'We want all our young people to attain the highest level of qualifications they can at each stage of their education and to feel confident that they can achieve more in the future.'  

Starting life in a new school, and especially going to high school for the first time, is a big step for anyone. We want to give both parents and children all the support we can through this important change and this site offers a range of useful information about our school and how it works. Not all questions can be covered in advance, however, so you should notice that the very first things you are told on the homepage are our address, our phone number and who the people are who manage what goes on. If a phone call or a letter will clear up a problem, do not hesitate - we want to hear from you.

    If there are older brothers and sisters in the family who have come to Kinross High School, you will have a fair idea of what to expect. In any case we have good links with our local primary schools, and make arrangements to let all our new entrants and their parents visit us and learn in other ways what goes on here, before the end of primary seven. The teachers in your child's present school will give a lot of good advice before the big day dawns.
People who have only viewed the school from the outside are usually surprised when they see past our traditional front. They discover a more extensive, and much more modern, set of facilities than they had expected. Nearly four centuries of history have transformed the school over and over again to meet the needs of a changing world. The school is well equipped for the most advanced studies in every subject area. It is also well maintained - providing a pleasant working environment alongside garden and grassy areas for relaxation.

    We are now a medium sized high school with over ninehundred pupils. We offer all the subjects parents would normally look for and, in fact, provide as wide a range of choices and opportunities as many much larger schools.

    We have strong links with our local community and our highly experienced staff are always working to improve the service it has come to expect. However much we update and modernise though, we are steadfastly traditional in some ways. Our teachers set high standards and expect pupils to work hard to achieve them. But we do not make unreasonable demands - any child who comes into the school determined to do his or her best will be given every support and will leave eventually with a sense of real personal achievement.
   

    Sporting, musical and many other extra-curricular events give our school a lively community spirit. Most of our pupils lead a very busy life in or out of the classroom - and thoroughly enjoy it. One important result of all this is that staff and pupils get on well together, standards of behaviour are high because pupils and teachers like and respect one another. We also get to know one another very well. We are glad to be known as a friendly school.

    We value this quality of life very highly. Every young person who joins us benefits from it and, of course, plays his or her part in continuing it. Whoever you are, and wherever you have come from, welcome to Kinross High School.

The school, in collaboration with its associated primary schools, is steadily implementing the elements of the 5-14 national programme. This programme is having a major impact on both primary and secondary schools and in particular the style of teaching in the first two years of secondary.

The main aim of the work is to build on pupils' prior learning experiences in Primary and to set a stimulating challenge,at an appropriate pace, for all pupils in S1 and S2.

Pupils' attainment in English and Mathematics is confirmed by internal assessments and National Tests.Pupils are set by ability in Mathematics in January of S1 , and broad band setting occurs in S2 English. All other classes are taught in mixed ability groupings. All departments in the areas of Language, Mathematics, Environmental Studies , Expressive Arts, and Religious and Moral education are assessing pupils using levels A-F.

Art and Design Department 

The Art and Design Department in Kinross High School is located in a separate building at the Green Road entrance to the school. It is a fairly modern purpose build art and design department dating from 1980. There are four main teaching areas and a pottery area which are open plan and two central rooms comprising of a photography dark room and a staff base. 

Biology Department

Standard Grade Biology helps pupils to develop skills in solving problems in scientific ways. It is a course designed for boys and girls who are considering a career in science, or who quite simply wish to do an enjoyable science subject.

History Department

Poor Law

English system for relief for the poor, established by the Poor Relief Act of 1601. Each parish was responsible for its own poor, paid for by a parish tax. The care of the poor was transferred to the Ministry of Health in 1919, but the poor law remained in force until 1929.

Elizabethan poor law
Before the reign of Elizabeth I the approach to poverty in England was punitive. In 1494 a law had ordered beggars to be put in the stocks. In 1547 beggars and vagrants had been ordered to be branded with a V and made a slave for two years. A law of 1572 continued this approach, declaring that beggars should be whipped and, for a third offence, executed. The only help for poor people was private charity. However, steady inflation and rural economic problems, caused by enclosure and the move from tillage to sheep farming, were worsened in the 1570s and the 1590s by a series of poor harvests. The government was worried that the growing numbers of beggars and vagrants might lead to social disorder, and also came to realize that poverty was not always the fault of the victim – a distinction was made between the deserving and the undeserving poor. The Poor Relief Act of 1601 allowed each parish to collect a poor rate to give a little money to the impotent poor, such as the elderly and the blind; and to provide workhouses for the poor by casualty, such as the sick and the senile. Orphans were to be given an apprenticeship. Only the idle poor, the so-called sturdy beggars, were to be whipped and returned to their place of birth. The 1601 Poor Relief Act did not end poverty, but it remained the basis of England’s poor law system for two centuries, and supplied for the first time a basic safety-net for some of those who had fallen on hard times.