Welcome to the Prep School


I believe that, at The Glasgow Academy, we offer our young pupils a tremendous start to their education in the form of our Preparatory School. Our pupils experience a caring and personal environment which blends the best traditional values with today’s most up-to-date teaching methods.

The Glasgow Academy’s Prep School operates on three sites: Kelvinbridge in the West End of the City, Atholl in Milngavie and Dairsie House in Newlands. The main entry points to these sites are Nursery and Kindergarten, with a limited number of places available for Prep One. The pupils at Atholl and Dairsie transfer to the Kelvinbridge site at the end of Prep Four. Each of the sites has a slightly different ‘feel’, while sharing a harmonised curriculum and a common set of values and beliefs.

The stunning new Prep School building at Kelvinbridge, coupled with the ongoing investment at Atholl and Dairsie, ensures that the pupils have the finest possible facilities in which to be educated.

A web site can only go so far in terms of giving an insight into the Prep School. The only real way to appreciate the quality and care that is on offer is to pay us a visit. To this end, I hope to see you very soon.

Peter Brodie

Rector

Welcome to The Glasgow Academy

At The Glasgow Academy we are passionate about developing the talents and potential of young people. Academic excellence is central. We have high expectations of the children in our care, and we nurture them and believe in them so that they rise to those expectations. Our aim is to create a very purposeful, civilised, welcoming and mutually supportive community which both challenges children and develops in them the confidence and self-knowledge to succeed. We want each boy or girl to discover and develop his or her talents and to strive for high standards. We encourage our young people to make the most of the numerous opportunities on offer at The Glasgow Academy, be they in scholarship, music, drama, sport, public speaking, outdoor activities, serving the community or clubs and societies. The Glasgow Academy is a happily busy, ordered and hard-working community, where we strive to put achievement, respect for each other and integrity at the centre of our life. We encourage our pupils to wish to succeed, to wish things to work well, and to enjoy helping others and giving to the wider world.

We want our young people to leave us as focused, well-rounded and above all happy individuals. We aim to develop in them the love of learning and the ability to think for themselves and to go on learning which will prepare them for the fast-changing world of their adult lives. If when a former pupil is twenty-five years old, someone remarks on what an interesting and interested, positive, able and good-natured person they are and wonders where they went to school, we will feel we have done our job. We are concerned not with turning out types, but with enabling individuals to fulfil their individuality and with giving them the best possible start in the lives they have it in them to lead.

We very much value our partnerships with parents and the family feel of our school. The Academy is big enough to offer opportunities to all and to challenge even the exceptionally gifted, but small enough to be a very friendly community. Do come and see us for yourself: we look forward to welcoming you most warmly.

The aims of The Glasgow Academy are:

1. To encourage and assist the individual talents of each pupil to be developed to his or her full potential.
2. To develop in pupils the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for self-fulfilment in their personal and social lives beyond school, in continuing education and in their chosen occupations or callings.
3. To encourage pupils to be independent, to develop a spirit of citizenship and to become active members of the community within school, within the local environment and nationally.

To achieve the above aims The Glasgow Academy –

1. Provides a broad-based education which offers a curriculum of sufficient variety to satisfy both the demands of intellectually able pupils and the needs of the less academic.
2. Ensures that the core subjects and the associated skills of literacy, numeracy and communication are given due prominence.
3. Provides structures and disciplines which enable pupils to study and learn in an atmosphere that is orderly but secure and relaxed and which are responsive to the needs of each individual.
4. Fosters an interest and proficiency in private study through assignments, homework and library skills.
5. Provides a wide range of games and activities manned by staff with the assistance of external coaches and advisers.
6. Nurtures within pupils the qualities of leadership, creativity, and responsiveness to the needs of others.
7. Values the development of character just as highly as academic achievement or sporting prowess.