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

Report from Parent Council meeting 25 November 2025

25 November 2025: Thanks so much to everyone who was able to join the PC meeting this evening. Many apologies for the technical issues – we are very grateful for your patience.

Particular thanks to all our contributiors for their comments and presentations, and to our comms officer Kate Pinault for handling all the behind-the-scenes activity so smoothly.

Agenda

  • Headteachers report
  • Performing Arts Curriculum update
  • Rising Rolls interest group
  • 2024/25 SQA results at JGHS
  • Comment Cllr on City of Edinburgh Council policy on mobile phones in schools
  • Q&A

Rising rolls interest group

As was discussed in the meeting, Andrew Picken is chairing a parent group interested in exploring ideas that could address the problem of rising rolls and space contraints in the JGHS. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact him by email:

Email Andrew

Meeting information

Parent Council meeting recording (opens on YouTube)

Performing Arts curriculum (Lisa Shearer; opens as pdf)

JGHS SQA results 2024-25 (Nigel Cotter; opens as pdf)

Parent Council update (opens as pdf)

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Parent Council will be on Wednesday 28 January 2026 at 7 pm in the school library.

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.

Next Parent Council meeting on 4 June 2025

21 May 2025: The next meeting of the James Gillespie’s High School Parent Council will be held on Wednesday 4 June at 7 pm in the school library.

All parents and carers are most warmly welcome to join this last meeting for the current academic year.

If you have any questions or issues that you would like to raise ahead of the meeting, please get in touch with the PC by email:

Email the Parent Council

Agenda

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

Reports from meeting on 25 March 2025

Information from the last meeting held online on 25 March

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.

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.

Edinburgh City Council NE/SE Locality Meetings

12 February 2021: The Council’s NE/SE Locality meeting was held on 19 January 2021.

The main topics discussed were:

School session dates 2022/2025 – the Council will be sending out a questionnaire to parents, teachers and pupils looking at arrangements for school holidays up until 2025.

Remote Learning Provision – including the roll out of digital devices; the provision of Wifi to those without it; the availability of online teaching/learning resources; the approach to remote learning across Edinburgh schools.

A copy of the presentation can be found here:

NE/SE Locality Meetings January 2021

A note of the meeting can be found here:

NE/SE Locality Meeting 19 January 2021

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