The Indefinable School

In 1974, to mark The Edinburgh Academy’s 150th anniversary, alumnus Magnus Magnusson released The Clacken and the Slate, a book which painted a vivid picture of a leading educational establishment, not only in Scotland but in the UK.This bold new history, released in the school’s 200th year, revisits and expands upon Magnusson’s account to tell a more far-reaching, more complex story. It is a tale of dramatic change, a tale of many endings: of corporal punishment, of boarding, of the English exam system.Beginnings, too, have been momentous: co-education, pastoral and curricular revolutions, life-changing 100% bursaries.Arguably, the developments of the last fifty years have outweighed in significance the many changes of the first 150. It’s a story of light, but also of shade. Written at a time of intense public scrutiny about the school’s past, this book takes a hard and open look at an institution that has too often buried its secrets.Its pages give voice to the many experiences of it