Fun at fifty for Ferryhill

Ferryhill Primary celebrated 50 fabulous years with a series of fun events at the school last month.  A whole school fun day, a special assembly and the burying of a time capsule were among the highlights of a memorable week for the Drylaw school.
Ferryhill itself is not 50 years old - the school off Groathill Road North was originally called Groathill, which opened in 1958 with 500 pupils - Groathill was only renamed Ferryhill in 1983.

Back in the early 1980s there was a move to amalgamate Drylaw Primary School with Groathill, but education chiefs was decided to leave things as they were. However that was to change on 3 March 1982 when Drylaw School - which was situated off Easter Drylaw Drive - was destroyed by fire and Drylaw pupils were transferred to Groathill. Drylaw did not reopen as a primary school - it was rebuilt as a school for children with special educational needs - so Groathill became the only catchment school for the children of Drylaw and Telford. As the composition of the school changed, so too did the name - Ferryhill took on its new identity as the school we know today in 1983.

So the school building is now over 50 years old and Ferryhill currently has 303 pupils, plus nursery classes, and the school continues to go from strength to strength. Among a series of notable achievements over recent years are:

A superb HMI school inspection report in 2001: Then Education Director Roy Jobson visited the school to congratulate them and said: “This is a really fantastic report, one of the best in Scotland, and is a credit to the hard work and commitment of Ferryhill’s staff. That so many of the performance indicators were in the top category - 17 out of 23 - was a great thrill for me, particularly as these were in the important areas.”

January 2004: Ferryhill Headteacher Joyce Gilmour was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List in recognition of her services to education.

October 2006: Ferryhill Primary achieved the prestigious Eco Schools Green Flag for their environmental activities, the top award. This status was renewed in April 2009
So there’s been quite a lot to celebrate over the years, and the anniversary last month was another good reason to party!

On Thursday 21 May the school had a fun day to remember, with games and activities running throughout a gloriously sunny day - and all accompanied by an open air disco.

Then on Friday, families and guests were treated to an extra-special Assembly, staged and performed by pupils from throughout the school.

The nursery children delightfully performed some timeless nursery rhymes, then P5/6 compared education in 1958 to education now. Guests were asked to consider: the belt, school dinners with no choice of menu, nit nurses, being sent home at lunchtime if it was a rainy day, girls banned from wearing trousers, sitting in long rows of old wooden desks, 100 lines as a punishment, screechy blackboards, truant officers.... compared to today’s conditions, then to vote for what they preferred. It was no surprise that the modern school environment won the vote hands down!

P1A & B performed a selection of old playground games - skipping, peevers, hula hoops, hand-clapping (‘a sailor went to sea, sea, sea ... remember?) and that old favourite ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’
P4 shared their thoughts about Ferryhill then and now - great Groathill and fabulous Ferryhill - then the P5s entertained the assembly with a 50s - 70s musical medley. P6 looked at travel and exploration over the last 50 years and also recorded the changing fashion trends, then P7 performed another musical medley with music from the 80s to the present day.

P4A pupils talked about Ferryhill today, describing what the school means to them and why they are so proud to wear the school uniform, P2B came up with a range of adjectives to describe the school followed by a hearty rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ and P2A continued the ‘Fabulous Ferryhill’ theme. P3 gave an energetic ‘La Bamba’ and the school choir brought the memorable assembly to a close with a fantastic ‘Believe’.

The assembly was followed by the burying of a time capsule in the school grounds to mark the special anniversary. P7 Calvin Ewan, P1 Claire Stone and nursery twins Kian and Declan Venters were given the honour of burying the capsule, which contained a copy of the school rules, a school tie and badge, the current school roll, pictures of members of staff and their classes, a prefect badge, a pupil council badge, contributions from classes on what Ferryhill life is like at the school today and what life may be like in the future, and top of the charts music from 1958 and 2009. The children were joined by local Councillors Lesley Hinds and Tim McKay to mark the occasion.

Ferryhill Headteacher Susan Thomson said: “Ferryhill really is a fabulous place. It’s not any one thing - not just the teachers, the staff, the pupils or their parents - it’s all of us together who make Ferryhill such a fabulous place to be.”

Ferryhill - still fabulous at fifty!

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