Headteacher’s Welcome

Mr John G Devine
Headteacher

Welcome to Breadalbane Academy, a school for young people aged 2-18 years.

At Breadalbane, we want our young people to enjoy their time at school and leave with a broad range of knowledge and skills; a strong sense of values; and well-developed personal qualities. With these in place, they should be well prepared for every future challenge of life or work.

We aim to offer a rich set of experiences in line with the national Curriculum for Excellence, both within the classroom and beyond it. These include courses designed to meet the needs of all learners, whether academic or vocational; as well as a broad range of wider achievement activities for all as a part of our ‘Breadalbane Guarantee’.

So, as well as acquiring a range of formal qualifications, all our young people are guaranteed additional activities which include: hillwalking, skiing, white-water rafting; trips to employers, expeditions to sites of historical interest; visits to parliament and theatre experiences.  Increasingly, we are building such activities into the fabric of what we do, so that parents may be certain that in addition to a robust taught curriculum, our young people will be guaranteed a varied and valuable wider achievement experience.

We believe that in doing this we are creating a very special experience for our young people which is painted on the very broadest of educational canvasses.

In how many other schools, for example, might a young person be guaranteed to have climbed a ‘Munro’ mountain by the time they are 16?  Having recently joined our pupils trying to do just this on the Lawers range, I saw for myself the skills and attributes that such experiences developed. Though at the bottom, enthusiasm for the venture was not universal, there was not one young person (or adult) who by the top was not demonstrably proud of what they had achieved and of the tremendous view from the summit.    What better metaphor is there for successful education?

The key to high achievement in schools is pupil motivation.  By creating a curriculum that both stimulates and challenges within an environment of positive relationships and high expectations, we aim to get the very best out of our young people.

As a school, we strive to be excellent and want all of our young people to have this same ambition for themselves.

Together, we can do great things.

John G Devine, M.A (Hons)., M. Ed