Headteacher Update – December 2025
Dear members of the Craigroyston Community,
As I write the final headteacher update of 2024 (and my last one for Craigroyston Community High School) I would like to start by thanking all the families, parents and carers, for not only your support of your children but also for the school community over the past year. We know that everything works best when we are all working together and the community aspect of the school is clearly very important to everyone.
he last three weeks of term have been very busy indeed – kicked off by our wonderful Winter Concert on Wednesday 26th November. It was lovely to see so many of our talented musicians and singers performing to an almost completely full theatre. The concert featured performances from Mr Allan’s School of Rock, The Jazz Band, Choir, Woodwind Ensemble, Guitar Ensemble and a variety of soloists. A special thank you to our amazing IMS staff for their hard work in preparing their pupils for this. It was a great evening and the perfect start to the Festive Season. If you missed out, please have a look at some photos and a couple of videos here.
Over the last 2 weeks, many of our senior pupils have sat their formal assessments, in preparation for the exams in the summer term. The invigilators spoke very highly of how mature the pupils approached all aspects of the process and I am sure that this sensible attitude will stand them in good stead for their exams (and beyond!). A huge thank you to our teachers and support staff who prepared the pupils so well for these assessments, and for their hard work throughout the year. We look forward to handing back these results in January and giving our young people targeted steps to help them achieve their full potential in the summer. A gentle reminder from parents and carers that pupils will also have various pieces of coursework to be handed in on different dates in the Spring term, and it is crucial that these are handed in on time, or pupils risk not achieving their full qualifications. If you would like to support them with studying, please go to Craigroyston Revision
Last week, the Senior Leadership Team and our Learning and Teaching Leads worked closely with the Edinburgh Learns Teams from the council, observing all classes with a view to planning our ongoing teacher professional development programme and improving outcomes for all.
As mentioned already, we believe in working closely with parents/ carers to help our young people achieve their potential. Throughout this term, our staff have been getting to know their way around Class Charts and we hope to launch this with you early in the new year. One of the key benefits of using Class Charts is that we are able to securely share your child’s achievement and behaviour report with you on a daily basis with a real emphasis on praising the positive. It has also been used in school this term, along with our previous merits to reward pupils with an in-house cinema event, Selection boxes as well as some kindly donated prizes.
This week, our kitchen staff provided us with a delicious Christmas lunch on Wednesday which was thoroughly enjoyed by pupils and staff alike! Thursday gave us the opportunity to celebrate the wonderful diversity of our school, allowing pupils and staff to sample food and dancing from all over the world (photos)- a truly amazing event. On Friday, we welcomed the Snow Queen to the school – “oh yes we did!” – it was really great seeing the pupils clapping, booing and singing along to the very British Christmas tradition, the Pantomime – a great end to the term!
Some pupil events and highlights from this term – it has been a busy one!
Since the summer, most of our S1, S3 and S5 have been actively involved with Humanutopia – Humanutopia is a social enterprise that has worked with thousands of young people across the UK, focusing on confidence, resilience, and positive role modelling. Their programmes are high-energy, inspiring, and often transformative. The workshops (which pupils initially take part in and then are trained to deliver to younger students) help them reflect on themselves, their relationships, and their goals. They also build leadership and mentoring skills in preparation for supporting younger pupils as “Heroes” in the school, as well as giving pupils the tools and confidence to act as positive influences in our school community.
Our S5 pupils were initially trained in August and then helped to deliver the workshops to S3. The S3s subsequently received additional training and delivered to the S1. The S5s and S3s also delivered workshops to 3 of our local P7 classes.
It was brilliant to see them all working together as a team, with pupils they were not normally working with, and growing in confidence as the day went on.
On the 25th September, staff and pupils were treated to an excellent Quiz Night to raise money for the upcoming Maths trip to Paris. We were given some very tough questions from our two pupils hosts for the evening, and it was a very close thing right up until the last round!
On the 6th of October, we welcomed the author Graeme Armstrong to the school. Our S4 students really enjoyed Graeme’s talk about his work and lived experience in youth violence, gangs and addiction and their responses in questions afterwards absolutely made his day! Some of our students immediately demanded copies of his book to read! Graeme is an author and a leading voice in violence prevention, with an inspiring career journey. His work draws directly on his lived experience of Scottish gang culture and shows how education, leadership and connection can transform lives.
The following day, Richard McCann from the iCan Academy spoke to S2,4,5 & 6 pupils about one of my passions – encouraging young people to develop a growth mindset and believe in their own potential, rather than allowing certain circumstances to define their paths. Richard had a very challenging childhood, living in poverty and his mother was Peter Sutcliffe’s first victim. He refused to let his past define him and chose to channel his experiences into positive messages of hope and resilience. Our young people were motivated by his story of how he overcame adversity and achieved success in a variety of areas.
