Gap Students

Australian Josh Dillon from The Scots College, Sydney has just joined the Academy as the 2007 Gap Student. A keen rugby player, representing his school’s 1st XV at full-back and at number ten last year, and a tennis enthusiast, with an interest too in rowing and in cricket, he will be working in the PE department and living in Tait House which should be a familiar experience as he was a weekly boarder himself at school. He has already been to the Hillfoots Rugby Club and hopes to play some competitive rugby while he is here.

Josh is on his first visit to Britain and, despite the recent rain, his first impressions have been very positive ones.  He finds people friendly and says that Dollar pupils “seem to get along well with each other and have the time to be happy”. When he returns to Australia at the end of the year, he will be studying Commerce and Arts at Sydney University. In the meantime he is hoping that his time in Scotland will “give him the opportunity to take on board new experiences”.

Meanwhile over in New Zealand Former Pupil Adam Robson has been spending a term working at Lindisfarne College, Hastings, the school attended by former visiting Gap Students, Ryan Newton and Nick Walker. Adam, pictured outside the school, enjoyed helping in the PE department, coaching a junior tennis team, driving the team in the minibus to away matches, covering for absent teachers and being addressed as ‘Sir’.

Adam is now extending his work experience with some fruit picking before he returns to Scotland in March. In New Zealand he met up with former fellow pupils and rugby players Scott Paterson and Gordon McRorie.

Meanwhile Eilidh Mackie FP has been sending long emails about the year she is spending in Uganda. She loves working in the “wilds of Africa” and has made some great friends, but misses duvets, chocolate and, like Robert Louis Stevenson’s Ben Gunn, toasted cheese. She has learned to cope with the rain, the red dust and the steamed bananas.