Capacity

Rising Rolls working group meeting

11 December 2025: The first meeting of the JGHS Rising Rolls working group, led by Andrew Picken, met earlier this week.

The group agreed that the aim is to campaign for creation of more useable space in the school to improve the quality of the education experience for pupils in the coming years.

The group will be undertaking further research to better understand the impact of the rising rolls, following which they will formulate an informed plan of action.

If you are interested in getting involved with this working group, please contact Andrew Picken:

Email Andrew Picken

Reports from Parent Council meeting

5 June 2025: The JGHS Parent Council held their last meeting of this school year on Wednesday 4 June – many thanks to all those able to attend.

Agenda and reports

Meeting agenda:

Focus on Maths teaching at JGHS – Miss Ashling Dolan, CL Maths
Report and updates from the Parent Council, including:
- capacity and rising rolls
- finance and fundraising, including report from James Gillespie’s Trust
Discussion of issues with particular relevance to S1-S3
Headteachers update, including reports on Short Life Working Groups on mobile phones, communications and homework – Mr Neil McCallum
Q&A

The meeting minutes, and copies of the presentations and reports from the meeting are now available:

Draft meeting minutes (Padraic Kinsella; opens as pdf)

Parent Council update (opens as a pdf)

Maths teaching at JGHS – Miss Dolan (opens as pdf)

JGHS Maths padlet (discussed at the meeting)

Headteachers report – Mr McCallum (opens as pdf)

Minutes of meeting of James Gillespie’s Trust 29 April 2025 (opens as pdf)

Mobile phone policy

Updated 12 June: As was discussed at the meeting on 4 June , the school has now issued a new draft policy on mobile phone use in school:

JGHS draft mobile phone policy

The school has asked for feedback from parents and carers via the form below:

Mobile phone policy feedback

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Parent Council wil be on Tuesday 2 September. This will be held online, and the joining link will shared by the School after the summer break.

Reports from PC meeting on 25 March 2025

25 March 2025: Many thanks to those who joined the Parent Council meeting this Tuesday.

Agenda

Health and Wellbeing – Inclusion X – Ian Porter and Anna Kirkwood
Comment from Tracy Urquhart, Senior Manager Quality Improvement Officer, CEC
Update from the JGHS Parent Council
Headteacher’s report
Q&A

Meeting recording

Watch the meeting recording (opens on YouTube)

Summary of meeting discussion (from transcipt, opens as pdf)

Presentations

Inclusion X suport at JGHS (Anna Kirkwood and Ian Porter, opens as pdf)

PC report 25 March 2025 (Hilary Snaith, co-chair; opens as pdf)

Finance update 25 March 2025 (Kirstin Leighton, treasurer; opens as pdf)

Headteacher’s report 25 March 2025 (opens as pdf)

Policy documents

The headteacher mentioned a number of school policy documents in his comments. You can access a range of these policies on the JGHS website:

JGHS policy documents

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Parent Council will be on Wednesday 4 June in the school library at 7 pm – all parents and carers are very welcome to join us.

Rising rolls and capacity at JGHS

1 February 2023: Following discussion at the JGHS Parent Council meeting in October 2022, it was agreed that the Parent Council would seek to engage with the City of Edinburgh Council about future accommodation requirements at the School.

The Parent Council has now sent a letter to Edinburgh City Council outlining the our concerns and asking for meaningful dialogue with the Council to address the issues raised.

A copy of the letter is available at the link below:

James Gillespie’s High School Capacity Planning

If you have any comments to make about the issues raised, please send them to the Parent Council.

Email the Parent Council

City of Edinburgh Council response to JGHS deputation concerning capacity issues

19 March 2021: The Parent Council has received a response to the deputation it made to the meeting of the Education, Children and Families Committee on 2 March 2021, which raised concerns about the lack of provision of additional classroom accommodation for 2021/22.

Parent Council Deputation (2 March 2021)

City of Edinburgh Council response (18 March 2021)

At the Council Committee meeting it was agreed that further investigation would be carried out to ascertain whether additional accommodation for August 2021 would still be a possibility, even at this point in the school year.

It was also agreed that consortia arrangements to share senior level courses between schools would also be looked at.

The response deals in part with these issues, but the Parent Council will be considering whether further steps should be taken to pursue the points raised in the deputation.

All Parent Council documents relating to the S6 capacity issue and plans for flexible digital learning in 2021/22 can be found on the Useful Files page

Useful Files

Deputation to City of Edinburgh Council about capacity at JGHS

26 February 2021: The Parent Council has submitted a deputation to the meeting of the Education, Children and Families Committee on 2 March 2021, raising concerns about the lack of provision of additional classroom accommodation for 2021/22 for consideration by Councillors.

JGHS parent Council Deputation to Education, Children and Families Committee

If you would like to support the deputation, please contact members of the Committee to let them know:

Contact Education, Children and Families Committee members

Since submitting the deputation, we have also received a reply to our letter to the school (below) which restates the Council’s position that additional accommodation will not be made available in 2021/22 and provides further details on how the school thinks FDL will work.

Headteacher response to Parent Council letter of 5 February 2021

The Parent Council will continue to pursue the points raised in the deputation next week to underline the parents’ preference for ensuring accommodation is in place for next year.

Capacity issues at JGHS

5 February 2021: Thank you to everyone who attended the meeting hosted by the Parent Council on Tuesday 2 February 2021 on capacity contingency proposals and to all those who put forward comments and questions before, during and after the meeting.

Link to recording of meeting on YouTube

It is clear that there are significant concerns about the plans and in particular about the fact that the Council has ruled out additional classroom accommodation, on the lack of specific communication on the proposals to S5 pupils and their parents, and on the potential effect on next year’s S6 pupils, both from a social and an educational point of view.

The Parent Council has written to the school, Council officers and councillors to highlight these concerns and asked for an early response – see below. Any replies will be posted here when received.

JGHS PC comments on capacity contingency proposals 5 February 2021

Parents submitted a number of comments and questions, prior to the meeting on 2 February 2021, a summary of which can be found below:

Capacity Contingency Plans – Parental feedback and questions 25 January 2021

Parent Council meeting to consider S6 capacity issues

29 January 2021: On Tuesday 2 February 2021 the parent council will host a meeting considering proposals to deal with school capacity problems in 2021/22.

The meeting will be held online at 7pm; the link for the meeting will circulated via school email next week.

Parents have already submitted a number of comments and questions, a summary of which can be found below:

Capacity Contingency Plans – Parental feedback and questions (25 January 2021)

Further details and links to other documents can be found at the 18 January entry below.

This meeting will be of particular interest to those parents with students in S5 as the proposals will particularly affect those going into S6 next year.