Our Science department recently launched a ‘Scientist of the Month’ rewards programme which recognises the fantastic commitment and enthusiasm of our S1 and S2 scientists.
Our first S1 recipients were: Emy Brandt, Cody Grant, Bekki McMahon, Emily McCallum, Aurora Wilson, Milosz Sliwinski, and Chloe Williamson.
Our S2 recipients are: Danielle McCluskey, Amy McCoull, Jennifer Delpero, Emily Findlay, Dainis Sroms, Naomi Tong, and Kyla Helpburn. Well done to each of the pupils for this achievement.
On Friday 1st March a group of 44 Braidhurst pupils attended a great day out at the Edinburgh Science Festival at the National Museums Scotland. Pupils had the opportunity to explore the exhibits and develop their STEM learning and skills as part of our developing the young workforce programme.
A group of S3 pupils recently graduated from the Scholar programme, an online organisation which offers over thirty courses for Scottish schools which are aligned to the SQA curriculum at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher level. The ceremony was held on Thursday 21st February at Edinburgh University. Hopefully this is the first of many graduations for this group of talented Braidhurst scientists. Well done to them all!
Congratulations to team “KOALA-T”, “Neptunes Angels” and “Anonymous” from Braidhurst High School for winning the regional championships and the Judges Award in the VEX Turning point Challenge. This year’s competition was held at New College Lanarkshire (Motherwell Campus) with Teams from North Lanarkshire Schools competing against each other for an “alliance place” in the UK regional finals in Tedford.
The Vex Robotics Challenge is the World’s Largest and Fastest-Growing Robotics Competition for High Schools, Colleges and Universities. In the VEX Competitions, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, 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. Classroom STEM concepts are put to the test on the playing field as students learn lifelong skills in teamwork, leadership, communications, and more.
Tournaments are held at regional, and national levels; local champions go on to compete against the best in the world at VEX Worlds each April. The club has been very well supported by North Lanarkshire and includes pupils ranging from S1 to S4. Currently the school’s STEM club has 21 members including three S5 female students, STEM ambassadors who have taken on the commitment to support the younger less experienced members.
Pictured are the S2 cohort from the school’s “STEM” elective. The elective has just received the first batch of, “state of the art, STEM V5, autonomous equipment to make artificial intelligence (A.I) systems.
The elective classes are embedded into the school curriculum, promoting in both S1 and S2 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematical), to ensure the schools broad general education (BGE) offers personalisation, choice, relevance and enjoyment. Both the elective and the award-winning Robotics club are organised by Mr. Hussain of the science department. Mr. Hussain commented that, “we at Braidhurst are committed to meeting the needs of the individual by being creative and providing them with the opportunity to develop skills they will need in the world of work, and this year the link between the elective and the extracurricular robotics club will be fused and it is hoped that the success of one will foster the success of the other”.
An emphasis has also been put on encouraging girls into STEM subjects and Mr. Hussain has signed up the Girl power pledge, #GirlPowerd. Mr. Hussain commented that “the theme of the initiative is to show how exciting it is to be involved with STEM, showcasing examples of how women are changing the world, providing tools for success, and enabling comfortable environments where all students’ confidence and abilities can flourish.”
A group of third year science pupils from Braidhurst High School received certificates this week to mark their successful completion of the British Heart Foundation’s Heart Start programme. The course was completed as part of their National 3 Science Course. Pupils are now proficient in CPR, recovery position, dealing with suspected heart attacks, chocking and bleeding.
The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the course and appreciate how useful it may be in their lives.
Braidhurst High School robotics club have, by special invitation visited a global leader in technology, namely ,Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), situated in Erskine. The vast 100,000 sq.ft complex is a hub for the company’s refurbishment of IT technology, for example laptops, printers and large servers. Housed within this complex are a number of HPE companies that the club were engaged with.
The visit started with a tour to the 0% waste, IT equipment section run by DXC, then it was on to the high tech world of “app” development by Micro Focus International who are a HPE global enterprise software company.
The host for the day was Mr.Scott McNee who took the club members initially on a tour of the DXC Green engineering, renewal and refurbishment site and then the members were given a workshop by the “app” development team.
After Lunch it was the clubs turn to showcase their award winning robotics team to the directors of the various HPE subsidiaries. After the visit Scott contacted the school to say thank you for bringing such an inspiring group of young people along to HPE.
He commented that in his conversations with the club members, that the visit has had a positive influence on them and broadened their career horizons. Scott’s final remarks in his correspondence were, that Braidhurst High School should be very proud of these young STEM ambassadors. In his opinion it demonstrates what can be achieved when such an enthusiastic team of teachers / influencers give these opportunities to pupils. Scott commented that “They were an absolute credit to both yourselves and the school and it was a pleasure to host you all today”.
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