As the Science club goes from strength to strength, it is quickly becoming the most popular lunch club within the school – and it’s not difficult to see why, given their latest batch of experiments. Pupils attending the club were recently delighted by the task to make their very own ice cream! Take a look at our gallery below to see some shots of the experiment and its results.

If you are interested in joining the Science club, please see Ms Pathmanathan for more details.

The school’s Sports Ambassadors and a number of the junior support groups received a wonderful early Christmas gift when Olympic gymnast Steve Frew visited the school. Steve spoke to the pupils about setting high ambitions in their lives and encouraged them to push themselves to their personal limits. One of the highlights of the visit was when Steve demonstrated his amazing gymnastic talents on the vaulting horse and other floor equipment, much to the awe of his young audience.

The theatre was packed almost to capacity for the annual ‘Evening of Music for Christmas’ on the last Tuesday of term. The school was delighted to welcome so many friends and guests from across the local community who joined with staff, parents and pupils for this traditional Christmas launch. Mrs Anne Traynor, Principal Teacher of Performing Arts, Miss Stefanie frame and Mrs Joyce Halliburton masterminded a wonderfully varied programme that showcased the wide range of musical and acting talent in Clyde Valley, as well as reminding everyone about the true spirit of Christmas. Ricky Owens and Glenn McBride, two of the School Captains, acted as hosts and kept proceedings running smoothly before finding time to perform with Blue Diamond (the rock band) for the final three numbers.

 One of the evening’s highlights saw pupils presenting Donna McLellan, of St Andrew’s Hospice in Airdrie, with a £600 cheque, raised through ticket and raffle ticket sales. Mr Sommerville, the Head Teacher, rounded off by wishing everyone a peaceful and happy Christmas before the entire company brought the house down with a lively rendition of Slade’s classic ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’.

Donna McLellan (back centre) is delighted to accept a cheque for £600 from some of the young performers at Clyde Valley’s ‘An Evening of Music for Christmas’. A variety of photos from the evening are shown in our gallery above.

As part of the continuing celebrations for the 200th Anniversary of the publication of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the Goethe Institut in Glasgow has been showing a series of films based on these stories. A group of Clyde Valley pupils, who study German, were lucky enough to be part of the audience at the recent showing of “Schneewittchen” or ‘Snow White’

The show was all in German –  apart from the English subtitles to help the pupils to understand it.  As well as watching the film and learning some new vocabulary , the pupils also took part in a workshop before the film started. In this workshop, they talked about the history behind these stories and about their importance in the world of literature. The pupils were asked some questions about old fairy tails in German and they answered back in English.

The pupils will continue to work on this topic in class, using materials from the Goethe Institut. One of the activities some of the pupils will be involved in, is the production of a mini video clip of one of these Fairy Tales, where the pupils will act out a scene in German.

All in all the pupils thoroughly enjoyed it – especially the free sweets and chocolates – and  were great ambassadors for the school.

There was a real festive feel around the school last week as pupils from all year groups enjoyed the annual Christmas disco. Members of the sixth year transformed the dining room and house block into a bright and colourful venue, with decorations draped to produce a wonderful atmosphere. Everyone had a great night as they danced to popular Christmas classics. Thursday was also the day of the annual Christmas lunch in the dining rooms. The catering staff served a wonderful traditional turkey or steak pie lunch in the Xmas Meal Deal Special. Thanks to catering manager, Danny Muir and his staff for providing the delicious festive feast.

Members of Clyde Valley’s sixth year get into the Christmas spirit at last week’s disco.

First year pupils celebrated St Andrew’s Day in style this year by taking part in an afternoon festival that celebrated all things Scottish! The Celebration of Scotland event was the culmination of months of hard work by first year who have been working on the theme of ‘Scotland, my country, my culture and my heritage’ across all subject departments. Pupils have carried out historical research, written reports on the economy and geography of our country, produced colourful art work, learned poems and songs, baked and cooked some famous Scottish dishes and brushed up on their Strictly Scottish Dancing skills!

While much of the work is now on display in the Library in a special exhibition, the afternoon of St Andrew’s Day was very much an active way of celebrating Scotland. Sometimes in House groups, but often as an entire year group, pupils devoured Irn Bru and shortbread, listened to Scottish poetry, belted out resounding versions of ‘Flower of Scotland’ and other well-known songs and energetically danced the ‘Gay Gordons’ and the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’. Staff and pupils gathered in the Games Barn for the final activity, the traditional singing of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Many staff and pupils added to the spirit of the occasion by adorning a marvellous array of tartan clothing and Scottish sports tops!

