We wish all pupils, parents and staff a restful September weekend.

School reopens on Tuesday 25 September at 8:45am.

The homework diary is helpful to everyone: pupils, parents and teachers.

Pupils get an opportunity to learn to fix priorities depending on amount of work. They can note down homework in the diary and learn how to maintain it.

Parents can know their children’s progress,various activities of the school and of course homework given to their children.

The diary is helpful to a teacher. He/she can know the progress of students and bring it to the notice of parents. Teachers can ask students to note homework in their diary.

All of our most successful former students testify that using a homework diary kept them well organised and on track to do well. As such we encourage all of our young people to use a homework diary.

These can be purchased for £3 in the cafeteria every day. It’s a truly worthwhile investment!

Immediately after the October break, all First Year pupils will experience a taster course in Mandarin.  This will be taught by world-class Mandarin teacher Mrs Zhou and include learning about basic Mandarin greetings, numbers, nationality, hobbies and weather and also Chinese events and cultures.

St Ninian’s High School has a proud history in promoting Mandarin and Chinese studies, most notably winning the World Confucius Hub of the Year in 2013.  Also many of our students have attended cultural trips to China and even been accepted for scholarships at Chinese universities.

We are delighted to continue to extend this opportunity to all First Year students.

Unfortunately, S1 Boys and Girls football is cancelled this evening due to high winds.

We have one space available for advertising in our 2019 school calendar. If interested in this please contact the school office on 0141 577 2000 for more details.

The Scottish Government are looking to fill vacancies in a variety of jobs in the near future. All details of these vacancies can be found here. These are excellent opportunities, especially for those considering leaving school this year.

Additionally, keep an eye on their twitter page for more updates, which can be found here.

Thank you very much to all S1 parents for coming to the Maths Workshop this evening.  Please see the presentation and information booklets below:

• S1 Parents Maths Information Workshop 18.9.18
• St Ninian’s High School Parent and Pupil Numeracy Booklet
• S1 Maths Daily Homework Booklet

We would very much appreciate if all parents who attended completed the following short evaluation.

For the S1 website please click here.

Are you a keen golfer? If so, this is an excellent opportunity to represent the school at an authority-wide competition. Please see Miss Briggs at Lunch on Thursday 20 September at the Sports Hall for a meeting.

The ‘Friends of St Ninian’s’ first meeting of the new session will take place on Tuesday 25 September at 7pm in the Staff Room.

The Friends of St Ninian’s are a group of parents and staff who organise school events such as the Christmas Market, Family Ceilidh, Burns Celebration and Sports Day.  Proceeds from these events help to support school activities and extra-curricular clubs.

There are approximately 6 meetings per year, all of which are informal.  There are no obligations to attend every meeting and any help is greatly appreciated.

The meetings and events are all great fun and the perfect opportunity to get to know parents and staff within the St Ninian’s community. If you would like to be part of the ‘Friends of St Ninian’s’ this year then please feel free to come along to our first meeting.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Mr Kerr in the PE department.

Here at St Ninian’s, we offer a huge range of extra-curricular activities for pupils across all year groups. Our extensive extra-curricular programme allows our pupils to enjoy a wide range of activities that promote their learning and health & well-being in a vast range of contexts (such as faith, sport, music, arts, science, languages and volunteering).

In St Ninian’s there is also a culture of promoting leadership in all aspects of school life; often, older pupils leading younger pupils in various activities.  This in turn gives our younger students aspirations to become leaders themselves. Very often pupils’ first experience of leadership is through clubs and trips and these skills will be enhanced and developed throughout their school career.

These opportunities help to develop the formation of the whole child further giving our pupils the broadest education possible.

Details on this year’s Extra-Curricular Programme can be found here.

On Monday 27 August our Sixth Year pupils who are participating in the pilgrimage to Rome organised a welcome disco for our First Years.  This was a great event with many First Years coming along to spend time with existing and new friends.

We understand developing Health and Wellbeing in every sense is vitally important and there will be many events such as this throught the year which improve mental, social and emotional wellbeing. As well as physical for those who were dancing all night!

Congratulations to Caitlyn Martin (formerly 6a7) on achieving the highest mark in Advanced Higher Mathematics, 2018.

Caitlyn will receive the annual award from the Scottish Board of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries for her outstanding achievement.

