Number 31 Autumn 2018 On Top of the World Editorial The Summer term of an academic year can be filled with mixed emotions. For many, it means their time either as a pupil or as a member of staff at The Academy has come to Contents an end. This year was particularly special as our two Deputy Heads, Jaqueline Andrews 3 The best of TGA online and Andrew Evans, our Head of PE, Stewart McAslan, Prep School Teacher, Rob 5 Armstrong becomes World Williams, and our Director of External Relations, Malcolm McNaught, began their Champion for the second time retirement journeys. These five highly-regarded and deeply-loyal members of staff collectively served 7 The Glasgow Academy after the The Academy for over 150 years. First World War As readers of Etcetera will appreciate, there are few people who know The Academy as well as Malcolm McNaught: his unique perspective on the school has been formed 8 On top of the world during the 37 years in which he has been the parent of three children who attended 11 Anecdotage the school, member of the English Department and, ultimately, Director of External Relations. 13 Glasgow Academical Club Malcolm taught English 16 Westbourne Section with passion and energy, and is particularly remembered 19 Announcements for his penchant for accents when reading aloud! A 22 Reunions and get-togethers committed, conscientious and 24 Obituaries organised teacher, he always strove to do his best for his pupils and to encourage their self-belief. Malcolm was compassionate, supportive Do we have your e-mail address? and good-humoured, always It’s how we communicate best! able to see the funny side of situations and offer practical and sound advice. In his 24 years in the English Department, Malcolm directed productions of Keeping in touch “Rookery Nook” and “The Wind in the Willows”, and organised several trips to Stratford Upon Avon to see RSC productions. He was heavily involved in Scripture The External Relations office is situated in Union for many years, and also ran the Golf team until 2007. Malcolm always saw the Colebrooke Terrace. Former pupils are always importance of the public face of the school, and from 1995-2004 was the editor of The welcome to pop in for a chat and look around Chronicle. Increasingly, he became more interested in this aspect of his career, and was a the school. Just give us a call to arrange a time. perfect fit for the newly created post of Director of External Relations, a post he took Our address is Colebrooke Terrace, up in 2005, and executed with vision and style. Glasgow, G12 8HE. An exceptional judge of character, Malcolm built an outstanding External Relations You can contact us on 0141 342 5494 or at team and was in many ways class-leading in his work. He reconnected thousands of [email protected] readers of this publication very happily with their school. He gave prospective parents The Glasgow Academical Club whatever time or help they needed to come to the realisation that this really was 21 Helensburgh Drive, Glasgow, G13 1RR the right place for their family. In all he did, Malcolm worked with great integrity, diplomacy and sensitivity. President: Paul Frame We wish Malcolm many happy times now enjoying seeing The Glasgow Academy Email: [email protected] from a grandparent’s perspective and I am sure this won’t be the last we hear of The Academy Club pavilion is available for Malcolm in these pages. functions. The front cover and lead feature in this issue of Etcetera features the outstanding Academical Club London Section achievement of former pupil Ricky Munday (1994) who, back in May of this year, President: Alex Gray successfully reached the summit of Mount Everest. This is not the first time Ricky has Email: [email protected] made the front page splash of this magazine. He last featured some 10 years ago in issue number 5 following his expedition to climb Khan Tengri in Kyrgystan. As ever, this edition of Etcetera contains the regular features such as former pupil Like us on Facebook; join us on LinkedIn updates, school successes, Academical Club news,and tributes to academicals we have lost, and highlights upcoming events and reunions. Our next big event will be the 136th Annual Academical Club Dinner on Friday 9 November. I very much hope you will be able to join us. Steven Dignall Director of External Relations & Development 2 Etcetera The best of TGA online SQA results 2018 ongratulations to Glasgow CAcademy pupils on their excellent performance in this year’s SQA exams. At Advanced Higher our pass rate was a record 95.4%. One pupil, Tim Chan gained 5 As, and is a Finalist in the SQA’s Academic Excellence Award. Another pupil Ritobrata Mukhopadhyay, gained the top mark in the country in Advanced Maths and won the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Prize for that. All five of our pupils with Oxbridge offers gained their Oxford or Cambridge places. At Higher, a record 44 Academy pupils have 5 or more A grades, with two pupils being awarded seven A rate was 77.4%.) 