This year’s quartet of school captains have been selected after being interviewed by Depute Head Teacher for S5/6 Miss Anderson. For school session 2016-17 our school captains are Adam Sinnet and Lauren McKinstry whilst our vice captains are Barry Williams and Erin Wright. The pupils are expected to represent Braidhurst both at school and around the local community.
On Saturday 3rd September, Braidhurst High School were honoured to participate in Scotland’s largest family history event at the Motherwell Civic Centre. The exhibition celebrated 25 years of researching Lanarkshire’s ancestors and the Braidhurst stall displayed a rich archive of newspaper clippings and photographs depicting the school’s local history dating from the eighties. On the day visitors were delighted to be able to view and handle a selection of news stories from the school archives. A Special thanks must go to Mrs Scott, Mrs Dalzell and Sarah Cooper (S6) for their time and effort in preparing the materials for display.
As usual school staff are going the extra mile by giving up their lunchtime to run a wide selection of clubs for pupils to enjoy. It is crucial that as many pupils as possible engage in extra-curricular activities at school and with clubs including trampoline, French, Board games film, dance and computer games, there really is something for everyone. All are welcome.
On Monday 29th August the Baldy Bane Theatre Group delivered plays on the topic of road safety to S1 and S5/6 pupils. The plays are designed to remind younger pupils on the importance of safety as they travel to school on their own whilst the older pupils were reminded of the importance of being safe drivers as many of them will be thinking of taking driving lessons.
There will be a parents’ evening for our new S1 pupils on Thursday 8th September in the school’s assembly hall running from 7pm until 9pm. The meeting is used to encourage pupils to join one of the many extra-curricular clubs on offer at lunchtime or after school. Parents will also have the chance to meet with staff to discuss raising pupil engagement with the school.
As the new term begins at Braidhurst High School, the pupils from S2 are pictured with an array of electronic and robotics learning equipment. The pupils will over the next 10 weeks experience various electronic and robotics lessons. “I hope that after this short session they will have a basic understanding of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics)” comments Mr Hussain, who is running the course for the S2 and for the new S1 intake. Mr Hussain of the Science department further commented that the topics covered by the S1 and S2 electives will include Logic circuits, robotics and computer software / hardware architecture.
It is hoped that this exposure to STEM concepts will nurture creative advancement in robotics, electronics, and skills in teamwork, leadership, communications, and much more. By the end of S2 Mr Hussain is hoping to put together a new team of young enthusiastic students who will then go on to take part in the VEX Competitions, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (REC). In the competitions teams of students are tasked with designing and building a robot to play against other teams from around the world in a game-based engineering challenge. Tournaments are held year-round at the regional and national levels; local champions go on to compete against the best in the world at VEX Worlds each April.
Mr Hussain has a background in science and engineering, having worked as a commissioning engineer for some of the most well known companies around the world, such as NASA in the United States and Mitsubishi in Japan. Robotics runs in the family as his wife works for a Scottish company called Touch Bionics (www.touchbionics.com/ ) based in Livingston, “she’s the real expert in the family”, comments Mr Hussain. The company is a real success story that Scotland should be celebrating and has offices in many countries as well as fabrication facilities in the United Sates.
Welcome to our new S1 pupils who joined us on 17th August. As usual the standard of uniform was extremely high from all our pupils as we look forward to the session ahead.
