Scottish school is rethinking how we give kids best chance in life

The Herald Scotland

07-06-2025

In a bid to be chummy with these sharp pupils I tell them I'd always found that cigarette smoke can be an effective midge repellent. My sage advice is met by an outbreak of nervous shuffling amongst some of the teaching staff and some nervous smiles.
Have I just told a class of kids being encouraged to navigate the challenges life will throw at them that the best way to curb Scotland's National Pest is to start smoking?
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Long before my visit to Wester Hailes High School, I'd heard tell of some remarkable events taking place here. This community, actually comprises several distinct neighbourhoods known as 'the seven kingdoms' of Calder, Clovenstone, Dumbryden, Hailesland, Harvester, Murrayburn, and Westburn. If you've never been here you'll have seen these places in dramas like Rebus whenever some casual violence and substance abuse is required.
Other places in Scotland have these challenges. I've seen them in Glasgow's East End, in Greenock, in Dumfries and Galloway and in rural communities of the western Highlands and Islands. In Edinburgh though, the sense of isolation seems sharper.
While Glasgow seems at times to fetishize deprivation, Edinburgh with more private schools than any other UK city and its sprawling, self-indulgent over-priced caricature of culture called the Festival seems embarrassed by having to admit that, well, yes … they have disadvantaged neighbourhoods too.
The data concerning Wester Hailes High School's success tell you that something transformative is happening in its classrooms: 98.62% of school-leavers securing a positive destination – up 10% from 2021 – and significantly above the 95.64% achieved by school-leavers across the City of Edinburgh. It's only when you take a walk through this school and visit its classrooms and talk to its staff and pupils that the raw numbers begin to make sense.
It starts, as it always must in secondary schools, with the attitudes of its leaders. David Young is head teacher at Wester Hailes High School. 'These are our children and our people. It's about connecting with our pupils as people and not categorising those who already feel marginalised. This is our civic responsibility; our primary duty of care if you like. It's what we believe in.'
Wester Hailes High School head David Young (Image: Gordon Terris)He talks about those seven kingdoms. 'Families here don't really say they belong to Wester Hailes, but rather to Clovenstone or Calder or Murrayburn.' It speaks, I think, of holding fast to community identity in the face of casual labelling.
'We want all of our children to have good outcomes and part of achieving that is to recognise and celebrate their friends and families who hold a community together. We believe we can build a better future for our kids if we don't become prisoners of the past and what was here before.
'Like all schools in Scotland now, we're measured against our destination figures, but we don't put them in order of preference. College, university and employment are all equally viable.'
The school has assembled its 16-plus panel, comprising a dozen or so community partners who meet weekly to illuminate and smooth those sinewy, bumpy pathways that lie in wait for these children. It's a task force that includes Triage, who work with local authorities and the private sector to chivvy out employment and higher education opportunities in communities with economic and cultural challenges. There are people from the charity Enable here too as well as local community centre leaders.
They are at the heart of what councillor James Dalgleish, the Education, Children and Families Convener on Edinburgh City Council describes as 'a journey of transformation' at the school.
'The rejuvenated curriculum aims to meet learners where they are at, by adopting a personalised approach to ensure that each pupil has the opportunity to reach their individual potential. We're seeing the impact of tailored careers and pathway, with a high proportion of pupils heading into good onward destinations when they leave school.'
Alan Ross is from About Youth, a charity based in the Calders. He talks about the challenges of living in those parts of Edinburgh that the Festival's artisan salonistas pretend doesn't exist.
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'I've been working in this community for 20 years,' he says. 'There's been a lot of structural change but the issues are still the issues. Some have evolved from benefit dependency to in-work poverty issues facing households, but there's still a huge disconnect between a community like this and what goes on in the city centre.
'There's a reason why the tour buses don't come out this way. People come to Edinburgh and never be exposed to the poverty that exists here.'
Later, I embark on live 'journey of transformation' in and out of the classes. I meet a group of lads whose additional support needs are being met in a traditional classroom environment. They're making little wooden bug boxes and I'm intrigued. They're a bit reserved at first, but begin to open up when I ask if they'll be installing them up that Calton Hill or Arthurs' Seat.
'What sort of bugs are we talking about here? Like spiders?' I ask. We talk about wasps, the wee bams of the insect world who only get to live for a few weeks and how they seem to sense this and set about trying to cause as much mayhem as possible and how it makes me respect them a bit. They let me ramble on patiently before telling me that their boxes will be placed in much more normal locations, because, well … bugs are in these places too.
Now it's the Home Economics class where the boys outnumber the girls. They're making curry and nan bread which wafts halfway down the corridor. This is a far more popular option than when I was making rock cakes in 1976 that could dent concrete. The skills learned here are life-enhancing: cooking healthily on tight budgets and this addressing the long-term effects of processed food and targeting childhood obesity.
Pupils in the Home Economics class (Image: Gordon Terris) It's taken me 40-odd years to learn to cook quality food and how to prepare it and store it without coming down with something nasty.
There's a beauty class which is well … different class. It's an SQA level-5 course featuring hands, foot and nail care. What's being gained here is wellbeing and self-esteem as well as a pathway into future employment. It's real world stuff.
Now it's the roofing class. Yes, the roofing class. Six lads are battering slate into roof tiles. Already, one local construction firm has hired Liam who left the school las year and is now at college. He's back today in a sort of mentoring capacity. Effectively, he's saying to these lads: 'Look, I got a good job and a professional qualification because of this class. Stick at it.
'This was something I'd always wanted to do,' he tells me and I'm unutterably moved at a young man volunteering to return to his old school to put a little back of what he got here. Next it's a class of boys and girls learning the intricacies of drone technology as they attempt to jockey a wee flying machine round an obstacle course built to resemble a miniature, high-tech show jumping arena. The pupils tell me they're eyeing careers in cyber-technology.
In the English Advanced Higher class I'm delighted to see the presence of Robert Burns on a suggested reading list a few weeks after some Scottish Educational panjandrums had attempted to remove him from the curriculum. Several of these pupils are also studying Latin, the emperor language which unlocks all others.
Pupils learn how to use drones (Image: Gordon Terris) David Young takes me on a guided tour of the new Wester Hailes High School now taking shape next door and due for delivery next October. He's not been in here for a while and he's like a child on Christmas morning. We enter a space which will become a sensory room for children with neuro diverse conditions and additional learning needs. It's still under construction but you can feel the change in the air as soon as we cross the threshold.
The builders take us on to the roof from which old and new Edinburgh falls away before us. There's your Arthur's Seat and your Calton Hill and your Scott Monument and the Castle. You're reminded that this is a small city and there's no great distance between Wester Hailes and these anointed places. In truth, it might as well be another planet
In this new building now rapidly forming under our feet though, you sense a hint of something better for Wester Hailes which might yet shorten the distance between these worlds.
Kevin McKenna is a Herald writer and columnist and is Scottish Feature Writer of the Year. This year is his 40th in newspapers.