Parents / Guardians of pupils in S3/S4/S5 are invited to a course choice information event on Thursday 21 February 7-8pm in the school hall.
Further information is available here – Course choice evening
Category Archives: Curricular News
Northern Lights Celebration Event
On Wednesday 25th May, Robert Gordon University hosted the second Northern Lights Celebration event. Northern Lights is a program run for Northfield Academy by RGU. The aim of the program is for S1 and S2 pupils to experience university and inspire them to consider higher education in the future.
This year the S1 group learned about what university is and what it can offer, one thing that stuck out for one pupil was toast club. They visited the school of Architecture and were hands on in a number of activities including building castles out of cards and stop animation. For the final S1 session pupils discussed careers and personal qualities, after matching qualities to careers pupils began to think about the qualities that they have and what they may be able to do with them in the future.
The S2 group visited the RGU campus three times this year, each time visiting a different faculty and experiencing a wide range of hands on activities. In engineering they created complicated circuits, in media they made radio and tv clips and at the health faculty they tested their balance when working with physiotherapy students and lecturers.
At the celebration event some pupils shared their experiences of the program, then guests got to see some of the activities for themselves with pupil helpers to share their expertise. Guests also got the opportunity to tour some of the RGU faculties. Before the group was brought back together for some presentations. S1 pupils received a certificate and a Northern Lights hoodie. S2 pupils who had completed the program received a scroll and a Northern Lights Class of 2016 pen.
BBC Microbit coming to Northfield Academy
The innovative BBC Micro:bit has arrived in Aberdeen City schools and will be coming to Northfield Academy in the next couple of weeks. The device is small programmable computer and a collaboration between 29 partners with the aim of inspiring a generation of learners to become creators (and not just consumers) of digital technologies.
These devices will be given to every S1 pupil in Aberdeen City and schools will have the opportunity to use a variety of resources to help pupils access and make use of the devices.
Some great resources to get started with BBC Micro:bit are:
- Resources/support materials for BBC Microbit are available online at https://www.microbit.co.uk/
- Samsung have a micro:bit coding app for Android devices – http://www.samsung.com/uk/microbit/
- There is a FREE BBC Micro:bit and the iPad QuickStart Guide: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/bbc-micro-bit-and-the-ipad/id1099530510?mt=13
- Chromebook/PCs devices can use the various coding editors at https://www.microbit.co.uk/create-code
Technology Will Save Us have a great web page all about the Micro:bit.
Russian Letter Exchange
Miss Craig is looking for pupils from every year to take part in a letter exchange with students from St Petersburg.
This is part of a programme which will not only help the Russian pupils to improve their use of the English language but will also act as a fantastic opportunity for you to make new and interesting friends in a different country, share things about yourself and your culture and maybe learn a little Russian along the way!
You can choose to email or send letters for your discussions and would be a fantastic opportunity to access a different culture!
We already have a number of pupils interested and would love to get even more, particularly from the older years.
If anyone is interested can please get in touch with Miss Craig.
Access RGU Spring 2016 Newsletter
ACCESS RGU delivers outreach activities with schools and communities, coordinates on-campus learning opportunities for prospective students and provides advice and guidance for applicants and enrolling students. Northfield Academy has engaged with Access RGU to open up more opportunities to our pupils. The programme of activities is committed to delivering the University’s strategy to extend access to learning and enable talented individuals from under-represented groups, particularly those from deprived areas, to achieve their ambitions through higher education, whatever their circumstances.
Please find attached Access RGU Spring Newsletter, where you cna read about Northfield Academy’s experiences with the Access RGU team.
Pi Day 2016
As part of International Pi Day 2016, pupils from across the school participated in a variety of Pi related activities.
British Science Week
Friday 11th March – Friday 18th March is British Science week.
On Wednesday 16th March the library will be transformed in to an experiment zone with a number of hands on experiments available from cup and string telephones to elephant’s toothpaste. Every pupil who comes to the library will be given a raffle ticket, a winning ticket will be selected at 1.30pm and the lucky pupil with the ticket will win a Science prize.
A number of S1 pupils will attend evening workshops at RGU with a variety of themes including Making Ice Cream with Chemistry and DNA taster.
There is also a number of activities available across Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire.
Laser Cutter Technology
Northfield Academy have just secured a new piece of Technology which will contribute to the way pupils learn from computer based learning to a realisation of how to make a Product. They will become more innovative as a result of this. Pupils entering into Technology Classes will be able to transfer skills in a new and enterprising way.
Merry Christmas from Business and Tech
Holy Family Maths visit
Holy Family RC Primary 7 students taking part in a relay competition then cooperative learning activity in Maths. A big well done to all the students but especially to team ‘We like Pi’ who won.
Anti-bullying week
1S2 students in Maths taking part in #antibullyingweek #wearealloneeighteenth
Short movies
S1 pupils at Northfield Academy worked on a cross curricular project to research a Scottish Scientist and turn their research into a short comic. They were encouraged and inspired by the enthusiasm of Allan Burnett (author of “Invented in Scotland”) and our fantastic Patrons of Reading metaphrog.
Three comics were selected by metaphrog as best suiting the criteria of the challenge. These comics were then photographed frame by frame and music composed in S1 music classes to create these short films.
The project was supported through the Scottish Book Trust Live Literature Fund and organised by School Librarian Mandy Wilson.
Enterprising Mathematics success
Jake Thain, Calvin Dunbar, Mercy Adeleye and Adam Abdullah represented Northfield Academy at the Enterprising Maths Competition on Friday 17th June.
They gained second place in the poster competition and also were the winning team in the Swiss round.
Congratulations to the team.
Northern Lights Program
This term the Northern Lights programme continued with a session in school and a celebration event held at Robert Gordon University. In the final session of S1 pupils discussed different jobs and the skills and attributes required to achieve their goals, pupils finished by setting themselves targets for S2.
On 20th May parents, teachers and pupils involved in the Northern Lights programme were invited to Robert Gordon University Riverside Building for a celebration event. Refreshments were provided and Aicha Lagrichi, Heather Ross and Anne-Marie Morrison did a short presentation about their Northern Lights year. There was then a tour of the Science labs and a chance to practise some forensic techniques and a chance to learn more about our food. Finally pupils were presented with a certificate and a hoodie to reward them for their hard work during the year.
Sky Academy
Mrs Mackintosh’s English class were offered the opportunity to to visit the Sky Academy Skills Studio in Livingston, as part of a media unit they were studying. After working on scripts and roles for two weeks in class, 21 pupils traveled to the studios in Livingston On Thursday 21st May 2015, ready to create their report about cyberbullying.
Once there the class split into their groups and took on their roles. Presenters got to choose their wardrobe and practice talking to camera, there were camera operators, directors and producers who told people what to do and when and there were editors who used some high tech touch screens to cut out the bloopers leaving a high quality video.
There was then a tour of the call center where we learned that celebrities get through to a special area and that even the Queen has Sky.Each pupil got some goodies to take home and arrived in Aberdeen tired but delighted.
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