St Andrew’s and St Bride’s High School

Easter Newsletter 2016

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Our Faith in Action

Dear Parents and Carers,

As another busy term draws to a close it is time to reflect on all the hard work and achievements of our community over the last few months, of which there have been many. The students have been working hard across all year groups, none more so than those preparing for their up and coming SQA examinations and early indications suggest that we are in for another bumper year of results. Pupils have shown a real commitment to the newly introduced S1 Homework Club and the 3 blocks of Supported Study open to students from S4 to S6, showing that our young people are keen to do well and willing to commit time and effort to achieving their potential. In preparation for their Personalisation and Choice programme all our S2 students participated in a day long Retreat based at Chatelherault Country Park and as always were a credit to both the school and to you.

However, we have still had time to enjoy ourselves with pupils taking part in a wide variety of experiences. From excursions, both at home and abroad, to trips to the theatre and museums;

sporting and debating events to engineering and multi-lingual challenges; public speaking success to participation in the BBC School Report, we have certainly been hard at it and I hope this newsletter will give you an insight into some of these things.

In addition to making personal sacrifices during Lent staff and pupils have also been active in fund raising to support those who are less fortunate. Through events such as coffee mornings and bake sales, sponsored hill climbs and bucket collections, raffles and fun runs we have managed to raise more than £4000 for charities such as SCIAF, Down Syndrome Scotland, the Haven in Blantyre and Kilbryde Hospice, supporting many of the most vulnerable people in our local and world-wide communities. This has been possible through the real commitment and leadership qualities of our S6 Charities Committee and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support throughout this academic year.

Over the past few weeks we have seen a few changes within our staffing. At the beginning of the month our Chief Cook, Mrs Maureen Henderson, retired after more than 20 years service. We all wish her well and thank her for her tremendous contribution and care over the years. We now welcome Lynn MacLeod as Maureen’s replacement into the fold. I am also delighted to confirm that Mrs Katrina Lyon was formally appointed to the position of Head of English here in the school, as well as Mr Brian Nelson and Mr Kenny Slowey securing two of our Depute Head positions. We wish them every success over the coming months and years.

Our behalf of our community here in St Andrew’s and St Bride’s I would like to wish you and your families a very happy and restful break.

With best wishes,

Fiona MullenHeadteacher

RETREATS

Thanks to all the staff (and Parents) who accompanied us on the retreats. A particular thanks to all teachers who covered the classes of those teachers on retreat. We are particularly grateful to Fr John Clark, Comboni Father, for his inspiration, particularly at Mass, on the theme of Mercy. 2nd year classes entered into the spirit of the retreats. I think that this is probably the most successful set of 2nd Year retreats that we have had. Thanks to you all for your contribution.

DEBATING SOCIETY

Luke Laneres and Daniel Everett were semi-finalists in this prestigious contest on Tuesday night. Whilst not proceeding to the final, they were truly remarkable and worthy runners up. They are tremendous ambassadors for the school and are to be commended on their performance, intellect, gentlemanly manner and their truly humble response to defeat.

YOUTH SPEAKS COMPETITION

Our First Year Public Speaking Team are celebrating success as they progressed to the Great Britain and Ireland Rotary Youth Speaks competition finals. The students faced tough competition from schools across Scotland and the North of England in the regional semi-finals on Sunday 13 March. The

national finals will take place on Saturday 7 March in Preston.

The S1 intermediate team spoke passionately about the ‘Marvel of Mums.’ Main speaker Adam Khanna compared comic superhero powers to mums’ supersonic vision, healing hugs, dishonesty detection and the dreaded death stare. Adam’s humorous speech was ably supported by chairperson Aoife Houghton, and Aaron Gilbride’s engaging vote of thanks. Their

fabulous teamwork and first class performance propelled the team to victory.

Go4SET

A big congratulations to the winners of the Lanarkshire Go4SET Science and Engineering Competition. The girls

are now through to the National Final taking place on 3 June! Lauren Taylor, Alison Kealy, Megan McRitchie, Erinna Muir and Ellen Aitken

Kilbryde Hospice – Tinto Hill Climb

St Andrew’s and St Bride’s High School has had a support-relationship with the new Kilbryde Hospice since it opened last year, including entertaining at its 2016 Burns Supper and Christmas bag-packing at ToysrUs in East Kilbride.The school’s latest initiative to support the Hospice took place on Sunday 13 March when 21 sixth year students and 4 members of staff took part in a sponsored climb of Tinto Hill,

near Biggar. In one of the few days in past six months when the weather was reasonable – well no snow, rain or high winds – the group, supported by Hospice staff and its team of volunteer Marshalls and First Aiders, made it up and down Tinto in just over 3 hours. The effort raised almost £2000 for the Hospice. Head of 6th year, John McGurk climbed with the 6th year students and said:“We had a most enjoyable day, not only because the weather was decent and the sixth year students were excellent company but they were actively committed to raising funds and making an effort for others in the community who needed their support”

MICRO TYCO

St Andrew's and St Bride's took part for the sixth year running in the Social Enterprise Challenge, Micro Tyco. This year we had 16 teams from S1 and group from the East Kilbride support base; altogether we raised a staggering £3603. This is the highest amount our school has raised to date and as a result we were 1st place overall in Britain for the second year running.

This year, each of our teams had their own business mentor from local businesses as well as a sixth year mentor and a teacher mentor. For the fourth year running, we ran a business brunch which gave the S6 mentors the opportunity to meet with their business mentors to discuss the best way forward for their groups’ business ideas.