On Wednesday 29th October, some of our S3 pupils delivered 7 wonderful presentations about how certain charities make a real difference in their local communities in conjunction with YPI Scotland. We heard all about initiatives from Granton Youth, Rock Trust, Fresh Start, Stepping Stone and FYP which had made a positive influence on many of our young people or their friends as the pupils fought for the £3000 prize money for their chosen charity. The winning charity this year was the Granton Youth Centre.
In October, The National and Higher Drama classes attended a trip to see War Horse at the Festival Theatre and represented the school exceptionally well with respectful behaviour and friendliness towards the other school groups in attendance.
They all had so much to say about the performance afterwards, though my personal favourite was a pupil summary of the piece -simply being ‘big horse!’ (he was also very entertained that the goose puppet got the biggest round of applause at the end!) Photo here.
28th October saw our Developing the Young Workforce Speed Networking Event! The feedback from our visiting employers was brilliant — they were really impressed by how polite, interested, and engaged our pupils were throughout. Photos are available here.
Later on, Tristan Brossy De Dios came in to talk to Light Up Learning mentees about his career in Games Development. We had fantastic attention and questions from an invited audience of students studying Computing, Art and interested in creative careers. Tristan talked about his journey into games development and described the hundreds of different roles and skills that go into making successful games. The big take away from the talk was that teamwork and collaboration are the most important attributes to successful game development (and many other fields).
On the 3rd of December, three of our pupils performed in the CEC Instrumental Music Service Concert at the Usher Hall. Pupils from across the CEC are specially selected for these groups and some even have to audition! They have been attending rehearsals outside of school throughout the term and have shown outstanding commitment to their musical achievements. All three pupils played brilliantly and were fantastic ambassadors for our school.
One of them has also been selected to play in a new elite CEC Guitar Ensemble, made up of only 16 players. This group has been chosen to represent Edinburgh at the forthcoming Scottish Young Musicians competition in March 2026! We wish them all the best and look forward to hearing how they get on!
Between the 27th and 28th November, 6 of our young people were invited to represent the school (one of 5 chosen throughout Scotland) at the Franco-British Youth Ocean Conference in Paris, hosted by the British Council, the French Ministry of Education, and the Agence Française de Développement (French Development Agency).
Pupils will take part in a COP (Conference of the Parties) simulation, with face-to-face role-playing exercise based around the UN climate change negotiations. This was a real opportunity to explore global environmental challenges and develop their language skills.
Pupils had to discuss issues related to the seas and oceans, such as plastic
pollution, rising sea levels, sustainable fisheries management or marine biodiversity.
Craigroyston will continue to work with……school in France over the year on a number of different topics. You can see some of the photos from our trip here.
Throughout December, our librarian, Mr Linnane organised our first Wishing Tree campaign to encourage people to read over their Christmas holidays! Students wrote the titles or subjects of books they wished they could read over the Christmas and the Wishing Tree elves whisked them to Craigroyston in time for the last week of term! Thanks to our senior pupil elves for their frankly astonishing wrapping skills- they managed to get all the books beautifully wrapped for our recipients and distributed them to all Craigroyston Tree-Wishers before lunch! Photos of some happy readers and our tree here.
Throughout the term, our brilliant PE staff, other school staff, MYDG and other partners have offered a varied programme of extra-curricular clubs and participation is slightly up across all groups compared to the same time last year. Information on these clubs can be found here.
As ever with schools, changes of terms can bring changes of staffing.
We say Goodbye and Goodluck to:
- Mrs Henderson as she leaves to go to Wester Hailes High School Learning Community after 17 years here.
- Ms Kerr from the Drama department
- Ms Pidgeon in the office staff
- Mr Else as he returns to Firrhill
And a temporary goodbye to:
- Mrs Dalzeil, Mrs Hutcheon, Mrs MacIntosh as they have gone on maternity leave;
- Mr Black as he goes on a career break travelling the world
Once again, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support throughout the year. It has been a real priviledge and a pleasure to be your Headteacher for the year, and I wish you all the best for the future. Mrs McLaren and the rest of the staff look forward to pupils returning in uniform and on time for lessons starting at 8.30 on Tuesday 6th January. I will be going back to St. Augustine’s but Craigroyston Community High School will always have a special place in my heart! I hope you all have a relaxing Christmas holiday and enjoy spending quality time with family and friends.
Dates for your diary
Parents’ Evenings
19 March – S3 Parents Evening
31March – S1 Parents Evening
29 January – Senior Phase Parents’ Evening
Craigroyston Community High School 