Gracemount High School (GHS) is a

non-denominational A non-denominational person or organization is one that does not follow (or is not restricted to) any particular or specific religious denomination. Overview The term has been used in the context of various faiths including Jainism, Baháʼí Fait ...

six-year comprehensive

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

serving south-east

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Scotland. It has a current roll of over 600 pupils and around 80 staff. It is operated by

City of Edinburgh Council The City of Edinburgh Council is the local government authority for the city of Edinburgh, capital of Scotland. With a population of in mid-2019, it is the second most populous local authority area in Scotland. In its current form, the counci ...

, the

local education authority Local education authorities (LEAs) were local councils in England that are responsible for education within their jurisdiction. The term was used to identify which council (district or county) is locally responsible for education in a system wit ...

. No current inspection report is available and it was last inspected in 2013. League tables, published in 2019, ranking the percentage of pupils attaining five or more awards at SCQF Level 6 ( Scottish Higher) in 2019, placed Gracemount High at 331 out of 339 schools with 13 per cent; the Scottish Government benchmark figure for GHS was 22. The Scottish Government's school information dashboard for Gracemount High shows attainment levels at SCQF Level 3 in S3 at over 90 per cent for reading and listening and talking in 2018-19; 73 per cent of pupils leave with at least one award at SCQF level 5 or better.

History

Old building

The original school building was opened in 29 October 1959 as a junior secondary school and became a six-year comprehensive school in the 1960s. In 2000, with the school in a very poor state and needing repairs, Edinburgh Council decided that the cost of repairing the building was too great, and that creating a new building would be a more viable solution. Before the original school building closed and was then demolished in 2003, ex-teaching staff and students gathered for a party to mark the end of the original school building which stood for over forty years.

New building

Pupils and staff moved into the new building in August 2003. It is located adjacent to Captain's Road, and to where the old school formerly stood. The functional design has a central hall with classroom wings leading off. The building was created under a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme by Edinburgh Schools Partnership (ESP). Gracemount was one of several 21st-century school buildings in Edinburgh found to be defective. The schools had all been built by Miller Construction, which was acquired by Galliford Try in 2014. Construction expert Prof John Cole published a damning report into the scandal in 2017. Following this the ESP agreed to pay for all structural repair work (Nov 2018).

Cycling event

The school was the halfway point for the 2017

London–Edinburgh–London London–Edinburgh–London ''(LEL)'' is a randonnée bicycle event of approximately over an out-and-back course between the capital cities of London (England) and Edinburgh (Scotland). It has been described as a contender for hardest cyclin ...

cycle ride.

References

External links

Images of the 1950s building
{{authority control Secondary schools in Edinburgh Educational institutions established in 1959 1959 establishments in Scotland