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.

The lunchtime Science Club is growing from strength to strength under the watchful eyes of Miss Anushi Pathmanathan and Mrs Cristina Smith. Pupils have thoroughly enjoyed putting scientific theory into practice and have had great fun in the process. In the last few weeks pupils have been testing the strength of eggs combined with the science of engineering through the ‘drop an egg from a window’ test, as well as making their very own ‘Bath Bombs’! The Science Club is rapidly becoming one of the most popular of our lunchtime clubs –  especially with pupils in first year.

Pupils above can be seen making their ‘Bath Bombs’ and constructing their designs for the egg-drop challenge.

Members of the school’s junior badminton club were thrilled to take part in the recent badminton festival held at the new Emirates Arena and Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in the East End of Glasgow. The pupils were completely awe-struck by the stunning facilities and thoroughly enjoyed playing round-robin matches as well as a number of fun routines, all designed to test fitness and agility. Paul Codona, Stuart Murphy and Jamie Brownlie all won individual prizes for winning their fitness challenge, an ‘around the world’ shot accuracy challenge and badminton ‘keepie-uppie’. They also enjoyed meeting top international badminton players, including Scotland’s world badminton silver medallist, Imogen Bankier. The pupils were delighted to listen to the coaching tips these top players offered them and to receive their enthusiastic encouragement.

Clyde Valley’s first year budding badminton stars with Imogen Bankier, the Scottish internationalist.

Congratulations to Home Economics staff and pupils from the S4 Hospitality class for running what was a highly successful staff coffee morning on behalf of MacMillan Cancer Care. Thanks to the generosity of staff the coffee morning raised just over £310 which the class will formally donate to the MacMillan nurses in the very near future. Mrs Heather Murray, and her Hospitality team, provided a feast for the staff and must be commended so highly for their efforts.

Staff enjoy the home baking produced by the S4 Hospitality Class for the recent MacMillan Coffee Morning.

Miss Claire Douglas of the English Department has just returned with a group of fourth year pupils from this year’s first outing to the Outward Bound Outdoor Centre at Loch Eil. Miss Douglas was delighted to report how well each and every pupils had done as they faced their own personal and team challenges, including in the icy waters of the loch during the raft-building exercise. The group tackled a mountain trek and a series of climbing challenges with every ‘clan’ members successfully completing the tasks thanks to the support of all their clan-mates.

The Clyde Valley Outward Bound Group gathers outside the Loch Eil Centre during their recent week-long stay.

Carolina Richardson of sixth year has added to her already impressive haul of international football caps after taking part in a recent European Championship Qualifying Tournament in Turkey. Carolina has been capped for Scotland all the way through her school career and won 3 more caps as she represented her country in the 3 nation qualifier. Top striker, Carolina netted an impressive hat trick on a thumping 8-0 win against Belarus. She then played a major part in Scotland’s win over the host nation with the Scots edging Turkey 2-1 in a real thriller. Although Norway edged to a 1-0 in against Scotland, Carolina and the rest of the Ladies Under 19 squad qualified for the knock-out stages to be held early in 2013.

Carolina Richardson proudly displays the latest of her many Scotland shirts after starring in the European Championship qualifiers.

Over the last few weeks House Time classes have been collecting items and bringing in bags for the Mary’s Meals Backpack Appeal. This helps children from poorer countries to attend school and provides money for food and clothing. After a magnificent effort we collected a total of 75 BackPacks and £130 for under privileged young people in Malawi. The packs will allow 75 children to benefit from education, including receiving daily food. The £130 will allow the Mary’s Meals organisation to feed 12 children for one whole year. A group of pupils and Mrs Lynsay Ashton, who coordinated the gathering of equipment and donations for the Malawi project, will formally donate the school’s gift to a representative of Mary’s Meals in the very near future.

The Clyde Valley yearbook team have been working hard on this year’s yearbook. This will be a special yearbook because it celebrates the 20th anniversary of the school. It is completely different from what it has ever been like before and you don’t want to miss out on this piece of history! Deposits of £7 are being taken during lunch time in canteen one. The yearbooks should be delivered around Easter and the total cost is £15. Reserve your copy now!

An evening of music for Christmas is to be held in the school theatre on Tuesday 18th of December at 7:30pm. Tickets are £4 and are available from the school and at the door. This will be supporting St. Andrew’s Hospice with proceeds from the night going to the charity. Come along and enjoy the wonderful selection of music and drama, soaking up the Christmas spirit at this festive time of year.