14 subjects achieved pass rates, which are all the more grades and nine pupils gaining six 100% pass rate. Drama and Latin achieved impressive given that we have an A grades. The pass rate was 96%. 100% grade As - the fifth year in a row open entry policy and present pupils (Nationally the pass rate was 76.8%.) that Drama has been awarded nothing less for a significantly greater number of Eight subjects achieved more than than A grades. Highers than many schools. 70% grade As. The Rector, Peter Brodie, said: “I “These results reflect the At National 5, 80% of Academy would like to congratulate all of our commitment, hard work and talent entries gained A grades. 47 pupils S4 to S6 pupils on an excellent set of of our young people and I thank our achieved straight A grades. Our pass examination results. I am particularly staff for their outstanding support and rate was 97.7%. (Nationally the pass encouraged by our A grade rates and encouragement. Well done to all!” Glasgow Academy World Champions at Maths in Motion International Final he Glasgow Academy has won Tthe World Final of the Maths in Motion International Challenge. In the final our team successfully beat off tough competition from 26 other schools from countries around the world, including China, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Belgium and England. The winning car was designed, built and raced by then S3 pupils Finlay Brown and Sambhav Chadha. Other team members involved were: S3 - James Olney, Zamo Jamal, Alan Shen and Jack Murphy S1 - Kevin Chen, Lewis Ng, Christian Mckay, Umar Moughal, Jonny Millar, Ben Thomson and Luke MacKenzie. Throughout the year, the whole Maths in Motion Club set up cars for a series of races against schools all around planning pit-stops and calculating fuel requirements. the world. They work just like real This is the fourth year running that The Glasgow Academy has been in the finals. Formula 1 engineers - setting up cars, Huge congratulations to all on this achievement! Etcetera 3 TGA take Silver in National Championship Girls Coxless Fours t National Schools Regatta our Girls four (Jenny Olney, AAnna Colley, Lauren Amner and Louise Miller) rowed through Henley Rowing Club to take Silver behind Lady Eleanor Holles in Championship coxless fours. This was our first-ever medal in this event and both the LEH and Henley boats had GB Internationalists on board. Alex Milne finished second in the B final of Championship sculls. Ru Smith had a storming finish to row through the field and win the C final of the same event. The girls eight finished eighth in the A final of Championship eights and the boys quad finished 6th in the B final of Championship quads. The J15 girls eight finished sixth in the B final of the event. We congratulate our rowers on their fine finish to this year’s Championships. Dancing Tennis hloe MacDuff (Prep 4) won her yle McKay (S2) won La Manga Csection at the Stirling Highland KCup u12 (his first International Games and at the Edinburgh Tennis tournament) and the Scottish International Stage Dance Festival Junior Closed u12. He also competed (where she was the individual dancer in the British Nationals and ranked with the highest number of points Scottish number 1 in U12 boys July across all competitors). She recently and into August, 24 in the UK, and also won her section at the West of has been invited by LTA to join Scotland Stage Dance Festival and is the Junior National Pathway for 15 the South of England TDCI Modern children in Scotland from the ages Juvenile Champion. Due to Chloe’s of 10-14 developing their tennis at continued success she has been asked a National level. He was a member to compete in the Canadian National of the ball boy team at the televised Highland Dance Championships and at Davis Cup in Glasgow weekend 14th the British Stage Dance Championships Sept to 16th September. in summer 2019. Kirsty Breaks U17 Hammer Record Again he 2018 School Games National Finals took place at Loughborough TUniversity between 30th August and 2nd September, with Kirsty Costello (S5) contesting the Athletics competition. Having broken the Scottish U17 record three weeks ago, previously held by Glasgow 2014 finalist Myra Perkins, Kirsty went even further in Loughborough, extending the mark by 3cm to 60.52m. Kirsty said: “I’ve been in good form in recent training sessions and was expecting something over 60 metres, so I was hoping to repeat that again and keep doing it consistently.