Knightswood Secondary School

Knightswood Secondary School
Motto Fidelis
Type State Funded, Secondary
Headteacher Kay A. Duffus
Location Knightswood Road
Glasgow
City of Glasgow
G13 2XD
Scotland
Local authority Glasgow City
Staff 110
Students c.1400 pupils
Gender Co-educational
Ages 12–18
Website Knightswood Secondary School Website

Knightswood Secondary School or KSS is a secondary school located in Knightswood in the west-end of Glasgow, Scotland.

The school is one of the city's largest secondaries with a roll of approximately 1500 pupils. KSS is co-educational, non-selective and non-denominational, and provides education for pupils of varying backgrounds. KSS also contains the dance school of Scotland. The pupils of the dance school take part in academic classes with pupils of the secondary school itself, though usually are required to take a lighter academic workload due to dance training. The head-teacher is Kay Duffus.

Contents

Management

As well as a headteacher and deputy headteacher, each school year has an assistant head teacher, who is able to have a more personal contact with students. The offices of the headteacher, deputy head and assistant heads are all held in one corridor.

Guidance (known as pastoral care) teachers are assigned by registration classes (see below). There are typically twelve guidance counselors in one school year.

Each department has a department head, who is responsible for organizing the teaching programmes and class allocations of the teacher in that department.

Classes and timings

Classes normally consist of seven periods on Monday and Tuesday lasting fifty minutes each and six periods lasting the same amount of time for the rest of the week. Between second and third period there is a 10-minute break, and between fourth and fifth is a 40-minute break for lunch. In addition, a 10-minute registration class allows attendance to be recorded, and any housekeeping tasks such as uniform checks or letters home to be attended to.

Most subjects have classes in the size of 20 to 30 pupils. For first to fourth years, classes will be named by year and a set letter (i.e. 1A, 3D, 2C) The order of classes does not bear any relation to the skill of the pupils in those groups. In fifth and six year, due to subject choices, classes change with every period, and naming them is not necessary.

Layout and structure

KSS was the first school designed by the modernist architects Gillespie, Kidd & Coia. Designed in 1938, it was not built until the 1950s, being opened on 10 October 1958 by John Maclay, Secretary of State for Scotland. It is now protected as a category B listed building.[1]

KSS contains four floors, as well as three annexes. Departments are contained as follows:

Ground floor First floor Second floor Third floor
Facilities

Staff conference room
Crush hall1
Dining hall
Drama studio2
Guidance offices
Offices
Toilets

Assembly hall
Drama studio2
Staff rooms

Computer suite
Staff rooms

None
Departments

Chemistry
Design
Drama
English
Technical Studies

Biology
Dance3
Drama4
English
History
Home economics5
Modern studies6
Music
Physics

Art
Computing
Mathematics

French
Geography
Religious education

1The crush hall is a social area containing students' lockers. It is given its name for the "crush" of students it is able to contain during rain or other conditions that would cause students to be unable to remain outside during breaks.

2 The drama studio, with separate performance and audience areas, extends to two floors.

3 The dance department provides dance instruction for mainstream students, and not students of the dance school of Scotland.

4 Due to lack of space certain English and home economics rooms also double as drama rooms, with classes rotating which room they are in.

5 Home economics covers the subjects of food and textile technology.

6 Modern studies is most closely compared to politics, or recent history.

International exchange program

Knightswood has a student exchange program with dancers from the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School in Melbourne, Australia.

Notable alumni

References

External links