Some of Clyde Valley’s first year pupils take a break from their ‘Scottish Strictly Come Dancing’ efforts!

Pictures show some of our penalty takers along with overall winner Zayn and goalie Ross.

Early in November, 45 S2 Geography pupils visited ‘Our Dynmaic Earth’ in Edinburgh. The pupils have been studying Earth Forces in class and the visit was timed to coincide with this topic. The pupils toured the galleries where they learned about the history of the earth, the forces that change the earths surface and about the different climatic regions of the earth. The 3D cinema experience where we flew from the North Pole to the Equator was full of surprises and one pupil (who shall remain nameless) jumped a metre into the air with fright at one point! Later the pupils took part in workshops on the theme of ‘Supervolcanoes’. The pupils should be commended for their enthusiastic participation in the workshops and for their exemplary behaviour throughput the visit.

Members of the Pupil Council led morning assemblies last month as part of the national Anti-Bullying Week Campaign. Working with Mr Cameron McKay of the English Department, Liam Findon, Jarad Bruff and Ross Megahy created and presented a power point presentation outlining types of bullying and pointing out the sometimes harrowing consequences for the victims. The Pupil Council in Clyde Valley has challenged our pupils to make any form of bullying totally unacceptable in the school, ending with the powerful message that only by the pupil cohort standing firm together can that wonderful objective be achieved.

The Christmas Disco is on Wednesday the 12 of December at half past 7. Tickets are £4 and are on sale from Monday the 3rd of December at the child care room outside canteen 1.  Make sure you get yours and don’t miss out!

Enterprise Week  took place in November  and one of our school’s most successful enterprise initiatives is Eco Schools. To mark Enterprise Week  a new ‘Eco Gallery’ was launched in the corridor next to Canteen One. Pupils from across the school were invited to take part in a competition to mark the launch, where they had to submit their best photos  of local wildlife or a nature scene.

Judges, including Mr Sommerville and Mr Weir, were very impressed with the variety of entries and chose Kirstin Scott as the overall winner for her impressive picture of two hoverflies. Second place went to Lucy Dundas for her shot of Dalziel Park, while third place was shared by Arlene Walker and Dylan Duncan.

The Eco Gallery now features the pupils’ work and will continue to be updated on a regular basis.

Members of the Wonderful World Club and the first and second year support groups were to be found around the perimeter fence of the school last week as they ended the school’s Jubilee Celebration by planting 60 trees provided free by the Woodland Trust. To combat the cold and wet weather, the members kitted themselves out in boots and wrapped up well as they planted a variety of trees around the perimeter fence adjacent to Gowkthrapple and Pather. Miss Kirsty Logan, of the Humanities Department led the enthusiastic army of helpers in their invaluable task, as they sought to encourage the growth of so many native trees.

Members of the ‘Wonderful World Club’ plant trees around the perimeter fence to complete the school’s Queen’s Jubilee celebrations.

The Catalyst Book Award is NLC’s annual celebration of teen fiction. The 2013 Catalyst Book longlist launch took place on, Thursday 29th November 2012, at Coatbridge library. 2009 Catalyst Award winner, Theresa Breslin, was the guest speaker and announced this year’s longlist titles to the audience which included two classes from Coatbridge High School. She entertained the gathering with talk of her book research travels to Italy and Russia and took part in a question and answer session.  

 Each year S3 pupils from Clyde Valley High become involved in the Catalyst Book Award. As part of their English lessons pupils visit the school library to select, read and write book reviews on the Catalyst blog. Pupils vote for the titles which they wish to see selected for the Shortlist of four books. The winning book will be chosen from one of these four titles, again, voted for by pupils from North Lanarkshire schools.

Next June pupils from CVHS will attend the award ceremony which will be hosted in one of North Lanarkshire’s secondary schools. Last year the ceremony took place in, Our Lady’s High School, Motherwell where two pupils from CVHS, Laura Kilpatrick and Ellen Lees, had the honour of introducing the shortlisted author, Keren David, to the audience.Mr Lanagan and Miss McGough are hoping that this year’s 3.1 will enjoy working on Catalyst as much as pupils from previous years have.

Theresa Breslin during her presentation at Coatbridge Library. Breslin’s book “Divided City” is one of the most requested books at the CVHS library.