Many thanks to Gary Hamilton from SSE who gave an inspiring talk at our business lunch. Many thanks to David Scott from Be Yonder who gave a business talk at the beginning of November to all our Entrepreneurs embarking on the challenge.

The pupils involved in the challenge took part in various activities including: chocolate fountains, classroom tidying, home made Christmas decorations and cards, bookmarks, Just Dance, car washing, board cleaning, sponsored walks and cycles, cake and candies, delivery services from EK deli East Kilbride delivery services, carol singing and other exciting events.

FOOTBALL

Under 16’s are in the ¼ finals of the league cupUnder 18’s are in the ¼ finals of the league cupThe under 16’s were eliminated in the ¼ finals.TAE KWANDOCongratulations to Kerri Thomas (S3) who won 2 Gold medals at the National Tae Kwando Tournament in Belgium. A fantastic achievement!

SOUTH LANARKSHIRE SCHOOLS’ CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPSOur athletes had great success at the recent South Lanarkshire Cross Country Championships in Biggar. Individual silver went to Maria Malley in the S2 Girls’ race and to Sarah Connelly in the S3 Girls’ race.

Meanwhile, the S1 Girls and the S1 Boys picked up team silver medals in their races. S1 Girls’ Team, Holly Coutts, Emma Graham, Kayla McCrone, Holly McAneny. S1 Boys’ Team, Sam Sweeney, Shane Wilson, Oliver Evans, Mark Phimister.

There were also other pupils who performed very well by finishing in the top 20. S2 Boys race – Matthew McGlone 14th, Joseph Hagan 15thS3 Boys race – Andrew Lochrin 10th, Calum Hopkins 14th, Jack

MacBain 18th Senior Boys’ Race – Luke Kirwan 9th.

Our pupils did exceptionally well considering the number of runners in each race, S1 girls (103), S1 boys (109), S2 girls (80), S2 boys (86), S3 girls (51), S3 boys (58), Senior boys (50).

ATHLETICSWell done to Lucy Muirhead (S3) who won the Girls Under 15, 800m at the Scottish Athletics Indoor Championship at the Emirates Arena with a time of 2:21.54. Also, well done to Calum Hopkins (S3) who won a silver medal at the triple jump at the same event jumping 10.82m in his first event.

YOUTH OLYMPIC DEVELOPMENT SQUADCongratulations to Nia Struthers (S4) who has been picked for the Youth Olympic Development Squad for Cycling!

SOUTH LANARKSHIRE SECONDARY SCHOOLS DANCE COMPETITION

On 24 February our dance team comprising three S2 pupils and six S3 pupils danced their hearts out and performed brilliantly at the South Lanarkshire Secondary Schools Dance Competition in Hamilton Townhouse. Unfortunately they narrowly missed out on any trophies but they did themselves and the school proud! A huge well done to the girls who have worked so hard the last 6 months. Hopefully next year will be our year! The girls were; Sophie McLarnon, Sky Thomson, Kacey O’Raw, Helena Gilmour, Mia Hillhouse, Robyn Lee, Cathrine Whyte, Katie McLaren, Lucie Todd.

Also our sport ambassadors, Cara Thomson and Chris Henry did a brilliant job of introducing our girls to the sold out audience

DANCINGRobyn Docherty and Helena Gilmour successfully achieved their Dance Leader Level 1 qualification over February long weekend. The girls gave up 4 days of their holiday to undergo several practical and written assessments to achieve a pass. A great achievement by the girls at such a young age!

WORD WIZARD COMPETITION

A group of S1,S2 & S3 pupils took part in the Modern Languages Word Wizard Competition which took place in the University of Strathclyde. The pupils had to recite the meaning of and spell as many French/Spanish words as they could in 1 minute. They performed exceptionally well and we are delighted that Alessandro Colquhoun of S2 has reached the finals which will be held at the Scottish Parliament in May. ¡Felicidades! Félicitations!

BBC SCHOOL NEWS REPORT

This year we took part in our first BBC School News Report. Pupils from S2 and S3 have been building their reporting skills since August leading up to the BBC's official news day on 10 March. The final news bulletin and other stories can be found at sasbcomputing.wordpress.com/bbc-school-report.Also on the day, pupils were invited to the BBC Studios in Glasgow. They took part in interviewing a sports star, talked to a well known Weather presenter and appeared live on the Kay Adams show to talk about the current Refugee Crisis.All pupils who took part did a fantastic job in representing our school.

TECH FUTURE GIRLS CLUB

The S1-S3 Tech Future Girls club run by the Computing department has been a great success this year. The girls have been working on lots of different projects using a range of technologies. Mollie in S1 has become an expert in using the Lego-Weedo to create her very own Flappy Bird! The girls also got a sneak preview of the BBC Microbit and had to opportunity to try programming them to do lots of fun things. Another

popular activity has been coding where the girls used Python and Scratch to create games. The Tech Future Girls club is open to all girls in S1-S3 and runs on a Friday during lunch!

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

18 APRIL 2016 8.45AM SCHOOL RETURNS

25 APRIL 2016 7.00PM PARENT FORUM

2 MAY 2016 HOLIDAY

5 MAY 2016 IN SERVICE DAY(ASCENSION THURSDAY)

19 MAY 2016 MAYFEST MUSIC CONCERT

23 MAY 2016 P7 PARENTS’ INFORMATION EVENING

27 & 30 MAY 2016 HOLIDAY

2 JUNE 2016 CARITAS AWARD CEREMONY

2 JUNE 2016 S6 VALEDICTORY MASS 7PM

14, 15, 16 JUNE 2016 SCHOOL SHOW

24 JUNE 2016 END OF TERM 1PM