Welcome to our School Report Blog for Live News Day!

We had a great morning today covering 8 stories around the school which focussed on our Mental Health & Wellbeing.

Here are a few pictures of the team in action!!

We used iMovie for interviews and podcasts in Pro Tools too, we made a Weather report for the Twitter account and we carried out a survey on Mental Health provision here at Boclair Academy. We visited PE, Music, Wellbeing and Health & Food Technology Departments to interview pupils for our stories. We also watched the BBC School Report Live Stream from London for a little while, but we were very busy so didn’t sit around too long! It was a great day and we are now really inspired to keep blogging and reporting on real world issues in our school!

Period 1 we visited Mrs Morgan with her  Acro Gymnastics class.

Please enjoy our iMovie report on Acro Gymnastics in Mrs Morgans PE class this morning.

PLEASE CHECK BACK LATER TO WATCH OUR MOVIE!

The S1 buddy programme is an initiative that lets younger students pair with an older pupil they can speak to when they first move to Boclair Academy.

Please listen to us talking about our interveiw with the S1’s.

Today we are focus sing our reporting on health and wellbeing here in Boclair Academy.

Boclair Academy Wellbeing Suite

The Wellbeing Suite at Boclair Academy supports people who are struggling in mainstream school or people who are nervous about making the transition from primary school to secondary. At Boclair we have two specific teachers who underwent Nurture training to be able to give the quality of support they give to the young people here. The suite is a very happy, colourful, and peaceful room so that people can feel more comfortable and really open up to each other. You can catch a full interview with one of our members of support staff, Ms Coote, later on this morning.

Dance and Mental Health at Boclair Academy

Boclair Academy’s S1-S3 pupils are having the chance to compete in a dance competition on the 16th of May. The pupils are practicing at lunchtime in the P.E department and are choreographing their own dance routine. They say dance helps them in many ways and teaches them skills such as team work. They develop the skill team work by sharing ideas and coming up with a piece to hopefully win.

Mental health patients are being offered dance therapy as it is a way of releasing stress. This reduces the chance of anxiety and depression. Professional dancers are holding workshops in psychiatric units using dance which builds up the patient’s confidence and self esteem. People with mental health have a fear of expressing them self in case people misunderstand them. This makes patients feel relaxed and important.

Written by Carly & Beth

M&S Mental Health

Marks and Spencer’s is offering in 11 cafe’s fortnightly chat sessions to talk about the stresses of modern life. The aim of the sessions is for people to talk openly about how they feel. They are partnering with comedian Ruby Wax as she had battled with depression. Ruby Wax has been campaigning for more mental health awareness and support. It will be called “The Frazzled Cafe” which comes from her book. It will open in three in London, alongside Brighton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Cambridge, Nottingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Canterbury and Norwich however if popular many more will open. “Frazzled Cafe” is not a profitable organisation and will soon be a registered charity.

Written by Beth and Carly.

EMOTIONAL HEALTH & WELLBEING LESSON

BAND INSTRUMENT SKILLS AND GOSPEL STYLE WORKSHOP

S2 DRAGONS DEN  – RECYCLED MATERIALS PROJECTS

SOCIAL STARTERS IN GEOGRAPHY HELP OUR GROUPS TO COMMUNICATE

Youth Philanthropy Event 2016-17

READ OUR LIVE REPORT AND VIEW PICTURES ON THE EVENTS TAB

Callum Miller 2D

For the ten weeks leading up to Christmas pupils from Boclair Academy and 250 other schools have been working on promoting a small charity from the local area. The charities are chosen because they are small and need to be promoted in the community and get a voice.

They have been getting to know their charities and are developing an understanding of what they need. The grand prize for the competition is a £3000 grant from the Wood Foundation. Some of the pupils are even so enthusiastic that they want to continue work with the charities post competition.

The pupils have also developed skills and understandings of local charity work, and why the money will mean more to these groups than larger ones that bring in millions such as children in need. There will be presentations on Monday by the top groups to impress judges to win the £3000 grant. We will be attending the event on Monday and hopefully catching up with some pupils too so that we can update you on the latest after the weekend.

Callum, BBC School News Report
Boclair Academy

Slow down; don’t throw your fresh spuds out just yet…

New research has shown that when browned, roast potatoes are the secret killer in our everyday meal. The FSA claims when spuds are cooked for too long at a high temperature there could be a fatal threat involved.

When cooked for too long the potatoes go from a brightly coloured golden to a nasty looking black. This is said to give off high levels of acrylamide, a substance which has been linked with cancer in mice.

However Cancer Research UK sees a problem to this accusation. They argue it would take 312 slices of brown toast, crisps or potatoes each day to be at any risk.

It’s not the best idea to rule those potatoes out of your diet, but I would say that you may want to cut down on those delicious Sunday roasts (I know it’s a lot to ask).

Starchy foods like potatoes may not be on the same cancerous level as smoking cigarettes says FSA but scientists say there is a small risk so cook them carefully just to be safe.

To conclude NO, roast potatoes are not the secret killer in our meal they are just fine to have fairly regularly, though scientists are not ruling out the chance of threat…

Written by Calum M 2D

Written by Megan 2D

Children’s charities are saying that there is a lack of mental health provision.  This urgently needs to change; to be revolutionised. Around half of all mental health problems occur before the age of 15, thus the mental health provision has a long way to go to tackle this issue early on in young peoples’ lives.

A shortage of mental health workers and psychologists is the result of budget cuts. Around a fifth of all children that are referred to NHS Scotland because of mental health aren’t seen within a target of 18 weeks. Between January 2015 and September 2016, over 30,000 young people have been seen by NHS Scotland mental health counselling services (‘Chams’), with almost 7,000 of those patients having been on a waiting list for more than 18 weeks. 708 of those had to wait more than a year; this insufficient service from the NHS needs radical improvements made to create the transformation that our country needs.

The Mental Health Minister, Maureen Watt has told BBC Scotland that “I have said that where there are long waiting times in health boards for ‘Chams’ and psychological therapies, it is not acceptable. I have used part of the £150m to make sure that those health boards that are far away from meeting targets are given help to, where necessary, redesign their whole service are where they need more people, more psychologists more nurses that those are provided.” They say that we are going to begin to see improvements, but it is a long way to go.