Firrhill High School is a secondary school located in the south-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. The school was established in 1960, being unveiled by the city’s lord provost. The school has around 1123 students with a teaching staff roll of around 121 ref>http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00420794.xlsx The school serves areas such as: Oxgangs, Colinton Mains, Colinton Village, Bonaly, Fairmilehead, Buckstone, Craiglockhart and Longstone. In 2001, the school underwent drastic refurbishing work, with several run-down buildings dating from the 1960s being either refurbished or demolished with new buildings being built in their place. This was completed in mid-2005. The school was refurbished by a private finance initiative.
Headteacher and SMT
The current headteacher is Graham Hamilton. Nick McClellan, Julie Statham and Ross Isdale are the deputy head teachers.
Houses
Pupils at the school are separated into four groups, known as "houses". The houses are:
Allermuir
Braidlaw
Caerketton
Darroch
The Houses are named after three of the Pentland hills, to the south of Edinburgh and in sight of the school. As of 2017 Student ties have changed to remove individual house colours, in place a plain blue tie with logo centered, S6 Pupils have additional gold stripes on ties.
Notable former pupils and teachers
Robbie Foy, formerly of Liverpool F.C. and Scunthorpe United FC, is a former pupil of the school. Foy, Sives and Vita represented Scotland Schoolboys in 2000 and 2001 respectively whilst at the school and all three played in the Victory Shield.
Margot Wells the elite athletics coach, and wife to 100m Gold-medallist Allan Wells, taught Physical Education at Firrhill in the late 1970s
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education
On 13 June 2006, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education reported on the school. The inspectors identified as key strengths "The coherent and progressive programme of enterprise activities from S1-S6" and "The high standards of attainment at S5/S6". The report also commended the strong direction given by the Head Teacher Karen Prophet. The Report also commended the condition of the school saying that the school was well-designed and had good specialist teaching areas and had good social areas for pupils. HM Inspectorate of Education issued a follow-up report on 22 April 2008. The report identified "good" or "very good" progress regarding all the items identified for action in the 2006 inspection report, and found no need to conduct further follow-up inspections.