Caitlyn epitomised St Ninian’s aim to develop the whole person as she represented the school football team, performed in many school shows as well as her outstanding academic achievements.

Everyone at St Ninian’s is extremely proud of Caitlyn and wish her the very best as she embarks on a career in Medicine.

SCHOLAR’s upcoming online tutor sessions are:

Pupils can get their username and password from any member of staff.

For more information on how to take part in upcoming sessions, please visit SCHOLAR’s Online Tutor Sessions.

Please note that worksheets will be available and should be attempted before some sessions.

You can see regular updates via Twitter @SCHOLARuk and Facebook SCHOLARprogramme.

Congratulations to Zaynab Sarguroh (6a3), Depute Head Girl, who has won a prestigious writing competition with CMS Law. The prize is a £10,000 bursary which will be paid to her towards the cost of studying law, if she is successful in securing a place.

Further details of the competition are available by following the link. 

The S4 boys football trials will take place on Monday 17th September at 3:30pm at the Sports Hall. Please ensure that you have appropriate footwear and water.

If you have any questions, please see Mr Kerr for more details.

Well done to the pupils and staff who took part in the Pretty Muddy Race for Life on Sunday 9th September! The group have managed to raise £1, 585 for Cancer Research so far! If you would like to make a donation to the group, please follow the link. Your generosity is greatly appreciated!

Pupils involved are;

Olly Hughes, Maria O’Donnell, Arianna Fraioli, Rebekah Cameron, Ella Loffler, Sophie Brownlie, Laura Campbell, Orla Conroy, Ruth Harty, Molly Gallagher

Congratulations to our S3 Netball team who following their victory at the East Renfrewshire Secondary Games in May, competed in the Inter-Authority Secondary Games yesterday and finished in 1st place.

On top of their success yesterday, the girls named below have achieved excellent success throughout their time at the school. They have also won the following competitions:

• East Renfrewshire Summer Tournament
• Renfrewshire Summer Tournament
• East Renfrewshire League

Mia Adair (2a8), Mary-Rose Cairns (2a6), Emily Clarke (2a10), Aoibheann Crumlish (2a1), Zoe Haplin (2a10), Lucy Holmes (2a9), Maria McLaughlin (2a6), Maya Muotune (2a2), Ellie Shaw (2a6), Katelyn Wilson (2a1)

Congratulations to all team members.

We are delighted to be able to offer S1 parents/carers the opportunity to purchase professional photographs of your child. These include individual, formal and informal styles.  Class and year group photographs will also be available in the future.

The photographs have been taken by John Wilson Photography who has been approved by East Renfrewshire Council and is fully General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant.

To order please visit www.johnwilsonphotography.co.uk and enter the unique code which appears on the order form given to your child.

The free delivery offer has been extended until Wednesday 19 September.

An excellent opportunity to help out at the Glen Family Centre
Digging Day. Pupils involved will have a great experience volunteering in the local community.

If interested, please see Miss Goodenough for more information.

A fatherhood seminar will be held at Hazelwood House on Sunday September 23 10am – 5pm. A range of topics will be covered, details of which can be found on the attached poster.

For any additional information, please contact Joseph Haig at josephhaig@gmail.com

From next Tuesday, Miss Hood will be running a lunch-time netball club for pupils in S1/S2. This is an excellent opportunity for pupils of all experience levels to get involved in netball.

Please see Miss Hood for any additional details.

Our S6 Health and Wellbeing Committee meet on a weekly basis to share ideas and work collaboratively to raise awareness of various Health and Wellbeing related initiatives.

Throughout this school year they will assist in the promotion of the events listed below. These awareness days will also be highlighted to pupils during PSHE lessons and at year group assemblies.

The Archdiocese of Glasgow are hosting an Information session on Tuesday 18^th September 6.30 -8pm for students interested in Primary Teaching.

The event will take place in St Patrick’s Primary School, 10 Perth Street , G3 8UQ ,Glasgow.

Dear Parent(s) and Carer(s)

Throughout 2018-19 year our young people will be given information and advice at year group assemblies and during PSHE to help them actively  improve their health and wellbeing.

Quite a number of posts have been made by staff and the presentations have been very well received by our young people.

Information and advice offered to our young people will be posted weekly on our website and tweeted and we hope you will find it of value in your discussions and support for your daughter / son.

