Callum Charteris was last year’s Head Boy of Clydeview Academy and is also the founder of Clydeview Connect. Recently I had the opportunity to meet with him and have a chat about his experiences during his last year of school and I was able to ask him a few questions about his time as Head Boy and with Clydeview Connect.

I remember when he started Clydeview Connect last year and I remember when he came to our school assemblies to tell everyone about his new project so I wondered what made him decide to create CV Connect?

“Well, I just felt that the pupils weren’t getting represented as well as they should be,” he told me. “So I thought let’s create a pupil blog where the news is actually coming from the pupils and not the teachers to let everyone know about life in Clydeview.”

But what did Callum enjoy most about Clydeview Connect?

“Just speaking to new people. I liked the creative aspect on the Instagram and Twitter and on the blogs,” he said. “I also liked leading from the pupils’ view and not really having a teacher telling you what to do, and being able to come up with your own ideas. It was just a great new idea and I really enjoyed being a part of it.”

Of course, Callum had a very busy year last year, not just with Clydeview Connect but with his role as Head Boy too. As I’m now getting the experiences of being Head Boy, I wondered what he liked most about his role.

“Everything, to be fair. I loved last year!” he said with a smile. “It kind of shaped me as an individual. Some highlights were probably the tannoys every morning, I really enjoyed that. But just, like, coming out of my shell, getting to speak with new people and loads and loads of opportunities like parents’ nights, speaking in assemblies, everything. Just being in that role was something that I’ll always remember and was just a great experience.”

It’s clear that Callum loved being involved with so much within the school but I was curious to know what was his single most memorable moment from his time as Head Boy?

“Probably an infamous moment, to be fair,” he laughed. “In the teachers versus students game, it was on penalties, I think it was three all in the normal match. We were drawing on penalties and it was the last penalty so we had to score to stay in it and I thought it would be a good idea if I hit it. Then I completely missed it in front of the whole school. The pupils lost the trophy and I was the one who missed the penalty, and I think that probably sticks with me the most.”

Perhaps this wasn’t one of his high points in his time as Head Boy, however, he did tell me about a more positive memory.

“Going away from negatives, my favourite moment was probably just the first time on the tannoy when I accidentally shouted ‘Come on the Clydeview’ and it became a catchphrase forever.”

Obviously, it isn’t always easy playing such a big part in the day to day life of the school so I asked him if there were any difficult parts of being Head Boy.

“Well, it was very challenging because there’s a lot to balance and I kinda found that I was getting overwhelmed at some points,” he told me. “But I just made sure to make sure that I was reaching out to people if I needed any support and making sure that I didn’t get completely overwhelmed. But yeah, it was difficult to balance your school work and your duties but I made sure that I wasn’t getting too stressed out and was talking to people if I ever needed any support or anything like that.”

My final question to Callum was what his advice to this year’s pupil leadership team would be.

“Just be yourself, like, if you have an idea, go for it,” he said. “Don’t sit back on anything you want to do because if you don’t do it and regret it at the end of the year, you might think ‘why did I not get that started?’ Just don’t let anyone change who you are and just go for everything you want and enjoy it because it’ll be prom before you know it and you’ll be ready to move on. So yeah, have a great year, that’s what I would say.”

Callum definitely made the most of his time as Head Boy and followed every new idea he had. I think his advice will be very helpful to myself and the rest of our pupil leadership team.

Since leaving Clydeview, Callum has just started a five-year course studying computing science at Strathclyde University. He tells me that he’s very excited about the new experiences that await him and that he remembers his time at Clydeview very fondly. Hopefully he comes back to visit us again some time.

Article by Jack Ramsay, Head Boy

The Clydeview Academy annual prizegiving ceremony was held in Old Gourock and Ashton Church earlier this month and so I’m writing this article to tell you all about the occasion.

The church was very busy that evening as parents and carers came to congratulate their children on their fantastic achievements. I was there myself and, as Head Boy, I was asked to deliver the opening words to the ceremony alongside the Head Girl, Sophie. We were both quite nervous when we stood up to the lectern but it all went very well.

