St. Luke's High School

St Luke's High School

School Logo

Head Teacher	Mrs Patricia Scott
Depute Head Teacher	Jim Drennan, Tony McKinney, David Gordan
Head Pupils	Not Elected At Present
School Type	Public, Secondary
Religious Affiliation	Roman Catholic Church
Founded	19??
Location	Springfield Road, Barrhead
Roll	601
School Colours	Green, Purple & White
Feeder Schools	St John's, St Mark's, St Thomas'
Free School Meals	15.4% Of Pupils
Clothing Grants	26.7% Of Pupils
Ethnic Minority Proportion	2.5% Of Pupils
Attendance	92.7% (2004/2005)
School Website	http://www.ea.e-renfrew.sch.uk/stlukes/

St Luke's High School is a secondary school situated in the Auchenback area of Barrhead, East Renfrewshire, in the Greater Glasgow area. The school is over 25 years old and Mrs Patricia Scott is the current head teacher, recently succeeding Mr John Fitzpatrick. The school focuses on its Catholic ethos in teaching, and its close relationship with the communities of Barrhead and Neilston, as well as areas further afield including Paisley, Pollok and Uplawmoor.

Associated Primary Schools

Also known as "feeder" schools, they include:

• St John's Primary School, Commercial Road, Barrhead.
• St Mark's Primary School, Roebank Drive, Barrhead.
• St Thomas' Primary School, Broadlie Road, Neilston.
  

Associated Churches

St Luke's is known for its ethos, and its general awareness of the local catholic churches:

• St John's Church, Aurs Road, Barrhead.
• St Thomas' Church, 70 Main Street, Neilston.
  

The Senior School

The senior school is composed of s5 and s6 pupils.

Head Boy & Head Girl

Josh Polson and Carlyn Coyle were the head pupils for the class of '07. Elections for the new head pupils will take place in the near future for the class of '08 representatives.

The class of '08 started temporary s6 timetables in June, subject to change in August when pupils return with the knowledge of their s5 SQA exam results. Likely candidates for head girl include Emma Johnston, Kathryn Murphy, Chloë Polson and Rebecca Speirs, among others; likely candidates for head boy include Aidan Smeaton, Jack Jordan, Joseph Pettigrew and Craig Martin, among others. Most of these pupils have had experience in the pupil council at some point in their school career, and are active in extra-curricular activities.

The head pupils are decided by democratic vote; any s6 pupil can run an election campaign prior to a ballot vote. All s5 pupils, s6 pupils and teachers can vote for a male candidate and a female candidate. The male and female candidates with the most votes achieve the titles of head pupils.

The Student Council

Although mostly dorment, the student council in St Luke's has made a great contribution to the school.

Issues including the condition of the water fonts and fund raising have been dealt with in the past.

In 2005, a new range of school uniforms that modernised the current ones were proposed by students Aidan Smeaton and Chloë Polson, and by 2006 this became a reality. Bottle-green tops were manufactured and are allowed to be worn to the school to this day.

Other uniform issues such as new blazers have been debated extensively, and although there is a current 'senior school' blazer, many have been disappointed in the school's lack of consultation with the pupils regarding appearance and price. In response to this, Mr McKinney is holding meetings in June this year, to change the braiding on the current school blazer from gold to silver, and improve the blazer quality.

S6 Committees

There will be various committee's established in August, when s6 pupils return from their summer holidays. Each will deal with a specific topic or project (ie. the 'Graduation' committee deals with raising funds for and finding venues for the summer graduation at the end of the year).

As well as these, there will be a core committee composed of senior prefects, established to work alongside the head boy and head girl. They will be the canditates who ran for the head pupil places, but failed to get it. Essentially, anyone who runs for head boy or head girl will be automatically given the role of senior prefect, and has a place in the core committee.
The core committee are responsible for relaying information regarding the other projects to senior management in the school, as well as other senior pupils in s5.

