School Sports: Top marks for Allan, the pride of Buckhaven

A TEACHER who has revitalised sport at a Fife school has become the inaugural recipient of an award.

In a surprise award presentation at the 2010 Entrepreneurial Exchange Awards, Sir Bill Gammell named Willie Allan, a PE teacher at Buckhaven High School, as the winner of the Winning Scotland Foundation Award.

Forty-nine-year-old Allan has been on the staff at Buckhaven HS since 1994 and in that time has brought many new sports to the youngsters there and created a spirit of team work and pride which leaves the school with a bright future heading into 2011.

At the time Sir Bill said: "Willie Allan has worked tirelessly and selflessly to make a positive difference to the lives of young people at Buckhaven High School. Fantastically positive, an inspirational leader and committed to encouraging participation, he is an exceptional role model and a very worthy winner of the Winning Scotland Foundation Award.

"People who are committed to a culture of winning understand and value the need to be dedicated, ambitious and constantly striving to succeed. Hard graft is very much part of an entrepreneur's DNA.

"The Winning Scotland Foundation Award has been created to recognise and reward people who exemplify the beliefs of the Foundation and who make a lasting and significant contribution to the lives of young people and Scottish sport."

Allan, a well-known after dinner speaker who previously played rugby for the North and Midlands, has been a teacher since 1984 and has loved his time at Buckhaven. He said: "It is nice to have my work rewarded, but this is not simply for me. Without the rector and the rest of the staff backing my ideas up with support and great teaching then we could not have had the sporting success we have had. And, of course, the pupils have been brilliant and have really bought into everything I have tried to do over the years."

When he arrived at Buckhaven football was the sport of the majority, while some of the pupils did not seem to engage in sport at all. Allan set about changing this for the better and wanted to offer more sports. Out of this came the Buckhaven Sharks rugby team - of which there are now four - while gymnastics, basketball and netball were also introduced and football continued to grow.

"From my own experiences I knew that rugby was a good sport to instil certain standards and build up a good team spirit and the teams have done really well over the years, now competing against many of the top schools.I have always encouraged all to play sports, no matter what standard the pupils are at, and nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing the kids out there running about at lunchtimes and after school as well as representing the school at various events."

And sport looks set to continue to grow at Buckhaven under Allan - who returned to work in August after a stroke earlier in 2010 - as there is now a superb new sports facility up and running.

David McClure, rector at Buckhaven High School, said of Allan: "The work Willie has done with the school is outstanding. His games programme is one of the best I've seen. Without fear of contradiction I can say Willie Allan has created the most popular department in the school amongst pupils.

"As a comprehensive, Buckhaven High School takes in the full range of pupils and the PE programme is proving attractive to everyone.

"We are finding an increasing number of pupils involved - both in school PE classes and after school physical programmes - from netball, gymnastics and basketball to football and rugby."