You’re probably wondering what kind of prizes were awarded at the ceremony, so I’ll tell you a little bit about each of them:

 

One of the main prizes awarded at the ceremony is the Subject Awards. Each subject offers this prize and it is awarded to the person who achieved the highest marks in a subject’s exam at the level they were studying it. I was able to speak to Lauren, who won the Higher Human Biology award, and Zak, who was given the prize for Higher RMPS. They each told me about how they felt about their awards and what they thought of their subjects:

“It feels quite good to have won the Human Biology award, my hard work paid off. I actually quite liked the subject because I found it quite interesting. I’m currently taking Biology as an Advanced Higher course but it’s different to Human Biology as there are more plants and it’s a lot more difficult. I plan to do healthcare when I leave school so Biology and Chemistry, which I also study, are perfect for that.”

– Lauren M, 6E

“I’m pleased, I’ve definitely put some solid work in and I’m glad to have seen the results of it. I loved RMPS, it’s the absolute best thing I’ve ever done! I really like that it tests you, not just on how much you can remember but actual critical thinking skills. I don’t think you see enough in schools of being able to be tested on how you evaluate information using just your own thoughts and I thought it was really good to have the opportunity to do that through my RMPS. I hope to do Law after school so RMPS will certainly be valuable in pursuing that.”

– Zak B, 6D

 

Another one of the main prizes awarded each year is the Academic Excellence Awards. This prize is given to any S5s who achieved 6 As in their fourth-year National 5 exams or any S6s who achieved 5 As in their fifth-year higher exams. I had the chance to speak to Paul and he told me about how it feels for his hard work to have paid off:

“I’m definitely proud of what I’ve achieved, it was a lot of hard work, especially English where I was sort of lacking behind so I’m glad I was able to put in the effort. My other subjects were Chemistry, Computing, Maths and Physics and my favourite out of them would have to be Physics. I plan to do Mechanical or Electronic Engineering when I leave school so Physics and Maths will be great for that.”

– Paul N, 6F

 

There are many more prizes that were awarded so I’ll try to mention a few of them:

There is an S4 Merit and Achievement award which is given to anyone in that year group who always worked hard throughout the school year. The Leading the Learning of Others award is given to those who showed leadership skills and helped out with groups younger than them. Additionally, the Commitment to Extra Curricular Activities prize is given to those who were a member of and consistently took part in any clubs or groups.

 

Furthermore, there were several special awards for the unique achievements of some of Clydeview’s pupils and multiple awards for sports as well. One of these was for Xanthe who was given her Gold Award for Duke of Edinburgh. I met up with her and she told me a bit about what she had to do to succeed in this excellent achievement.

“In Duke of Edinburgh, you do three levels, bronze, silver and gold. For the gold award, you have to spend five nights and five days in the wild. I was the only girl in my group and also the youngest. The other members of my group were three older boys from other schools but it was very good because I met new friends. The walking was alright, but it was 23 degrees while we were climbing the steepest hills I’ve ever walked up before. You also have to carry a 13kg backpack and we were camping every night in our own tents in the wild. I feel really good after completing it because of the fact that I’m the youngest from Clydeview Academy to complete this and have that award. If young people get offered this opportunity, I would say 100% go ahead and do it as you’ll develop great life skills.”

– Xanthe T, 6C

 

This is just a flavour of some of the many successes had by the pupils at Clydeview Academy. There were so many other prizewinners who I didn’t get to mention in this article but you may be able to find out more about their achievements on the school Twitter account.

Congrats to all our prizewinners!

Article by Jack Ramsay, Head Boy

Earlier this month, a group of Clydeview Academy’s S6 pupils went on a trip called the UCAS Discovery Day. But what is UCAS? And what’s a discovery day? In this article I’ll answer those questions and tell you all about our experiences.

To give a brief summary, UCAS stands for the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. All pupils who want to study at a University or College must use UCAS as all of their applications are submitted through it. The UCAS website is very helpful for all fifth and sixth year pupils as it can suggest courses that may be of interest based on which subjects you like most. For many, UCAS is essential when planning your route after school.

The UCAS Discovery Day was held in the SEC Centre in Glasgow and around 50 S6s went on the trip. The event saw over 40 Universities and Colleges from across the United Kingdom have an information stall where their staff could answer any questions and tell you about what life is like at their Uni or College. Each Uni or College also offered their prospectus, which is a book that tells you all about the courses they have on offer, and these were free to take home.