Congratulations to the senior pupils who have completed their first Leadership Award, the TOP Community trainer Certificate.  The TOP Community Training is a basic level generic sports coaching qualification, developed for primary teachers and new sports coaches/leaders. It provides them with the skills and knowledge to deliver grass-roots sport. The concepts learned and resources gained can be used by coaches in all sports.

Clyde Valley’s CSLA students proudly display their TOPS Award.

At the recent special presentation ceremony, five Clyde Valley senior pupils were proud recipients of the Convener’s Award for Academic Excellence in the 2012 SQA examinations. Jane Liddell, Head of Service, welcomed the gathering of award winners and senior staff from North Lanarkshire secondary schools. Councillor Jim Logue, Convener of the Learning and Leisure Services Committee then presented his special award to those pupils from across the whole of the Council who had attained either 8 Standard Grade Credit 1 passes, or 5 Higher Grade A passes. Jordan Dunnachie, Sarah Thomson and Kirstin Scott excelled at Standard Grade, while Grant Crichton and Glenn McBride performed impressively at Higher.

Pictured with their Convener’s Award (from left to right): Jordan, Kirstin, Sarah, Glenn and Grant.

Congratulations to the team of swimmers who made it through the recent NLC Schools’ Swimming Championships held recent at Bellshill. Ainslie Wright captured gold in the 200 butterfly, silver in both the 400 individual medley and the 400 freestyle and bronze in both the 100 butterfly and 200 individual medley; Karen Perry was a double gold medallist in the 100 breast stroke and the 100 freestyle. Karen also captured two silvers in the 200 freestyle and the 100 backstroke. Eilidh Murray took silver in the 200 butterfly and bronze in the 200 freestyle; Adam Pearson was a double bronze medallist in the 100 butterfly and the 100 freestyle; Jack Reid captured bronze in the 200 individual medley. Aaron Stevenson, Elke MacLean, Kenneth Lang, Kyle McInnes and Carly Murray all competed in a number of finals and came very close to adding to the school’s impressive medal haul.

Clyde Valley’s Swimmers who had so much success in the recent NLC Championships.

Houldsworth captured the Senior Inter House Public Speaking Shield after a wonderful evening’s entertainment provided by the intermediate and senior teams. Houldsworth’s intermediate speakers, Rachel Moon and Eilidh Murray joined forces with their S6 counterparts, Jon Connelly and Ricky Owens to be an irresistible force for the judges. Sneddon captured the runner-up position in the Intermediate side of the tournament, while Curran was second in the senior event.

Kayley Pollock, Claire Megahy, Glenn McBride and Eleanor Histead formed the Curran team. The Sneddon House representatives were Heather Waugh, Niamh Speirs, Jarad Bruff and Josh Speirs.

Mr Sommerville, head teacher, school librarian Miss Marie McGough and former member of staff, Mrs Elizabeth Clarke had the difficult job of judging these outstanding speakers.

Rachel Moon won the individual trophy in the Intermediate Competition with a wonderfully reflective, and often witty, piece entitled ‘Expectations’. Rachel spoke of tackling new challenges and always stretching herself to do her best in life – with the support and encouragement of family and school.

Josh Speirs captured the senior title in a real battle of the cream of Clyde Valley’s very talented seniors. Josh took the title with an hilarious self-evaluation of his inimitable dress style in a speech entitled ‘Confessions of a Working Class Connoisseur’.

Clyde Valley’s Public Speakers who provided great entertainment last week. Individual winners were Josh Speirs (far left) and Rachel Moon (third from right in front row)

The school show DVD deposits (£6) are now being taken at the main office.  If you didn’t go to the school show you could catch up on the amazing experince on DVD or, for those who took part in the show, have the chance to see it from the audience’s point fo view. DVDs will be arriving  soon, but you will have to hurry – you don’t want to miss out!

Pupils from S1-S6 gathered in the spookily decorated dining room for this year’s fancy dress Halloween Disco, organised by the sixth year. There was a fantastic turnout with every pupil and staff dressed in some ghoulish attire! Katy Ramage won the prize for the best costume with her portrayal of a rocking elderly lady a hit with the judges. They were particularly impressed by her high-fiving zimmer frame. Thanks to everyone for making such an effort, especially with the costumes and the decoration of the hall.

 

Our pictures capture sixth year pupils waiting to greet their ‘guisers’, with Depute Head Teacher, Alan Carrol (back right) hovering menacingly as Count Dracula and some of the brood of S1 babies who appeared in their night suits!