Stewart's Melville College
Stewart's Melville College (SMC, or "Stew Mel" for short) is a private secondary school located on Queensferry Road in Edinburgh, Scotland.
General Cock Sucking
With the exception of the sixth form (which is co-educational) Stewart's Melville College is an all boys school with a roll of over 700 pupils. Boarding facilities are available, though the vast majority of pupils live in the surrounding area and do not board. Fees are around £7000 (GBP) a year and around £13000(GBP) for boarding.
The school is twinned with the Mary Erskine School ("MES") (an all girls) private school which is located approximately one mile (2 km) from Stewart's Melville College. Together SMC and MES have a co-educational Junior School which caters for pupils from 3 to 11 years old. The Junior School is located mainly on the SMC Campus.
SMC offers pupils the ability to sit SQA exams, including Standard Grade, Intermediate 2, Higher Grade and Advanced Higher Grade levels. As is the case with many independent schools SMC has exam results well above the national average. The vast majority of all pupils will go onto higher education. [1]
Sport
Stewart's Melville College is involved in a wide variety of sports, most of which are coached by mixture of staff from general departments as well as the PE department staff. Sports include Rugby Union, soccer, field hockey, athletics, swimming, cricket, squash, fencing, sailing, badminton and volleyball. A respectable number of pupils are selected to represent district or national teams.
Rugby union is the main sport of Stewart's Melville College, however. The school owns a sizeable playing field at Inverleith, approximately 2 miles (3 km) away from the school's campus. During the week teams train at Inverleith (usually twice weekly, after school) in preparation for playing matches against other school (from across Scotland) on Saturday mornings. Most team coaches are SRU approved referees.
Extracurricular
There are many activities available for pupils outwith the classroom. The school has a large CCF and The Duke of Edinburgh's Award is also in operation.
A popular debating society also exists, under the stewardship of the pupil president and the Coach, which often competes in national events.
The school's choirs and orchestras are also popular and have had many performances in the Usher hall and Festival Theatre as well as numerous school hosted events and an annual christmas concert in St. Mary's Cathedral. The school also hosts many performances of plays (e.g. Macbeth, Journey's End) and musicals (e.g. Kiss Me Kate, Into the Woods) by pupils.
Students have taken part in many recent professional performances in Edinburgh including Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat, Whistle Down the Wind and Swan Lake.
Since the early 1960s the school has organised an outdoor education programme for boys (and girls from MES) in the third year. It is located in the north of Scotland at Carbisdale, and is based in an old Castle which has been converted into a Youth Hostel. The trip consists of a number of outdoor activities that vary from year to year including hillwalking, orienteering, kayaking, team building activities, visits to nearby historic sites and environmental studies of the surrounding woodland. Other Edinburgh schools have begun to copy this idea. Carbisdale Castle has a plaque of the Stewart's Melville College badge in its foyer above the main door.
Pastoral
In the first year pupils have a form tutor who is responsible for their wellbeing. Each form tutor will have approximately 20 students: these students will be in the same Form Class. There is an Assistant Head Teacher who has overall responsibility for the first year.
Between Second Year and Fifth Year boys are split into house groups. There are six different houses: Appin, Ettrick, Galloway, Kintyre, Lochaber and Torridon (named for areas of Scotland). Each house has a Head of House who is in charge of the welfare of all boys within his/her house. There is also an Assistant Head of House who has specific responsibility for those pupils in the house who are also in second year. There are a number of interhouse competitions throughout the year which are twinned with the corresponding housegroup from MES. There is an Assistant Head Teacher who has overall responsibility for all pupils in Second to Fifth Year.
In Sixth Form students are largely independent. Students have a tutor with whom they register in the morning, and who also helps them with UCAS applications. There is an Assistant Head Teacher responsible for the Sixth Form.
Sixth Form
The Sixth form at Stewart's Melville College consists of approximately 240 male and female students. Classes take place at both the Mary Erskine and Stewart's Melville College sites, with buses operating regularly to transfer students between the two sites.
Every member of the sixth form is a prefect and is expected to help out around the school. The maintenance of the prefect body is the responsibility of a head boy, a head girl and five deputy head boys and five deputy head girls.
A Colours system exists to highlight the achievement of those pupils in the sixth form who are outstanding in a particular extracurricular field, such as debating, rugby and music.
History
Stewart's Melville College originated when two schools — Daniel Stewart's College and Melville College — merged in 1972 to become "Daniel Stewart's Melville College".
Melville College was created in 1832 by Rev Robert Cunningham. The school was originally named "The Edinburgh Institution for Languages and Mathematics" but its name changed when the school moved to Edinburgh's Melville Street.
Daniel Stewart's College was opened in 1855 by the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, to whom Daniel Stewart, upon his death in 1814, left a sum of money and instructions that it should be used to create a hospital for needy children within the city. The hospital was located on the current Queensferry Road campus (designed by David Rhind). The hospital transformed into "Daniel Stewart's College" in 1870.