Those who went on the trip all seemed to enjoy it very much and came home each carrying a bag filled with prospectuses from their preferred Universities. Here’s what some of our pupils told me about their day out:

“It was good that there were so many different types of Unis, but it wasn’t only Unis as there were also different colleges as well. It was just good to see the different options as I think a lot of people just think Glasgow, Strathclyde or Edinburgh but they forget there’s loads of other Unis that offer different courses. There were also stands for stuff like the RAF which I thought was good because, obviously, not everyone wants to go to Uni or College.”

– Emma W, 6B

“I found out lots of information about different Unis and what courses I want to do. Aberdeen University and Edinburgh University both really stood out to me. It’s hard to say why, I think it was just their vibe. I saw a lot of people talking to the University of Law which I didn’t know was a thing. I also didn’t know you could study Policing but the University of Law offers that and I thought that was quite cool.”

– Esme J, 6B

“I thought the UCAS Discovery Day was super beneficial. It let us look at options that we never really thought about and all the staff, they were lovely. They had a lot of stations for if you didn’t necessarily know what you wanted to do. They had like a little test you could do on a tablet to fill out what kind of courses you like and stuff like that. I thought that was really cool because some people don’t know what to do after school.”

– Emily P, 6D

“The UCAS trip was very informative I would say. It was really big, there were so many schools there and I really enjoyed it. I spoke to Glasgow, Edinburgh and even to Rural College Scotland as I’m interested in vet medicine and I was really intrigued with all of them. The information booklets were really handy as well. The one I got from Edinburgh Uni had a bunch of things, not just about the different courses, but also about the surrounding area and even a bit about job opportunities.”

– Beny D, 6F

The UCAS Discovery Day has certainly been a very beneficial experience for the S6s who attended the event. I think that after the event, a lot of us have a better idea of what our route after school will look like.

Article by Jack Ramsay, Head Boy

On Friday the 6^th of September, we had our school sponsored walk. For those of you who don’t know, this is an annual event and is the main occasion each year for raising school funds. All year groups in our school take part and, in total, the walk is around 10 kilometres long. The route of our journey is the long, winding, and often fairly muddy, path of the Greenock Cut which begins at Overton. Fortunately, just as we are getting very tired and desperately in need of some food, we are given a break half way along the walk at the Greenock Cut Visitor’s Centre.

This year’s walk was quite the contrast to the previous ones which I’ve been a part of as it was a very hot and sunny day. All of our recent sponsored walks have involved our pupils layering up in heavy raincoats and coming prepared with umbrellas but there was no need for any of that this year. In the fantastic weather that we had, the views along our route were truly spectacular. I know some of you might find that hard to believe about Inverclyde but trust me, it was great.

One of the best things about the sponsored walk each year is that the S6s, like myself, do the entire walk in fancy dress and this year’s costumes were certainly some of the best, if I do say so myself. Across the Greenock Cut that day, many spotted a crowd of Smurfs, your favourite characters from Shrek, Dorothy and her friends form the Wizard of Oz, a few Barbie Dolls and even Elvis Presley. It was quite a bizarre day.

Everyone put so much effort into their costumes but what was it like doing such a long walk in fancy dress? I was able to speak to a few of our S6s about what they wore and their experiences of the journey. Here’s what they told me:

“It was a very fun day. I did a Star Trek costume and it was a group theme with three of my friends. It was comfortable to wear, yeah, although I did have to roll my sleeves up as it was a very hot day. My favourite part was when we stopped at the Visitor’s Centre and got to meet up with everyone else.”

– Euan S, 6E

“It was good because we got to do loads of exercise and had to walk for quite a while. I liked seeing the cool waterfall as it was nice and did have water, unlike sometimes. It was nice and sunny and stayed dry so it wasn’t all windy and rainy, unlike previous sponsored walks, and it didn’t have to get delayed like last year.”

– Iris P, 6D

“We were so lucky with the weather! It was almost too good, a bit too hot. I actually didn’t think the walk was as bad as I remembered it being when I was younger. I went as Sol Goodman from Breaking Bad and I was really happy that everyone dressed up in S6 because I was kinda worried that people weren’t gonna go full out.”

– Freya L, 6E

“The weather was absolutely beautiful, I’m happy it wasn’t raining. My friends and I all went as Barbies, it was amazing! Everyone all had quite different costumes. The walk felt super long but I think that’s just because I was in a dress and it was so hot. I think my favourite costume had to be Noah and his friends who dressed up as Disney Princesses, they were amazing.”

