Well done to Mrs Hammersley’s S3 Business Class for all their hard work running the Book Fair.  They have earned £205 in rewards for the school to spend on books.  Mrs Hammersley’s class will also be helping choose some of these books and we hope to have them on the Library shelves soon. Thank you to all the staff who helped during the Fair.

If you missed the Fair you can still place an order for any books you wanted to buy. Check the Library News web page for a link to browse the Scholastic website and place an order online. Orders and cash payments can also be handed to Miss McGill at the School Library. The deadline is Friday 6^th December and all orders must be paid in advance.​

Parents of pupils in S2 to S5 in Auchinleck and Cumnock Academies are invited to an information evening at Cumnock Academy on Tuesday 3rd December at 7pm.

If your child is in S2, S3, S4 or S5 they will soon be asked to consider which subjects they would like to study next session in The Robert Burns Academy.

To assist with this decision parents are invited to this information evening where they will hear from school staff about the subject choices available to pupils in each year group and you will have the chance to ask questions and discuss the opportunities available with myself and DHTs from both Auchinleck and Cumnock.

A letter with a tear off reply slip has been sent home with pupils this week.

Peter Gilchrist

Head Teacher

Barony Campus

Auchinleck Academy received the excellent news last week that we have been accredited as a Gold Rights Respecting School! This is an absolutely outstanding achievement for all of our pupils and staff, who have worked really hard together over the past four years to ensure that children’s rights are fully embedded throughout the school in our policies, practice and ethos.

Achieving Gold Rights Respecting status means there is strong evidence in a school that:

• A child rights approach based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is embedded in all school policy, practice and culture
• Children, young people and adults in the school have a thorough understanding of child rights, and rights respecting attitudes and language are embedded across the school
• RRSA has had a positive impact on children and young people’s learning and wellbeing
• tudents see themselves as rights respecting global citizens and are advocates for social justice, fairness and children’s rights at home and abroad

On 30^th September we were visited by Steven Kidd from UNICEF UK who spent the day at Auchinleck Academy meeting with pupils, parents and staff, and finding out about our school. He was extremely impressed by his visit and commented on how clear it was that rights are very much part of the school environment, and in fact underpin every facet of school life.

He compiled a report in which the following have been highlighted as particular strengths of our school:

• Confident, articulate students who have an excellent knowledge of rights and a strong belief in their ability to make a difference
• Commitment to and passion for embedding children’s rights from the school’s senior leadership team and from staff.
• Strong focus on wellbeing and inclusion with a huge variety of support available to pupils.
• An extensive record of fundraising achievement, for causes such as Mary’s Meals and Unicef
• Some excellent individual examples of practice e.g. PLP learning, Rights awareness video, LGBT rainbow wall.

Mr Kidd also commented in his report on how relationships between pupils and between pupils and staff were noticeably positive and indicative of a culture based on mutual respect. He stated that students on the learning walk were confident and enthusiastic, listening carefully to any questions and replying informatively. In focus groups, students were polite and respectful, happy to offer their views and keen to hear those of others, whilst the Steering Group spoke passionately of their work to drive forward rights practice in the school. It was also clear to the assessor that the young people of Auchinleck Academy see themselves as agents for change, confident in taking action on the issues that matter to them and often inspired by children’s rights.

Well done Auchinleck Academy!

To help celebrate Book Week Scotland Mrs Hammersley’s S3 Business Studies class are helping Miss McGill run a Scholastic Book Fair in the Library during the school day from Friday November 22^nd to Wednesday November 27^th 2019. The fair will offer over 200 books from 60 publishers with prices ranging from £2.99 upwards.  A selection of stationery will also be on sale. A taster leaflet can be downloaded from the Library News webpage.  

Parents & carers – tell us what you think of our career services for the chance to win £50 of Love to Shop vouchers http://bit.ly/2KFI5NvIt

Right of the month for October at Auchinleck Academy has been Article 6 (life, survival and development). To encourage our young people to take action in support of this right, Auchinleck Academy has been participating in UNICEF’s annual OutRight Campaign. This year part of the campaign has involved encouraging young people to put pressure on the UK government to commit more spending to vaccination campaigns. In PLP classes last month, pupils in all year groups learned about the importance of vaccines and the fact that 5.4 million children die before their 5th birthday, usually because they don’t get the health care and life-saving vaccines that they need. Pupils also learned that the UK government is hosting an important event in the summer of 2020, called GAVI: the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. At this event, the UK Government will pledge how much they will donate to vaccinating children around the world.

In PLP time our pupils wrote postcards which will be sent to the Secretary of State for International Development, stating how important it is for the government to commit a substantial spend to vaccines. This is an excellent example of the young people in Auchinleck Academy making their voice heard and influencing decision makers to do more in support of each child’s right to life, survival and development.

Auchinleck Academy, Cumnock Academy and Supported Learning Centre, Barshare Primary, Greenmill Primary and Hillside ASN will all be closed to pupils on Thursday 25 June and Friday 26 June 2020

The new Barony Campus including Robert Burns Academy and SLC, New Loch Norris PS and New Hillside ASN will also be closed to pupils on Tuesday 18th August and Wednesday 19th August 2020.

Right of the Month for September at Auchinleck Academy is Article 42: Knowledge About Rights. To promote and uphold this right, staff and pupils at Auchinleck Academy have produced their very own film about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and what it means to be a Rights Respecting School. The film contains important information to help our pupils learn about the nature of their rights. It also highlights the role of Duty Bearers in ensuring that all of our young people know about their rights and can enjoy them. Well done to all of the pupils and staff who starred in the film or helped to produce it! Thanks in particular to Aarran Whitfield in 2B1 who was amazing as our lead actor, and to Mr McGlynn in the Art department for his excellent work in directing and editing the film.

Members of the Rights Respecting School group have also created an inter house quiz to test everyone on their knowledge of rights- all classes will take part in this over the next few days during PLP time and there will be a prize for the winning class! Why don’t you test your own knowledge of children’s rights? You can find the quiz in the Rights Respecting school section of the website.

In addition to all of this there is so much going on again this session to promote and support children’s rights at Auchinleck Academy. Last week, for example, several pupils took part in a community litter pick in Auchinleck to improve the local environment along with residents and pupils from the primary school. Our pupil run Fair Trade stall is also still going strong and selling lots of chocolate, biscuits and jelly babies to pupils and staff. We are also continuing the campaign that S2 pupils started last session to reduce plastic consumption, and have now sold lots of our reusable water bottles with the slogan ‘Save the Oceans’.

Our School Community Worker, Mary Gladwell, and Home Link Worker, Ashley Robertson, have also been doing lots of great work to support children’s rights and empower our young people to stand up for their rights. They are working with pupils to run a food bank, uniform recycling project, and a shop and swap clothes exchange initiative. Mary has also been running a Young Carers group and an LGBT support group, and she has recently started a Youth Forum group which pupils can attend to discuss matters that are important to them, and campaign for changes that they want to see in the local community. Recently in PLP time all pupils had the chance to vote on issues which they would like to be raised at the Scottish Youth Parliament- this was an excellent example of pupils exercising their right to voice their opinion and have a say in matters that affect them.

Please note that this academic year there will be two additional In-Service days for staff.

They will be as follows:

• Tuesday 24th September 2019
• Friday 3rd April 2019

Pupils should not attend school on these days.

PC Alison Baillie and Angie MacDonald CAMHS are planning to run a few evening workshops for parents. They hope to raise awareness on online safety, drugs/alcohol, bullying, mental health etc.

The workshops will be in the format of small groups to discuss any concerns.

If interested please contact PC Baillie on 01290420617