The theatre was packed to capacity on the last Monday of the session for the school’s annual prize giving. Given he would retire at the end of session, this was a particularly poignant occasion for Head Teacher, Ian Sommerville.

In his introduction, Chairman Mr Robert Nimmo paid tribute to the school’s overall achievements. He made special reference to the work the school does in supporting charitable causes. As an ambassador for St Andrew’s Hospice in Airdrie, Mr Nimmo acknowledged the huge amount of money Clyde Valley has raised for the Hospice since it opened its doors in 1992.

Mr Sommerville was speaking at his twentieth, and final prize giving. To mark this milestone in his career, Mr Sommerville presented both his annual report and offered the reflections to the school usually reserved for the principal guest.

He began by thinking about his very first address to school in June 1995, only three weeks after taking up post. He spoke of the tremendous work undertaken by Jack Gallacher, the school’s first ever Head Teacher, laying the foundation of the school Clyde Valley has become. Looking forward, Mr Sommerville wished his successor, Mrs Catherine O’Keane, currently Depute Head Teacher at Cardinal Newman High School in Bellshill, every success. He was sure Clyde Valley would continue to flourish under her leadership.

Mr Sommerville looked back on what he proudly reported had been a highly a successful year. He pinpointed a number of areas worthy of special mention, including examination performance in the 2014, which had been the best in the school’s 22 year history. He recalled successes in sport, in the arts and music and in vocational education. He highlighted the vast range of opportunities available to young people at all stages, including numerous educational excursions abroad. He spoke of the school’s strong progress in delivering both Curriculum for Excellence and the new National Qualifications courses. All of these achievements had only been possible due to the tireless efforts of all staff.

He described Clyde Valley as being more than a successful school, highly regarded across Scotland for its innovative and progressive curriculum and renowned for its commitment to offering wide opportunity, encouraging excellence and promoting decency and good citizenship.

Mr Sommerville spoke of Clyde Valley as a community with a heart, whose values of integrity, wisdom, justice and compassion were evident, all day every day. He concluded by thanking all those who work in partnership with the school and without whose support none of what the school achieved would be possible.

Mr Sommerville concluded by offering his personal congratulations to all of the prize winners and by stating, for one final time, it had been his privilege to serve Clyde Valley High School as its Head Teacher.

On behalf of the entire community, Mr Nimmo paid warm, personal tribute to Mr Sommerville’s stewardship of Clyde Valley.

John Pentland MSP presented Sports and House Awards. Councillors Jim Hume and Gary O’Rorke presented prizes to S1. Councillors Tommy Lunny and John Taggart made the S2 presentations. Councillors Marion Fellows and Frank McKay handed out the S3 awards. Councillor Sam Love presented prizes in S4.

Mr Sommerville presented the senior school prizes. This culminated in the presentation of the Proxime Accessit Award to Gary McFarlane and Heather Waugh and the Dux Award to Ryan Devine.

Clyde Valley’s principal award winners (left to right): Gary McFarlane, Ryan Devine and Heather Waugh

Staff and the outgoing sixth year pupils recently gathered at the Avonbridge Hotel in Hamilton for their annual S6 Formal.

Immediately following the meal, Mr Lanagan introduced school captains, Josh Speirs, Karen Perry, Alex Murphy and Adam Lawson. Then, speaking on behalf of all the captains, Josh fondly remembered their six years at Clyde Valley. With sparkling wit, Josh brought tears to everyone’s eyes as he recalled some of the more bizarre events from their collective catalogue of memories. The quartet then paid tribute to the staff who had given them so many opportunities over their six years.

In a very special tribute to their Head Teacher, Ian Sommerville, who retired at the end of session, Josh thanked him for his wise guidance and support and inspiration throughout their six years together.

Josh, Alex, Karen and Adam then each presented Mr Sommerville with a number of gifts, some serious, some funny – but all of which carried some special significance of the six years they had enjoyed together.

