Congratulations to Bruce Walker from Echt who gained his Platinum certificate from the Young Aberdeenshire Volunteer Award before he left Echt Primary at the summer holidays. Bruce completed over 45 hours of voluntary work in school and the community of Echt to gain his Platinum award! Well done Bruce!
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Electro-fishing Event
Kemnay Academy pupils enjoy as the River Don Trust demonstrates electro-fishing.
On Thursday 20 June, Jamie Urquhart and Steve Murphy from the River Don Trust visited the academy to demonstrate to S1 pupils the work they carry out. Pupils headed to the river to watch as the two showed pupils the electro- fishing. The process which temporarily stuns juvenile fish with a small shock is used to calculate river populations and assists with water quality and pollution monitoring. All captured fish are quickly returned to the river, unharmed.
Jamie Urquhart from the trust said, “Each year we carry out a regular survey at each village along the Don. We cover all 82 miles of the river and aim to enhance bio-diversity. We are a charity organisation based at Cluny Castle. I enjoy my job as I am a fisherman myself.”
The trust focuses on different points from the start of the river to the finish, especially concentrating on places like sewage pipes. On the day, the pupils saw many types of fish, salmon, trout and lamprey just to name a few. All pupils who took part in the event enjoyed it thoroughly and some said the fish felt ‘smooth’ others saying ‘slimy’.
Mathematics teacher Peter Gibson said, “It was good to see pupils engaging directly with the environment and learning of the contribution that Mathematics and the Sciences make in understanding the natural world to which we belong. Many thanks to Jamie and Steven from the Don Trust, for running the event so well and whose expertise and enthusiasm were wonderful reward for the pupils’ hard work throughout S1.”
Lee Aitken
Well done to all involved 🙂
RGC/Albyn Invitational Athletics Championships
On 16 May a team of 30 S1 – 3 pupils competed in the inter-school Athletics Championships at the Sports Village. This was the first occasion a team from Kemnay competed at these championships and with some outstanding individual performances the team achieved 8th place out a total of 19 competing teams. S1 pupils: Alix Still achieved 1st place in both the 100m and the long jump; Laurie Allardes achieved 2nd place in the high jump with Caitlin Gray winning points for the team in 8th place; S2 pupils: Caitlin Robbie and Louise Dorrington won points in the shot and the 1500m respectively, achieving 6th place while Mason Reid was narrowly beaten into 4th place in his 1500m race; S3 pupils: Douglas Young had an outstanding meet by achieving 2nd place in the 1500m and 5th place in the shot; Cara MacKenzie came 3rd and Emily Cossar 5th in the 100m and Emily also came 4th in the long jump. The relay teams all performed well with both the S3 boys and S3 girls winning points. All pupils were a credit to Kemnay Academy in their attitude and behaviour – well done to all the team! Following her outstanding performance in the long jump, Alix was selected to represent South Grampian in the inter-district team championships.
Education Scotland Conference
Three P2 and P3 children from Echt School spoke about using Talking and Thinking Floorbooks to plan Social Studies, last Friday, at the Education Scotland Conference at Cults Academy.
