Queensferry High School (also known as Queensferry Community High School) is a six-year

comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...

in the town of

South Queensferry Queensferry, also called South Queensferry or simply "The Ferry", is a town to the west of Edinburgh, Scotland. Traditionally a royal burgh of West Lothian, it is administered by the City of Edinburgh council area. It lies ten miles to the nort ...

, Scotland, run by the

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 ...

. It was opened in 1970 by

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth ...

marking the 900th anniversary of the arrival of Queen Margaret in Queensferry. Currently it has 1036 students, predominantly from Echline Primary School, Queensferry Primary School, Dalmeny Primary School and Kirkliston Primary School. It was made a School of Ambition in 2007.

School life

Upon enrolment at the school, the pupils are assigned to a house: Dundas, Hopetoun, Rosebery or Forth. The three original houses are named after three noble families in and around Queensferry: the

Earls of Rosebery Earl of Rosebery is a title in the Peerage of Scotland created in 1703 for Archibald Primrose, 1st Viscount of Rosebery, with remainder to his issue male and female successively. Its name comes from Roseberry Topping, a hill near Archibald's wif ...

, seated at

Dalmeny House Dalmeny House (pronounced ) is a Gothic revival mansion located in an estate close to Dalmeny on the Firth of Forth, to the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was designed by William Wilkins, and completed in 1817. Dalmeny House is the hom ...

; the

Earls of Hopetoun Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particular ...

, seated at

Hopetoun House Hopetoun House is a country house near South Queensferry owned by the Hopetoun House Preservation Trust, a charity established in 1974 to preserve the house and grounds as a national monument, to protect and improve their amenities, and to pre ...

; and the Stewart-Clark baronets, seated at

Dundas Castle Dundas Castle is a 15th-century castle, with substantial 19th-century additions by William Burn, in the Dalmeny parish of West Lothian, Scotland. The home of the Dundas family since the Middle Ages, it was sold in the late 19th century and is cur ...

. The recently created house, Forth, is named after the river upon which Queensferry sits. A

school uniform A school uniform is a uniform worn by students primarily for a school or otherwise an educational institution.They are common in primary and secondary schools in various countries. An example of a uniform would be requiring button-down shir ...

was reintroduced in 2005. It consists of black trousers or a black or tartan skirt, with a white shirt, a black jumper or sweater and a tie bearing the school's registered tartan "The Ferry Fling". Blazers are optional for junior students, and 'required' for senior students.

Leadership

Buildings

The school buildings, corresponding with increasing student numbers, have been much extended from their original 1970 form. In 1995 a recreation wing was added, with a substantial extension to the school being added in 1997 and a total refurbishment being undertaken in 1998. In early 2016, plans to start building a new school were unveiled. The building started early 2018 and was finished mid-2020.

Academic records

The table below shows the

fourth year Fourth year, also known as S4, is the fourth year of schooling in Scottish, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, Colombian, and other Latin American countries secondary schools, and is roughly equivalent to Year 11 in England and Wales and Year 12 (Sixth For ...

pass rates at Level 3 (

Standard Grade Standard Grades were Scotland's educational qualifications for students aged around 14 to 16 years. Introduced in 1986, the Grades were replaced in 2013 with the Scottish Qualifications Authority's National exams in a major shake-up of Scotland's ...

Foundation level or equivalent) or better, Level 4 (Standard Grade General level or equivalent) or better and Level 5 (Standard Grade Credit level or equivalent) or better for Queensferry High School in the 2006/2007 academic year, contrasted with pass rates for Edinburgh and Scotland as a whole. The table below shows as a percentage the number of students from the previous year's fourth years who went on to pass one or more, three or more or five or more level 6 examinations (

Highers In the Scottish secondary education system, the Higher () is one of the national school-leaving certificate exams and university entrance qualifications of the Scottish Qualifications Certificate (SQC) offered by the Scottish Qualifications ...

) in 2006/2007. 37% of those fourth years had left and so attained none. This compared to a citywide and national rate of 35% leaving. Below is a breakdown of what the leavers of Queensferry High School during the 2006/2007 academic year went on to do. A high percentage of leavers went directly into employment.

In the news

Queensferry High School has twice been in the news in recent years due to separate security issues. On 15 December 2005 pupils were locked in their classrooms for two hours and told to stay away from windows and out of corridors after a man with a

gun A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, pr ...

threatened to commit suicide in a house opposite the school.

Armed police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...

closed off the surrounding area and arrested the man without any injury to anyone. In the early hours of 22 February 2008 the school was

petrol bomb A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flammab ...

ed by three former pupils, blowing out an external wall at the back of the school and destroying a ground floor English classroom. No one was harmed as no one was in the school at the time.

Coat of arms

The school's

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

was granted by the

Lord Lyon The Right Honourable the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the head of Lyon Court, is the most junior of the Great Officers of State in Scotland and is the Scottish official with responsibility for regulating heraldry in that country, issuing new grant ...

in 1970. It features the cross and

martlet A martlet in English heraldry is a mythical bird without feet that never roosts from the moment of its drop-birth until its death fall; martlets are proposed to be continuously on the wing. It is a compelling allegory for continuous effort, expre ...

s from the arms of St Margaret (the queen for whom Queensferry was named), plus the primroses from the arms of Neil Primrose, Earl of Rosebery.

Notable alumni

Paul Appleby (boxer) Paul Appleby (born 22 July 1987) is a Scottish former professional boxer who competed from 2006 to 2014. He held the British featherweight title from 2008 to 2009 and once challenged for the Commonwealth super featherweight title in 2011. He ...

(born 1987), boxer *

Callum Paterson Callum Thomas Owen Paterson (born 13 October 1994) is a professional association football, footballer who plays for Sheffield Wednesday F.C., Sheffield Wednesday as a striker and the Scotland national football team. Paterson started his career w ...

(born 1994), footballer * Michael Travis (born 1993), footballer *

Cammy Logan Cammy Logan (born 28 January 2002) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a defender for Queen of the South. Logan has previously played for Heart of Midlothian, as well as loan spells with Cove Rangers, Edinburgh City, Kelty He ...

(born 2002), footballer

References

External links

Official Queensferry High School website.Scottish Schools Online Profile.
{{authority control Educational institutions established in 1970 Secondary schools in Edinburgh South Queensferry 1970 establishments in Scotland