– Emily P, 6D

“I thought it was really good this year. I’m glad the weather was nice and it wasn’t raining. It’s a shame it was the last one for us because I’ll miss it after I leave school. I enjoyed dressing up for it. Emma’s costume idea was really good so I’m glad I went with her. My favourite moment of the walk was towards the end as I liked when we were walking downhill.”

– Campbell M, 6E

It’s clear that this year’s was definitely one of the best sponsored walks we’ve had and, like Campbell, I’m also upset that this was my last with Clydeview Academy. Hopefully next year’s S6s have costumes as good as ours.

Article by Jack Ramsay, Head Boy

Welcome to Clydeview Connect 2024-2025!

Clydeview Connect is a branch of the school website that is written completely by pupils. Here you will find articles about special occasions, charity events and any other exciting things happening within our school. You will also find a collection of photographs alongside some blogs that are written.

I’m Jack Ramsay, Head Boy of Clydeview Academy, and I’ll be in charge of Clydeview Connect this year. The Clydeview Connect team and I have many excellent ideas for articles which will be appearing on our website very soon.

You will also be able to find us on Instagram (@cvconnect2024) and Twitter (@CVConnect2024) which our team will soon be posting on. Our Deputy Head Girl, Carys Donaldson and I are very keen to upload regular pictures on our social media accounts.

Visit our website regularly to keep up to date with everything happening at Clydeview!

Columba 1400 was a great experience for our pupils and teaching staff at Clydeview. The course included some meetings with a couple of workers from Skye, they were our main leaders for our journey before Skye. For one of our meetings, we went out on a values walk at Finlaystone and we worked on getting to know each other better and conversing with our values stones (that we had made in a previous session) about what we wanted to achieve on our journey through the Academy.

Our journey up to Skye was fun but tiring. The journey overall took us 8 hours on the road with several stops and a bus change. Once we arrived, which was about 17:30, we were greeted with open arms by the workers from Skye. They made us a lovely roast for our first night as a celebration of our arrival.

Over the course of the week, we participated in many activities such as search & rescue and going for walks where we talked about doing the right thing in difficult situations. One of our favourite group activities together outside of sessions was going to the Beach where we played non-stop rounders.

Here are some student Comments about their experiences:

“My Experience at Columba was very memorable, from the activities we did down to the food we ate it was all good. One of my favourite parts of the experience was the stretcher activity, we had to climb down a hill. All in all, it was an amazing experience.”
Matthew L

“My Experience in Skye was incredible; I strengthened my relationships with my peers and shared some amazing experiences with them. We went from scaling the edge of a cliff together to enjoying every meal together. I can’t wait to get started on planning our Christmas event together!”
Chloe M

Here are some teacher comments on how their look on teaching has been changed:

“My week in Skye with the Columba 1400 group has been one of the highlights of my teaching career so far! It was a fantastic opportunity to build positive relationships with colleagues and learners, and I learned a lot about myself too.
Whilst in Skye, I was able to see just how capable our young people are to be leaders and use their initiative and creativity. Since returning from Skye, I have been very conscious of this, and added more creative tasks to my lessons, along with activities that allow learners to show their leadership skills too.
I have also been inspired by all the learning and activities we did outside on the beautiful Isle of Skye and have taken more advantage of the outdoor space at the school for outdoor learning (whenever the West of Scotland weather allows!).”
Mrs Scott

“Going to Columba was a great experience. In the wonderful surroundings I felt that we had time to truly reflect on what it is to be a teacher. Along with my colleagues, we had a day away from students- talking about our past, present and future aspirations for teaching. Teaching is a vocation; we get to shape young minds. Skye and Columba 1400 helped me and my colleagues refocus and remember the immense responsibility and gift of purpose that we had been given. I will always remember the week very fondly.”
Mr McLaughlan

 

On Friday, 10th November, at lunch time, teachers who were brave enough decided to face the S6 pupils in an ultimate dodgeball battle in the gym hall organised by the social justice committee. Many pupils came along to watch this unfold and had fun watching this competitive game. The money raised from donations at the door of the gym hall will go towards the social justice committee, a group of S6 pupils who are raising funds for a cause of their choice, this year being children who are less fortunate than ourselves in order to give them a present to open on Christmas morning. The teachers managed to get the better of the S6 pupils and beat then in both games. Over £320 was raised through the game!