Grove Pupils Impress at Official Opening
Yesterday the new Grove Academy school buildings were officially opened by First Minister, Alex Salmond. While the new facilities are superb, the outstanding impressions from my afternoon in the school were from the pupils. The quality of their singing, dancing and instrumental performances during the opening ceremony were exceptional. The volume of pupils who performed, demonstrated the strength in depth of pupil talents and the continuing excellence of the Music Department in the school and the quality of the visiting instrumental teachers. The three sixth formers that showed our party around their new school were intelligent, engaging and well informed. Head Teacher, John Hunter, delivered an impressive address. He acknowledged that working through the school's refurbishment had been, at times, frustrating but Grove now had 21st century facilities. He had anticipated that it would be a challenge to maintain the school's SQA examination results with the accompanying distractions from the adjacent building works during the construction phase. In fact, the school had improved its exam results during the last two academic sessions. He thought that the challenge now would be to capitalise on the excellent new facilities for teaching and learning and continue the upward trend of pupil attainment.
Yesterday the new Grove Academy school buildings were officially opened by First Minister, Alex Salmond. While the new facilities are superb, the outstanding impressions from my afternoon in the school were from the pupils. The quality of their singing, dancing and instrumental performances during the opening ceremony were exceptional. The volume of pupils who performed, demonstrated the strength in depth of pupil talents and the continuing excellence of the Music Department in the school and the quality of the visiting instrumental teachers. The three sixth formers that showed our party around their new school were intelligent, engaging and well informed. Head Teacher, John Hunter, delivered an impressive address. He acknowledged that working through the school's refurbishment had been, at times, frustrating but Grove now had 21st century facilities. He had anticipated that it would be a challenge to maintain the school's SQA examination results with the accompanying distractions from the adjacent building works during the construction phase. In fact, the school had improved its exam results during the last two academic sessions. He thought that the challenge now would be to capitalise on the excellent new facilities for teaching and learning and continue the upward trend of pupil attainment.
