Congratulations to David Kennedy, Active Schools Coordinator, and his Clyde Valley team of Sports leaders for organising last week’s highly successful Primary Transition Dance Festival. The festival has become one of the primary secondary liaison programme’s most popular event, with entries from all of Clyde Valley’s 9 partnership primary schools.

This year’s event was another colourful, creative and energetic celebration of the dancing skills of our link primary pupils. The Sports Leaders launched the festival with a dynamic solo performance from Rachel Moon of S5. And, our S2/S3 dance troupe also provided their own imaginative contribution to what was a fantastic day’s entertainment, very much enjoyed by the staff and parents who formed the appreciative audience.

At the end of a fantastic contest the troupe from Newmains Primary School captured the Partnership Shield with their own very special tribute to the music of Michael Jackson.

The Clyde Valley Sports Leaders and Dancers who organized this year’s dance festival.

Bulldozers moved in to the school grounds this week as the Clyde Valley Campus project progressed to physical adaptation of the existing site. The area around the tennis courts has been excavated and will form part of a temporary car park, likely to become operational before the summer holidays.

A new bus drop off and pick up zone will be formed in the current car park, as well as changes to the pedestrian walkways. This will see the main entrance becoming the end of the podium at the Gowkthrapple end to allow the playing fields and current bus bay areas to become an active site for the construction of the new school.

The Clyde Valley Campus project gets underway.

Pupils from the S1 support group recently visited WH Smith in Wishaw as part of our celebration of World Book Day.

After a good look around the book store the pupils took advantage of their WDB £1 book tokens and purchased a book each. Staff at WH Smith, very kindly, provided the group with crisps, sweets, pencils and ‘WBD’ book marks.

The pupils instantly started to read their newly obtained books, a true celebration of World Book Day! Miss Marie McGough, our school librarian, Mrs Evelyn Neilson, Depute Head Teacher, and our Partnership Officer, Mrs Esther Craig accompanied the group and were fulsome in their praise for their enthusiasm and impeccable manners.

The school would like to record its sincere appreciation to all the staff at WH Smith for their generous and warm hospitality.

Members of the S1 Support Group with the books they chose during their recent visit to WH Smith in Wishaw as part of the World Book Day celebrations.

Members of the Pupil Council have launched an anti-dog fouling campaign. Members have been disgusted by dog owners who have accessed school grounds and the areas around our boundary and allowed their pets to foul grass and pavement areas.

Environmental Officers from North Lanarkshire Council have been delivering presentations to all junior school Social Education classes to highlight the problems such irresponsible dog ownership can cause. Council members have themselves been active around the school promoting this campaign.

The Council has secured a supply of waste bags form NLC and has been distributing these to pet owners in school to encourage good practice amongst our own dog owners.

There has also been a real fun element to the campaign with senior members of Council adorning dog suits and wandering ‘responsibly’ around the podium and playground areas during lunchtime. Our ‘pets’ proved very popular in the ‘selfie’ market!

Goods doggies! Clyde Valley Pupil Council members with first year pupil, Caitlin Jeffrey as they help promote their anti-dog fouling campaign.

Congratulations to Megan Smillie of 4S1, who became an individual World Tae Kwon Do Champion at Swindon last week. Megan won World Gold in the Middleweight, Minus 57, Category. She also captured Bronze in the 14-17 Individual Patterns event.

Megan Smillie with the world medals she won recently at Swindon.

Congratulations to the Fair Trade Committee for their efforts in supporting Fair Trade fortnight. In an effort to raise school community awareness of Fair Trade, the group organised a range of activities that include ‘Sponge a Teacher’ and a staff coffee morning.

Staff and pupils also donated £1 to the Fair Trade cause by participating in the ‘Sport Your Trainers’ event. This initiative primarily promoted the forthcoming Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Miss Anushi Pathmanathan, Acting Principal Teacher of Work and Enterprise, was delighted to confirm our collective Fair Trade efforts raised a total of £446.

Members of the Clyde Valley Fair Trade Committee prepare to serve the staff coffee morning.

The Fair Trade Committee adopted a most creative advertising approach to promote the new Fair Trade Tuck Shop, their Fair Trade Staff Coffee Morning and the launch of Fair Trade Fortnight.

They recruited the services of several members of staff to be placed ‘in the stocks, in the playground, then to face the pupil mob who were paying for the privilege of throwing wet sponges at their staff favourites!

A big thanks to Mr Alex Martin, our Technical Technician, for making the stocks and to Miss Wendy McKenna, from the Art department, for her colourful painting of them.

Few of the staff ‘victims’ enjoyed their multiple soaking, but pupils had a terrific time! More importantly, the lunchtime fiasco raised £150 for the Fair Trade cause.

Teachers in the Clyde Valley stocks during the ‘Sponge a Teacher ‘event.