Below is a power point being used with our pupils in S3-S6 that has a focus on mental health and wellbeing.

Please also refer to the St Ninian’s Promoting Positive Mental Heath website, where the powerpoints and advice  are posted and which can be found here.

Mental Health and Wellbeing S3-S6

The next block of Saturday Sports Club for Primary 1 to Primary 7 pupils starting on Saturday 27 October.  It starts at 9:30am and finishes at 12:00pm.

Click on the leaflet for full details. Paper copies are being delivered to associated Primaries week beginning Monday 10 September.  These are also available in the school office and can be filled out in person.

Please book early to avoid disappointment!

The fantastic St Ninian’s October Sports Camp for P1 to P7 pupils is now available to book!

Click on the leaflet for full details. Paper copies are being delivered to associated Primaries week beginning Monday 10 September.  These are also available in the school office and can be filled out in person.

Please book early to avoid disappointment!

We are delighted to announce that Emma Martin (6a4) has been rewarded by the Institute of Physics for achieving the highest mark in Scotland for Higher Physics.  This is a wonderful achievement and richly deserved.

She will receive her award certificate at the “Science and the Parliament” event hosted by the Royal Society of Chemistry at Our Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh on 14th November 2018.

The Physics department and indeed everyone at St Ninian’s High School is very proud of her.

The Royal Society of Biology in Scotland awards annually, a prize to the pupil gaining the top mark in Scotland for an SQA biology subject at Higher and Advanced level.

It is with great pleasure therefore that we can reveal that last year’s Sixth Year pupil, Alexander MacDonald, has achieved the top mark in Scotland for SQA Human Biology Higher grade.

He will receive his award certificate at the “Science and the Parliament” event hosted by the Royal Society of Chemistry at Our Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh on 14th November 2018.

We are extremely proud of Alexander who embraced all that St Ninian’s offered through his academic studies but also the wider life of the school including representing the school football team who won two Scottish Cups and through a variety of activities as Depute Head Boy.

We wish Alexander all the very best as he starts Medical School at Glasgow University.

Fourth year had two half year group assemblies this week. During these they found out about the following:

• Faith events taking place in the school
• Steps to ensure positive Mental Health and Wellbeing                   (Mr Capuano)
• What to do and what not to do whilst studying (S6 Pupils)
• S4 Microsoft Teams site (Mr Marshall)

Pupils can access assembly slides through the S4 Microsoft Teams site.

The Life group will be leading their annual sponsored walk on Wednesday 12^th September.

Staff and pupils should meet in the forum at 2:45 to register.

We are hoping to get as many pupils involved to raise money for Zoe’s Place providing palliative and respite care for babies and their families.

Any pupil’s interested should see Miss Lanigan to collect the necessary forms.

All support would be very much appreciated.

Please find the Extra-Curricular Programme for 2018/19 here.

Our new Health and Wellbeing Walls using the images below are on display both in the Physical Education department and in the main school.

Pupils are encouraged to find time to read these and gain some useful hints and tips on how to improve their mental wellbeing.

Save as a screensaver on your smart phone or print them out and put them up in your room!

Pupils and staff took part in Heartstart Training from the British Heart Foundation on Wednesday evening. They will carry out the second part of the course next week and be qualified instructors. This is a great opportunity for those involved to learn emergency life saving skills.

One of the many Information Evenings parents tell us they value is the S1 Mathematics Workshop. Over the years, a number of parents have expressed a desire to raise their awareness of the current Maths teaching methodologies being used within the classroom.

The Mathematics department would like to invite parents/guardians of S1 pupils to attend a workshop where they will learn about the Department’s delivery of basic Maths skills and how these can be applied when helping their child at home. The workshop will take place on Tuesday 18 September. A short presentation will take place in the Forum at 7.00pm followed by workshops in Maths classrooms lasting for approximately one hour. Please note that the workshop is for parents/guardians and pupils are not required to attend.

The department acknowledges and appreciates the active role that parents/guardians take in their child’s education and hope that you will be able to attend the workshop. To help plan resources for the workshop, it would be greatly appreciated if you could complete the tear-off slip on the letter given to all pupils and return it to your child’s Maths teacher by Tuesday 4 September.

For more information related to S1 pupils including extra-curricular activities and assembly presentations please see the S1 2018-19 website.