotland’s impressive countryside, where bagging a Munro is always an option.
Headmistress Ali Kinge says: “There are many, wonderful traditions at Ardvreck and I intend to keep them firmly in place; they form a large part of the school’s heritage and are remembered by Old Ardvreckians with huge nostalgia.
“We have our house system where each is named after prominent Scottish writers – James Barrie, John Buchan, Burns and Sir Walter Scott.
“There is a lot of healthy rivalry between the houses, as all staff members are allocated to a house as well. We all enjoy inter-house competitions in music, art and sport.”
As well as such rivalry, these traditions bring the pupils from across all year groups together, and help promote community spirit, a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and – just as importantly – fun, keeping in line with the founders’ attitudes towards a postitive education.
Kinge adds: “At the end of each term, the members of the overall winning house are rewarded with a special lunch. We have a portable pizza oven which often accompanies us on our adventures; the winning house enjoys devouring pizzas al fresco and then indulging in some sort of game – usually a match of mixed touch rugby or rounders.”
“Traditions harking back to founders are important in helping pupils feel a sense of pride and loyalty”