Welcome fromtheRector

The Spring Term has been a fruitful one across both the Junior and Senior School. Within these pages you’ll learn about marvellous musicians, sporting successes, amazing actors, philanthropic fundraising and much more.

Our commitment to sustainability across the whole School was recognised with our fifth Eco Schools Scotland Green Flag Award, a wonderful accolade.

The 3rd of February marked ‘100 Days Smarter’ for our Junior 1 children who celebrated 100 days in J1 at a special Sharing the Learning assembly with their families to showcase the skills they’d acquired during this time. Meanwhile, at the top end of the Junior School, Junior 6 had audiences in stitches during a two-night run of ‘Star Warts - The Umpire Strikes Back’! Meanwhile, Junior 5 enjoyed their first three-night residential trip to York in mid-March as part of the ‘Vikings’ topic.

Following the January Prelims, pupils across the whole School were treated to a restorative and uplifting Health and Wellbeing Week, with the Senior School’s week expertly organised by School Nurse Mrs Jane Sim. Mrs Sim, who will retire at the end of this school year, certainly made her final Health and Wellbeing Week memorable. Thank you to Mrs Sim and our Senior 6 Health and Wellbeing Representatives, Kiera and Lucas, for a valuable week.

In just one day, Transitus rehearsed and performed an opera with Scottish Opera, whilst this term Sixth Formers continued to enjoy a number of insightful S6 lectures, including the annual Fraser Lecture, delivered by Dr Sabir Zazai OBE, Chief Executive of the Scottish Refugee Council. Senior pipers were successful at the Scottish Schools’ Pipe Band Championships and a number of young musicians and singers have been selected to be part of National Youth Choirs of Scotland (NYCOS) and the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland (NYOS). It has also been a further term of sporting success to celebrate, not least of which is S6 cricketer Maryam who represented Scotland at the inaugural ICC Women’s U19 T20 Cricket World Cup in Johannesburg in January.

And finally, I’m delighted to announce that we’ve been shortlisted in the UK-wide Admissions, Marketing and Communications in Independent School’s (AMCIS) IMPACT Awards in the Strategic Marketing category, a first for the School. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in May.

I encourage you to read on to find out more about life at HSOG this Spring Term and I wish everyone a very happy, relaxing and restorative Easter holiday.

John O’Neill