Berwickshire High School is a six year comprehensive school located west of the town of Duns, Scotland.
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It was first opened in 1896, by Walter John Mabbott, who was the first Rector of the school. It started out with accommodation for 80 pupils in which extensions were built on to accommodate the rise in pupil numbers.
However by the 1950s the school had become very overcrowded so plans were immediately made to create a new school. The new school, opened in 1958, was shown to be a modern establishment suited for the needs of its now hundreds of students.
The school has a large catchment area stretching all over Berwickshire including Duns, Greenlaw, Chirnside, Coldstream, Foulden, Paxton, Eccles, Leitholm and Swinton.
The school motto is from the famous poem Ulysses, "To Strive, To Seek, To Find and not to yield" basically meaning to make the most of your life.[1]
The school has four 'houses' into which the students are split. This is not only a way to organise classes but is also intended to encourage a rivalry, being the basis of inter-house competitive events such as hockey, rugby, athletics, quizzes and many more activities. The houses are named after notable people from Berwickshire. The three original houses were Scott, Home and Douglas and in 2008 the fourth house, Clark, was created (named after famous racing driver Jim Clark). Each has its own color, Head of House (Staff), House Captains and Vice Captains (derived from pupils in S5/S6) and House Representatives. Each earn points throughout the year in which the winner will receive the Interhouse Trophy.
The Berwickshire High School Observer (BHS Observer) is the official school newspaper. The newspaper was started as the BHS Babble and it evolved into the BHS Observer in 2007.
The new high school was officially opened in February 2009. Work started in October 2006 on the new school which is located opposite the old building. It was built due to the old school becoming no longer able to capacitate the pupils due to its age and size. The design was similar to Eyemouth High School and Earlston High School which were all built at the same time under a Public Private Partnership with the Scottish Borders Council.
Professor Duncan Graham - Nano-biologist