Erskine Stewart's Melville Schools year in review 2021/22 session

Leadership Team and Governing Council appointments

At the start or the 2022/2023 session we had a few additions to our Leadership Team.

Ken Pritchard ended his term as Chair of the Governing Council of Erskine Stewart’s Melville Schools in August and Alasdair Seale was appointed by the Merchant Company Education Board as our new Chair. Alasdair is the owner and Managing Director of Trinity Factors, a former pupil of Stewart’s Melville College and has two grandchildren in the Junior School. The School would like to thank Ken Pritchard for all the work he has done for ESMS during his time on the Governing Council.

Anthony Simpson was appointed as ESMS Principal, in August 2022, overseeing ESMS Junior School, The Mary Erskine School and Stewart’s Melville College. Anthony joined ESMS a year ago, as Head of Stewart’s Melville College. He was awarded the new role following a highly competitive recruitment process, during which he impressed the Governors with his strong leadership skills and ambitious plans for the future.

Frances McCrudden was appointed as Head of Stewart’s Melville College, in November 2022. The role attracted a number of excellent external applicants but with her exciting vision and commitment to wellbeing and academic excellence, Frances showed herself to be the strongest choice. Frances was born in Edinburgh and studied Economics at the University of Strathclyde, gaining a Bachelor’s Degree. She was awarded a PGCE Distinction from University of Glasgow and began her teaching career in Surrey, before coming ‘home’ to Edinburgh, in 2006, where she joined the ESMS family.

Awards

This year ESMS Junior School was a chosen as a finalist in the Independent Prep School of the Year category. We were the only Scottish schools to be nominated in this category.

ESMS was also named a “Microsoft Showcase School” in 2022. This makes us part of a leading group of schools that demonstrate vision and innovation in teaching. Only a few institutions earn this designation, and we are thrilled to be the first independent school in Scotland to hold this accolade.

Academic performance

We are delighted to report that our students had another year

of excellent SQA exam results at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher levels earlier this year. As a result of their hard work 97% of our S6 students from last year got their firm choice of university. We couldn’t be prouder of their achievements or their exciting list of destinations which includes Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, St Andrews, Glasgow School of Art, Northwestern University (USA) and London School of Economics.

Sport

At ESMS we believe that sport should be for every pupil. We have nearly 180 teams across 22 sports. We have had some fantastic sporting results this year. In Rugby, SMC won the Inspiresport National 1 Whole School Conference for the third year in a row and our U16 team lifted the Scottish Schools Cup at Murrayfield. The MES 1st X1 hockey team won the Scottish Cup semi-final and is looking forward to the upcoming final and SMC won the East District U18 and U15 hockey tournaments. Our Primary 6 pupils had a good football season winning the EPSSA Edinburgh Schools Cup and the Edinburgh Spring Cup. Students across MES, SMC and ESMS Junior School have also won medals across a range of sports, including cross country, skiing, swimming, badminton, athletics, cricket, orienteering and rowing.

The Mary Erskine School was delighted to be awarded a place in the UK’s top 20 all-girls schools for cricket, in The Cricketer Schools Guide, for the second year in a row.

Performing Arts

Music and Performing Arts is big part of School life at ESMS with 27 bands, orchestras, ensembles and choirs and several Performing Arts clubs running across the Schools. There are also over 950 specialist music lessons taught each week. After months of restrictions, the students have loved being able to perform in front of large audiences once more. Just some of

our highlights have included our return to the Tattoo as their official school choir, a choral and orchestral concert in the Usher Hall, the Jazz and Blues concert, the Junior Chamber Concert, our annual dance show, Kaleidoscope and a number of productions, including Little Shop of Horrors, Dr Doolittle, Our Town, We Will Rock You, The Tempest and Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. We were particularly proud of Adam R (S4) who had a starring role in this year’s Hollywood blockbuster, “The Lost King”.

Outdoor Learning

Our new Outdoor Learning Manager, David Ogilvie, hit the ground running at the start of last session, leading a range of educational opportunities in the outdoors. Just some of our highlights included a four day cycle from Carbisdale to ESMS, a winter hillwalking weekend in the Cairngorms, and a wilderness trip to Assynt with canoeing, hillwalking and camping. We also partnered with Mountain Training Scotland, enabling a number of ESMS staff to move towards achieving a nationally recognised qualification in walking leadership. We were also delighted to be awarded the Cycle Friendly School Award this year. Last year’s session ended with the welcome return of our full programme of outdoor residentials, including the popular eight day Carbisdale residential.

Supporting The Community

Our Schools took part in a wide variety of fundraising activities over the year and raised over £30,000 for a range of charities, including Findlay’s Friends, Edinburgh Sick Kids, Open Arms Mayankho, Malawi, MyName5Doddie Foundation, Social Bite’s Festival of Kindness, Maggie’s Meals, Health in Mind, British Red Cross Ukraine humanitarian appeal, WWF and Trussell Trust Food Banks. We were particularly proud our group of 26 students from Primary 7 who walked 55 miles of the West Highland Way, to help raise money for Future Hope India, a charity that helps to house and educate the street children of Calcutta.

ESMS has also began a programme of events to share ESMS resources with other schools across Edinburgh, starting with the Sports in Her Shoes event, to raise awareness of the impact of female puberty on Sport and our Higher History Conference.

Eco School

The School published its Green Action Plan, with 20 pledges to make the School more sustainable, including: audits of our cleaning practices, paper usage, catering and school trips, the introduction of electric school vehicles and an ambitious plan for energy generation at ESMS.

Equality and Diversity

Our Equality and Diversity Task Force has focused on gender equality over the last year with the launch of our Equally Safe at School strategy (ESAS). Whole school questionnaires with staff and students were undertaken to establish priority areas, which included enhanced staff training and additional workshops for students on gender equality, peer on peer abuse and standing up to or supporting friends.

Stewart’s Melville College joined The Mary Erskine School in achieving its LGBT Youth Scotland Gold Charter Award this year. Staff from both senior schools marched alongside our students at the Pride March, in June, to celebrate and support our LGBTQI+ community.