DRUMMOND CHS – A CUT ABOVE

Drummond Community High School’s annual Celebration of Achievement last night was the last for headteacher Norma Prentice, at least for now, writes David Sterratt.

She has agreed to take up a temporary secondment at Castlebrae Community High School in Niddrie for the coming 2014–15 session.

In an off-the-cuff address to the school community last night, Prentice said her time so far at Drummond had been the ‘most wonderful experience of her life’. Although ‘no-one likes change except a wet baby’, she said that the new Curriculum for Excellence had been necessary.

She has overseen its introduction here, and was proud that Drummond now has a curriculum rated among the top two in Edinburgh. The new National 4 and 5 qualifications and the Scottish Qualifications authority have had a bad press, but Drummond has risen to the challenge, holding extra classes, some on Saturday mornings, for National 5 students.

Brandishing a printout of yesterday’s article on the Spurtle website (‘Pupils, plumbers and Paolozzi’), Prentice said she ‘loved the headline’ but wished to add another ‘P’: partners. By this, she meant in particular her colleagues at the school, to whom she credited much of Drummond’s success.

A number of staff were leaving, some to more exotic places such as Majorca or Galway, while she herself was moving on to Niddrie. This drew titters from the audience. 

Another school partner was the evening’s guest speaker, Charlie Miller OBE, at whose hair salon some Drummond students have had work experience. Coincidentally, he is an alumnus of Niddrie Marischal School, leaving at 15 to work in the Co-op before deciding that he wanted to be a hairdresser. Starting out as a barber, he got into women’s hairdressing by cutting his wife’s hair in the  geometric styles of Vidal Sassoon. This led to his career 'snowballing'.

He felt that his way of working could be encapsulated in three words put forward by psychotherapist Carl Rodgers: Genuineness (you actually know how to cut hair), Empathy (you understand what the customer wants) and Warmth (doing all this ‘non-possessively’). Appositely, considering the ensuing award-fest, he urged students to have a ‘small head and a big heart’.

In her earlier address, Norma Prentice had urged leavers to ‘make absence positive’, though for the rest of the evening absences (of the unauthorised variety) were frowned upon, and applause given instead for 100% attendance awards added to that already accorded the subject and overall achievement prizes, 'strive-to-suceed' awards, awards for teams that have represented Drummond, and finally the Proxime Accessit and Dux.

There were also prizes for two of the adult education groups which use Drummond: the Drummond Big Band and an Art group joint project with the Mansfield Traquair Centre which has produced work inspired by the Phoebe Anna Traquair murals next door.

After a speech by the outgoing head boy and girl, the evening ended with presentation of a print produced as part of the Paolozzi project with SNIPEF and Edinburgh Printmakers mentioned earlier (Breaking news, 24.6.14).

The whole event was expertly compèred by Mr Sharkey, whose self-deprecating humour kept the evening rolling along and added to the celebratory atmosphere of the occasion.

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 Iain McGill ‏@IainMcGill  8m

@theSpurtle @Drummond_CHS @cmhairdressing @EdinburghPrints no duxes or 100% attendance records when I was there that's for sure!