Braidhurst High Art pupils recently visited the Creative Residency Art Exhibition in Summerlee, Coatbridge.

On show were examples of work in photography, [painting, jewellery, textiles and a range of other creative disciplines.

The pupils thoroughly enjoyed taking in the exhibits and commented on their favourite pieces.

The exhibition stimulated a great deal of interest and many of the pupils will be applying to take part in this year’s Creative Residency at Oban in June.

On Friday 13^th February, Braidhurst High School’s senior girls had a great victory in the Scottish Cup, allowing them to progress into the quarter finals in the Silver section.

The girls have been busy this year with their studies, however still manage to make time for Netball, a sport which they are all passionate and enthusiastic about.

The girls were up against Lasswade High School from Edinburgh.

When the game got started it was clear they were ready for a challenging game and all played extremely well with some lovely set plays.   The passes were strong, spacing was never an issue and that began to show very quickly during the first quarter.   The score at the end of the first quarter was 13-1, with our shooters Gill Scott and Holly Worton rarely missing a shot.

In the second quarter, Lasswade seemed to fight a little more, with some changes being made to their team during the break, however Lyndsay McLean and Courtney North were there to crush all of these.   The quarter finished on 32-3.

The third quarter the girls continued to pull together as a team and took on a larger lead, finishing the quarter with a 38 goal lead.

In the final quarter, Lasswade were trying their hardest, but Braidhurst’s girls were not allowing anything to stop them finishing the game with the score of 56-6.

The girls are now into the quarter finals and will be travelling to Aberdeen this week for their next game.

Third year Art & Design pupils from Braidhurst are entering this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe Poster design competition.
They have drawn up their colourful poster ideas and are hoping to catch the judges eye with their impressive work. They have put a great deal of effort into  the designs and their skills are really being developed by the competition.

A group of 19 Higher Biology pupils from Braidhurst High braved freezing temperatures to enjoy a wild day out at Edinburgh Zoo. After visiting the United Kingdom’s only pandas, Sunshine and Sweetie they spent two hours with one of the zoo’s specialist education officers both inside the education centre and in the zoo learning more about primate behaviour and animal adaptations.

Pupils were able to observe first hand dominance hierarchy in chimpanzees in their purpose built, state of the art enclosure, the Budongo Trail. This included seeing the newest chimpanzee, baby Velu (which means hairy in French) being cared for by the troop. The pupils were also able to visit the Zoo’s recently updated Koala enclosure, the Rhino house at feeding time and the Penguins Rock facility. A great day was had by all and the pupils’ excellent manners and first class behaviour was a credit to the school.

S4 pupils who are part of the JSLA class were given the opportunity to go to Ratho Climbing centre in Edinburgh to experience some adrenaline infused activities including climbing, abseiling and bouldering.

In the climbing pupils were given the chance to scale the heights of the Ratho climbing centre which is specially built around a natural quarry.  They learned how to belay for each other which required a lot of trust and teamwork between the pupils.  The abseiling section was where pupils were truly put to the test as they were suspended at mind numbing heights and their lives were quite literally in their own hands as they carefully lowered themselves towards the ground.  This was probably the most popular part of the day with many pupils reporting to have overcome their fear of heights.

All pupils had a fantastic day and found it both a challenging and worthwhile experience.

A group of fourth year French and German students from Braidhurst High School attended an event organised by the Scottish Association of Languages in Glasgow last week.   They were accompanied by Mrs Eleanor Magowan, Principal Teacher of Modern Languages, Mrs Joyce Dalzell, Classroom assistant and Miss Imke Reitenbach, the German assistant at Braidhurst High School.   The pupils met with students from other schools throughout Scotland and commenced the day with a tasty breakfast prepared by the event organisers.

They were then given the opportunity to engage first-hand with business leaders who view language skills as key to the growth and success of their organisations.   More importantly, the young people were able to take part in workshops and to ask questions to find out more about a variety of careers and employment opportunities that are open to people who can demonstrate language skills on their CV.   Career input ranged from The Open University,  Engineering,  Scottish Business Enterprise to The Scottish Football Association.

All pupils thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to learn about the possibilities of a career with languages and the importance of learning a language in today’s society.   They will hopefully be inspired to take their study of French and German further in the future.

‘Focus West’ is a programme organised by Glasgow Universities to encourage more pupils to consider applying for Further and Higher Education.   A group of 30 Braidhurst pupils in S4 have followed this process through from S3, culminating in a two day visit to Strathclyde University on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 January.

Pupils returned to school excited and full of positives after their experience.   Their experience as a student, for 2 days, has certainly strengthened their determination to continue to apply themselves in school and to ensure they have the required grades by the end of S6 to follow a pathway to Higher Education.

Pupils participated in a series of workshops, challenges and engaged in stimulating debate with mentors.   Feedback was positive and comments included:

“The mentor sessions were very interactive and helped us understand about university life”.  Fatima Khan.

“Speaking to mentors eased my nerves and helped me realise that there are lots of different options for students”.  Chelsea Dykes.

“I enjoyed the variety of different activities over the two days at University and particularly the study techniques sessions which will help me prepare for exams”.  Chloe Elrick.

“I enjoyed my two days and now have a better understanding of how to study and student finances”.  Tony Sharkey.

Meanwhile, S3 pupils have been fortunate to visit The University of the West of Scotland, Hamilton Campus and New College Lanarkshire this week on Wednesday 28^th and Friday 30 January.

For the lucky 30, this is the start of their journey and partnership with Focus West.   Their initial experiences certainly met our aim of encouraging some to consider applications to College or University in the future.   Pupils have returned to school with a different insight about life as a student and for many with renewed optimism for their future.    They ae greatly looking forward to more visits of this kind.