Dunfermline High School is one of four main

high 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 '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

s located in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. The school also caters for pupils from Kincardine,

Rosyth Rosyth ( gd, Ros Fhìobh, "headland of Fife") is a town on the Firth of Forth, south of the centre of Dunfermline. According to the census of 2011, the town has a population of 13,440. The new town was founded as a Garden city-style suburb ...

and surrounding villages. The school was founded in 1468. Today it has over 1,550 pupils. The current Rector is Iain Yuile.

History

Education in Dunfermline can be traced back to the founding of a monastic grammar school within

Dunfermline Abbey Dunfermline Abbey is a Church of Scotland Parish Church in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. The church occupies the site of the ancient chancel and transepts of a large medieval Benedictine abbey, which was sacked in 1560 during the Scottish Reforma ...

in 1120. King David I (son of Queen Margaret and Malcolm Canmore) initially put up the money to found a school as part of the wider operations of Dunfermline Abbey in the early 1120s. In 1468, the will of the

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...

Richard de Bothwell made provision for a house and income for a schoolmaster. Burgh records from 1525 refer to the town school. Town and Abbey schools functioned in parallel until 1560 when the Abbey and its school were destroyed during the

reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. Although the school in the town was established separate from the Abbey, it maintained a strong link. The

makar A makar () is a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard, often thought of as a royal court poet. Since the 19th century, the term ''The Makars'' has been specifically used to refer to a number of poets of fifteenth and sixteenth cen ...

Robert Henryson Robert Henryson (Middle Scots: Robert Henrysoun) was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots ''makars'', he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renai ...

was one of the first people to hold the title "Master" of the town school. The school buildings were destroyed by fire in 1624. The school was reconstituted by Queen Anne of Denmark in the 16th century. It is from these people, who shaped the school in the first 800 years of its life, that the house names come from: Canmore, Queen Margaret, Bothwell, and Henryson. Denmark house ceased to exist after restructuring of the school. The school went on to be known as the High School. In June 1939, a new building opened. When a new building was constructed in 2012, this was demolished to become playing fields. The school celebrated 500 years since its official foundation in 1968. In August 2012, the brand new £40million Dunfermline High School was opened to pupils after many years of planning and construction. In June 2016 Iain Yuile was announced as Rector of the school.

Feeder areas

The school's feeder primary schools are:
Within Dunfermline * Canmore Primary School * Commercial Primary School * Pitreavie Primary School * Masterton Primary School * St Leonard's Primary School Outwith Dunfermline * Limekilns Primary School, Limekilns * Camdean Primary School,

* Kings Road Primary School,

* Tulliallan Primary School, Kincardine

Facilities

Facilities include a five-a-side football pitch; a main football pitch; meeting room; free parking spaces on site; sports hall, fitness room and an assembly hall with a stage.

Uniform

The school badge is made up from the crest of Malcolm Canmore, the Queen Margaret Cross and the symbol of Abbot Bothwell. The two typical colours featured as part of the school blazer and ties are black and "gold" which is more or less yellow. In 2008, a second 'senior tie' was introduced which features the school's crest.

School motto

The school has two Latin mottos: #''Quid agis age pro viribus'', meaning "Everything you do, do it with vigour". #''

Labor Omnia Vincit ''Labor omnia vincit'' or ''Labor omnia vincit improbus'' is a Latin phrase meaning "Work conquers all". The phrase is adapted from Virgil's ''Georgics'', Book I, lines 145–6: ''...Labor omnia vicit / improbus'' ("Steady work overcame all th ...

'', meaning "Work conquers everything".

Notable alumni

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, English actress *

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(born 1986), football goalkeeper (notably Gretna, Ayr Utd) *

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'' 1991–95 and ''

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'' 1995–2007 * Sir William Kininmonth (1904–1988), architect who mixed a modern style with Scottish vernacular *

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1909–29 * Moira Shearer, Lady Kennedy (1926–2006), ballet dancer and actress. * Alexander Simpson (1905–1975), first-class cricketer * Thomas Spowart (1903–1971), first-class cricketer * Ettie Stewart Steele (born 1890), chemist, the first student to submit a PhD thesis at the

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, lawyer, and Senator of the College of Justice, a judge of Scotland's Supreme Courts * Michael Scott Weir (1925–2006), United Kingdom's ambassador to Egypt 1979–1985 * Craig Wilson (born 1986), footballer (notably Dunfermline, Raith) * Andrew Wyllie CBE, civil engineer, CEO of the

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and 154th president of the

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References

External links

school websiteprofile
at ParentZone on Education Scotland website
reports
on Education Scotland website {{authority control Secondary schools in Fife Buildings and structures in Dunfermline 1460s establishments in Scotland