Last year's s6 (class of '07) have been heavily criticised by some for failing to relay adequate information on time to s5 pupils. In contrast to this, the class of '06, noted to be one of the best s6's the school had ever had, were lead by 'Citizen Of The Year' award winner, Paul O'Kane, and multilingual, musically talented Teresa Wong. Both recognised as key players in the yeargroup's success.

Priviliges

Senior school pupils have other rights that junior pupils do not have. They include:

• The allowance of wearing a senior tie.
• Lunch queue priority.
• A common room (s6 only).
  

With priviledges come other reponsibilities for the students however. Students have to manage their own environment better, for example, the common room must be kept clean by the s6 pupils. Aidan Smeaton and Emma Johnston of s6 devised a rota for 50 of the 60 students to clean the common room on a fortnightly basis, after only being in s6 for 3 hours.

Past Events

The X Factor

The school has an annual talent show, usually running around Spring time. This year, it was held on Monday the 30th April, and was a huge success. Like the television show with the same name, acts in any form can audition in Winter, and 8 are chosen to compete on the night. There are 3 knock-out stages, as 8 acts are whittled down to 5, then 3, then the final winner. At each stage, the surviving acts have to perform a new song as their fight for first place.

This year's winners were Nicole Bryers and Barry McCormack (both s6), who sang and played guitar respectively. Nicole wowed the judges with her unique vocal talents and Barry did the same on his acoustic guitar. Their performances included "Nothing Compares 2 U" and "Cannonball".

Future Events

London Trip: November 2007

It's possible that a trip may be planned to London by the drama department in November 2007, following the success of the winter trip, 2005.

USA Trip: February 2008

Following the success of the February 2006 trip to Vermont and Boston in the USA, the school have planned another trip in February 2008. There are approximately 40 pupils from s6 & s3 and 4 teachers going.

Notable Incidents

2005 Fire

Extensive damage had been done to the kitchen facilities and drama department of the school in October 2005. Pupils and staff were given the day off while the fire brigade fought the blaze, and teachers attempted to salvage anything of value. The fire started approximately 7:30 in the kitchen.

Consequently, the Drama department had to be temporarily relocated to two English classrooms, while a new temporary dining hall was created in the smaller of the two gym halls.

In April 2007, the downstairs regeneration had been fully completed, and both the drama department and kitchen had been relocated back to their original locations. The layout of the kitchen is the same, although there is a plasma screen on one of the walls of the dining hall and kitchen appliances are new. The drama department's design varies slightly, with a brand new classroom (previously the office, toilets, make-up room, and cloakroom), a new make-up room (previously the storage cupboard), a new office (previously the small classroom), and completely revamped studio and technical room. Mrs Amanda Gracie, head of the creative arts department in St Luke's has commented that she is very pleased with the new area, and all classes have resumed as normal downstairs.

The higher, advanced higher and intermediate classes sat their final exams in May 2007, and were the first to do so since the department's make over. The new classes for '07 to '08 have been actively timetabled as of June 2007.

Departments

The school is subdivided into departments, each with their own subjects. Some (such as English, Computing and Drama) have specific SQA courses with awards; others are more personal subjects with no awards (such as Religious, Personal Social and Health, and core Physical Education).

The departments are divided as follows:

• Language And Communication
  • English
  • Modern Languages
    • French
    • Italian
    • Spanish
• Social Subjects
  • Geography
  • History
  • Modern Studies
• Creative Arts
  • Drama
  • Art
  • Music
• Business, Technical & ICT
  • Business
    • Business Management
    • Administration
  • Technical
    • Product Design
    • Graphic Communication
    • Craft & Design
  • ICT
    • Computing
    • Information Systems
• Mathematics
• Science
  • Biology
  • Chemistry
  • Physics
• PE & Health
  • Physical Education
  • Home Economics
  • Hospitality
• Religious Education
  

Famous Pupils

Christopher Brookmyre