All posts by Mr Boag

Malawi fundraising fun

Fund Raiser 2. jpegAn excellent afternoon of football was had at Barrhead High today, and all for a good cause too!

With three of our senior students heading off on a trip to Malawi later this year, Matthew Halligan (S6) set about organising a football tournament to raise funds.  Students across all year groups signed up to either play football or spectate.

Well done to all of the boys who played football and to the many students who cheered them on; a fantastic atfernoon was had by all!

 

Diana Award – fantastic achievement

Diana AwardsCongratulations to two of our senior students, Fraser Lundie and Kierran Adams, who have both won a Diana Award for their voluntary work.

Keirran has coached young goalkeepers both in school and in the local community.

Fraser Lundie has hosted  his own show on Pulse FM for the past 3 years. Fraser also delivered presentations on the Holocaust following his trip to Auschwitz.

As a result of their award, both boys have been invited to London to celebrate their success with 75 other UK winners.

Congratulations to both boys.

Swimming Success

IMG_3285Well done to Kirsty McGinley (S5) who managed to squeeze in three qualifications swims, during her SQA exams, at the West District Seniors.  As a result, Kirsty has been invited to the Summer Meet in Edinburgh in July.

The British and Summer meets are invite only seeing the top 25 British swimmers being invited to the British Meet and the next 10,15 or 20 Scottish swimmers , dependant on stroke/ distance being invited to the Summer Meet.

Kirsty has also managed to achieve 10 qualifying times for the Scottish Nationals Open which she will be attending at the end of June.

A fantastic achievement Kirsty, and good luck with your upcoming meets.

SmartSTEM Event

WellIMG_20150603_101904 done to all of the S4 girls who attended a female-only STEM event this week.

STEM – standing for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – encourages students to work together to solve problems. The SmartSTEM event, organised by SericSystems, had the girls learning about renewable energy, building obstacle courses and designing structures that could be used in offshore wind farms.

 

The girls were also inspired by Sarah Drummond, director of Snook, who presented her cyclehack idea; a truely inspiring day.

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Salters’ Festival of Chemistry

IMG_2395The Salters are one of the livery companies from the City of London. They were formed in the 14th century to regulate the trade in salt through London. Today the Salters provide charitable funding for chemistry education, amongst other things, and run festivals and camps for schools throughout the United Kingdom.

Barrhead High has been attending the festivals for some time now with varying degrees of success. They are open to pupils in P7 and S1 only. The day is split into three sessions.

 

Session 1 – The Salters’ ChallengeIMG_2390

This requires the teams to follow precise instructions in the analysis of various known and unknown substances. It is presented in the form of a forensic investigation and the teams have to identify the criminal from the evidence they have analysed. Marks are deducted for poor safety protocols, not following instructions and for too much teacher input!

Session 2 – The University Challenge

This is set by the host university and is also a forensic investigation but this time has a selection of mini-tasks which involve many scientific techniques. Teachers are excluded from this event.

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Session 3 – The Show

Each year the host university provides a series of chemical demonstrations designed to whet the appetite of the young learners. The demonstrations are usually loud – but not always!

Barrhead High attends the festivals hosted by Glasgow University which are run by Professor Bob Hill and an army of technicians and demonstrators. The pupils are under constant scrutiny throughout the day to see how well they cope with the challenges and the regime of being in a laboratory. This session we were represented by:

Lisa Drain, Jack McFarlane, Andrew Chapman and Robyn Johnston, all from S1

Our team presented themselves very well and they all said how much they enjoyed the day even if they did not win any of the challenges.

The next festival will be announced in November 2015 and will probably be held in May of 2016.

 

Mr C Murray

BHS Science Faculty, Chemistry Department

 

Congratulations to three Barrhead High senior students who recently competed in the  Scottish National 5K swimming competition.

The results are as follows

 

Kirsty McGinley :  Time. 01:06:12  Result : Gold medalist in 15/16 age group/ 6th place in Open.

Neil MacCuish   : Time. 01:06:11. Result : 9th in 17/24 age group / 16 th in Open.

Iain MacCuish    : Time. 01:09:30. Result : 5th in 15/16 age group / 20 th in Open.

Well done to Kirsty, Neil and Iain.

S1 – Rapid Response Project

 

Runners up – Group 11

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(Adam, Rory, Kieran, Kyle, Rebecca, Kerry, Holly)

Winning Team – Group 14

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(Sheean, Callum, Lauren, Connor, Graeme, Emma)

Well done to our S1 students who all took part in the Rapid Response Project yesterday.  Rapid Response is an inter-disciplinary project, created by the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE), that invloves S1 students working on a scenario involving the rebuilding of a hurricane-devasted country.

Students competed in groups to build plastic shelters, purify water, create wind turbines and to improve communication through ICT.  Well done to all of S1 students.

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