Replying on behalf of the staff, Mr Sommerville thanked the year group for their special contribution to the life of the school over the past six years.

On a personal level, he said how greatly moved he was by their expression of affection and high regard and described the year group as the embodiment of all that makes Clyde Valley such a special school.

Staff and pupils then enjoyed a fantastic night’s dancing to celebrate their happy times together.

Congratulations to Louise Winter of S1 and Reagan Binnie of S4 whose Gold Medals at the recent NLC Schools Sports ensured Clyde Valley’s athletes finished the season on a successful note. Louise captured gold in the S1 Girls Shott Putt, while Reagan saw off all challengers in an impressive 800 metres performance. 

For Louise this was her first County Sports medal while Reagan built on her past successes and now looks forward to summer training with the Scottish Schools Athletics Team.

Louise Winter (left) and Reagan Binnie proudly show their athletics medals.

During library periods S1 classes carried out a research and information retrieval exercise on the Commonwealth Games. This helped revise library skills which taught during the Library Induction Course. 

Classes were set the task of researching the History of the Commonwealth Games and gathering information about this year’s event from the Glasgow 2014 website. The research was split into three rounds.

Round 1: Research non-fiction books and encyclopedias to retrieve information on the history of the Commonwealth Games; Round 2: Research non-fiction books to retrieve information on a specific Commonwealth Games sport; Round 3: Access the official Glasgow 2014 website to answer set questions on this year’s games.

Each S1 class was divided into six research teams and each team was asked to choose a captain. Captains then selected a sport to study, allocating specific research tasks to members and ensuring that everyone worked together in the completion of the research. The team names were taken from Glasgow 2014 sports: Team Athletics, Team Badminton, Team Boxing, Team Hockey, Team Rugby Sevens and Team Netball.

Well done to David Kennedy of 1S1 who has won the Commonwealth Games Legacy Competition. David received a Commonwealth Games ‘goodie bag’ for his winning entries with his two Legacy Wishes:

I hope the Commonwealth Games will allow more people to see Glasgow as a nicer place and want to visit; I hope by watching the Commonwealth Games more people will change their attitude to sport and will try sports they’ve never tried before. 

Well done to David Kennedy of 1S1 who has won the Commonwealth Games Legacy Competition. David received a Commonwealth Games ‘goodie bag’ for his winning entries with his two Legacy Wishes:

I hope the Commonwealth Games will allow more people to see Glasgow as a nicer place and want to visit; I hope by watching the Commonwealth Games more people will change their attitude to sport and will try sports they’ve never tried before.

Congratulations to Calum Dunn and Ross Corbett of second year on their success in the recent Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Schools Competition. Calum’s work was Highly Commended while Ross received a Certificate of Commendation.

Both boys were part of a 20 strong group of Clyde Valley young people who recently visited Kelvingrove with Art teachers, Miss Wendy McKenna and Mrs Julie Menzies.

Staff have said farewell and happy retirement to four of the school’s longest serving teachers. With close to 100 years’ service between them, Mrs Mary Burns (Mathematics), Mrs Margaret Franks (Home Economics and Sneddon House), Mrs Joyce Halliburton (Drama) and Mrs Wilson Andrews (Physics) have all decided the more leisurely pace of retirement should beckon after the summer.

Mr Sommerville paid warm tribute to each of these highly committed teachers at a special presentation lunch during the last week of session. He commented upon their unique contributions to Clyde Valley before presenting them with a token of the staff’s deep appreciation of their friendship and professionalism.

Every member of the Clyde Valley community wishes all four colleagues a long, happy and healthy retirement.

The school is delighted to announce the appointment of Mrs Catherine O’Keane as our new Head Teacher from the start of the new session in August. Mrs O’Keane is Depute Head Teacher at Cardinal Newman High School in Bellshill and knows Clyde Valley very well. She was a member of the Home Economics Department when the school opened in August 1992.

Mrs O’Keane is very much looking forward to her new challenge and getting to know pupils, staff and parents. She hoped to visit the school prior to the holiday.