Third and Fourth year students of German have enjoyed the support of Miss Anja Woike, a German assistant, who has helped them to become more confident when conversing in the language. Last week, she brought German culture to the department, by devising a power point presentation on Christmas and New Year in Germany. Pupils were able to learn about such things as typical Christmas foods, presents, rituals and some of the popular carols sung in German. They also had the chance to sample German fruit cake (Stollen) and ginger cookies (Lebkuchen). In addition, S3 pupils have been learning how to describe their house in German, and Anja produced authentic photographs of her house in Germany and pupils were given a virtual tour of the rooms via a Smart Board presentation. Anja is spending Christmas with her family in Dusseldorf in Germany, but has promised to bring back a multitude of stimulating resources to further extend the pupils’ knowledge of the customs and language of the country!

Senior pupils from Braidhurst High School once again delivered our annual food parcels to the elderly and the needy within the local area. The response to this year’s collection was fabulous and resulted in all residents in the sheltered housing complex at Baillie Court receiving a gift box.

Groceries and small gifts were donated by pupils and staff and collected by Mrs McKay in the RME Department. The boxes were then wrapped and dressed by Mrs Dalzell in the PE Department and when they were looking fantastic, they were delivered, by Santa’s little elves, to the people in the community who need it most.

This was once again a successful event, which people in our community greatly appreciate as is demonstrated by the level of telephone calls received expressing gratitude, often before the pupils return from delivering the boxes.

Staff and pupils feel this is a worthwhile cause and gain a real sense of satisfaction from being involved. Pupils taking part gain valuable life skills such as empathy and initiatives such as this one help the pupils to foster a real sense of community spirit within the Forgewood area.

The hall at Braidhurst was packed on Monday 16^th December for the Christmas Dance. Well over 200 pupils danced to the music provided by the Cairnhill Ceilidh Band. The pupils from all year groups took part with great enthusiasm and no small measure of skill. The PE Department teaching of traditional Scottish dances shone through the entire evening which was compered expertly by Dr Gardner and Mr Hamilton. Staff well organised by Mrs Libby Doris, catered for the pupils and the vast number of staff in attendance. The highlight of the evening was the senior pupil ‘dance off’ judged by Mr Hannan and Mrs Clarke and won by Falakanaz Khan and Jazzmin Fernandez.

The annual line dancing competition took place during Friday 13 December when over 600 pupils and staff packed the assembly hall and strutted their stuff. This is the most popular inter house event of the year and hundreds of pupils practice every lunchtime for weeks leading up to the day of the competition. After a very difficult task the judges decided that Rannoch House were the 2013 champions.

On Thursday 12 December, a group of 35 drama pupils from S3-S6 land 4 staff took a trip to the Tron Theatre to see their pantomime.

The show was excellent in every way, fabulous singing, great acting and packed full of laughs. One of our S6 pupils, Dayle Archibald was invited on stage to assist the cast in ‘Reviving’ Stinkerbell by performing a short song with them.

All in all it was a very entertaining morning and provided a great deal of inspiration to our drama pupils in terms of scripting, acting and theatre arts.

On the 2^nd December Braidhurst High School Under 13’s football team advanced into the 4^th round of the Scottish Cup with a flattering 9-3 score line against a hard working Balfron High School. After being 4-1 down Balfron worked hard to get back two goals and left the Braidhurst boys feeling nervous for twenty minutes or so until Kieran McGrath scored two great strikes to settle any nerves. With scorers Kieran McGrath (4), Nathan McConnell (2), Dylan Tait (2) and Paul Gordon, Braidhurst are now feeling confident about the next match after the winter break.

This years Christmas Card artists have been chosen. Art & Design pupils from Braidhurst have had their work included in this year’s school Christmas card. They all worked hard to complete their themed drawings which were then included into the design of the card for 2013.

Aimee Kenmuir S2 and Sarah Cooper S3 have both had their work shown on the outside of the card and Fatima Khan S3 and Louise Coletta S4 successfully produced work which illustrates the inside of the card.