Pupils at Woodmill High School are celebrating success after being awarded a national football accolade.
The Dunfermline school, which was hit by a devastating fire in August last year, was awarded the Scottish Schools’ Football Association School of the Year title last week.
The award is presented every year by the governing body of football in schools and was awarded to Woodmill as recognition for the “commitment and dedication” of staff and pupils during the “extremely challenging time” after the fire.
Rector Sandy McIntosh spoke of his pride at the school receiving the award after the difficult period following the disruption caused by the blaze.
We can finally break the news…we have been awarded the @sschoolsfa School of the Year for the dedication of pupils and staff in the fulfilling of fixtures in last year’s difficult circumstances! Here is Sean MacNamara, Paige Moore, Robyn McCafferty & Jack Reid with the trophy! pic.twitter.com/zmZ65gpirI
— Woodmill PE Dept (@Woodmill_PE) October 5, 2020
He said: “Every year they will award it to a particular school that they think has been a prime example of one that has gone over and above to support football
“I think that the challenges that our young people have faced throughout the year made it very easy for them to see it was exceptional.”
“Our young people have been fantastic and they’ve been really resilient. I am very fortunate and it’s made the challenging past 14 months a lot easier.”
Following the fire, the school’s 1,400 pupils had to be moved to different buildings across the region due to the extensive damage caused.
But despite the disruption, the football teams at Woodmill High were still able to complete all their scheduled fixtures – with the senior team even reaching the semi-finals of the Scottish Senior Shield.
Mr McIntosh explained: “Quite a lot of our young people were decanted to different educational locations across West Fife but we managed still to complete the 53 fixtures over all our year groups.
“One of our senior teams was playing a match at Stornaway and because of the circumstances of the school, we had to get them flown up because we couldn’t afford for the staff to be off for the two days.
“It’s been a massive commitment from the PE department in supporting that.”
As well as receiving the school of the year title, the school has had a number of pupils selected for regional and national teams – an achievement that the rector says highlight the commitment of the whole school community.
He said: “We have also had six players within the school selected for the regional team at under-18 level and we had three players selected at the under-15 level which is really good.
“One of our pupils, Jack Reid, had a cap at national level at under-18 level and also our current Scotland under-17 woman’s player, Robyn McCafferty.
“So we have had a really, really successful year and the award recognises the commitment of the young people, the PE staff and the parents.”
