It started with a tweet...

Early in November, a tweet appeared in my timeline highlighting a job at a school in the Western Isles. It was accompanied by a stunning photo of the school.

It got me thinking about how many beautiful locations there must be for schools in Scotland. On a whim, I tweeted: “What school has the most scenic backdrop in Scotland?”

What school has the most scenic backdrop in Scotland?

— Henry Hepburn (@Henry_Hepburn) November 11, 2021

There was an amazing response, from schools all across Scotland - just take a look at the replies to that first tweet.

This week, for a bit of fun in the run-up to Christmas, I thought I’d run a “world cup” of scenic Scottish schools. School settings that I’d been sent photos of in November went into the mix, with 48 schools competing against each other using Twitter polls: 12 groups of four schools, then a last 16, quarter-finals, semis and tonight’s final.

Taking pride in Scotland’s scenic schools

I thought this might pique the interest of a few people, but the response has been amazing. There have been more than 20,000 votes and, more importantly, it’s been fantastic to see the pride people take in their schools and how they can energise a community to get behind them.

Tonight, Lochaber High School (below) has been voted the most scenic school in Scotland, after winning in a poll against fellow finalists Morgan Academy, of Dundee, after around 3,500 votes were cast in five-and-a-half hours from this afternoon. Congratulations to Lochaber for being a most worthy winner! And thank you for sharing such wonderful photos over the past few days.

Truly, though, it feels like everyone who took part is a winner. Aside from letting us all see some breathtakingly picturesque settings for schools, the whole contest has been a reminder that schools are a focal point for communities - places that people rally around, root for and care deeply about.

At the end of such a long and difficult year for Scottish education, it’s been an absolute treat to organise all this - but it wouldn’t have amounted to very much at all without schools and their communities up and down the land getting so involved.

Congratulations once again to Lochaber High and to all the other many school communities that threw themselves into this with such gusto.

A very merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all. And maybe we’ll do it all again sometime...

THE FINAL #WorldCupofScenicScottishSchools

— Henry Hepburn (@Henry_Hepburn) December 24, 2021