Easter School will take place from Tuesday 3rd April until Thursday 5th April – 9.30am to 2.15pm. The aim is to provide additional support, advice and extra practice in the majority of subjects in the lead up to the SQA exams. Pupils in S4/5/6 who are sitting Advanced Higher, Higher or National 5 exams have signed up and we look forward to welcoming them in school on Tuesday at 9.30am.

The launch date for the S1 Future Funds Initiative Scheme (FFI)/Credit Union is after the Easter holidays. If you haven’t yet picked up a form go to room F03 (ICT).

All S1 pupils in the catchment area are entitled to a ‘free’ £10 for setting up a Credit Union account!

On Saturday 17th March 2018 two of our very talented S2 Athletes, Eilidh Shaw and Emily Arthur competed at the Scottish Schools X-Country event at Hopetoun House in Edinburgh. Both girls ran very well mixing with the best of what Scotland has to offer at this age group.

Both girls competed in the Group C Girls race. Eilidh Shaw placed 24th which was an excellent finish for mixing with S3 pupils.
Both Eilidh and Emily will have another year at this age group so wishing them all the best for next year.

The conditions were snowy and very windy so both Eilidh and Emily represented Airdrie Academy well and I am sure made everyone proud.

Now that is the X-Country season over we look forward to see what the Athletics and X-Country club bring during the track season.

S2 pupils took part in the Giant Heptathlon on Friday 9th February 2018.

This event involved all the pupils participating in the following events at Ravenscraig Sports Centre;
• Step Up Challenge
• Relay Race
• Standing Long Jump
• Standing Triple Jump
• Shot Putt
• 60m Sprint
• 60m Hurdles

Overall Airdrie Academy were 5th.
All the pupils involved were excellent and achieved some of their best performances.

Numeracy Week 12th – 16th March

Every day in classes pupils engaged in lessons centred on numeracy. Within the Maths department the focus was on the growth mind set of numeracy – Why it is important. We also highlighted the other areas of numeracy by, for example, playing logic games and how to solve problems using numeracy skills.

Monday 12th
-Visit from Professor McBride to deliver a very interesting Numeracy talk to all of our S2 pupils. Professor McBride showed pupils how to divide by single digits easily in their heads and how to solve magic squares simply.

-At lunchtime we had a Rubik Cube competition where pupils were timed to see who could solve the cube the fastest. Adam McRae was our champion at 17 seconds but Ryan Eckersley came a close second at 22 seconds.

Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th
The Royal Bank of Scotland were in school to deliver a Skill4Bills workshop to our S1 pupils. The Skill4Bills workshop allows pupils to begin to understand the concept of credit, recognize household expensive and financial commitments and add to their numeracy skills. This was delivered by staff from the RBS and Lloyds Bank and some parents involved in the pupil council. It truly was fantastic event and very well received by every pupil. A huge thank you to everyone involved for giving up their time to help promote numeracy within Airdrie Academy. On the Wednesday some of our S3 pupils helped out a huge thank you to them!!

Wednesday 14th – Pi Day!!! (Month/day/year 3.14.18)
– The RBS in school as before. – Pi Day was celebrated all around the school. Canteen offered a fantastic stake pie to help celebrate.
– Number festival for Primary 7 pupil. All of our cluster primaries were involved with our number festival. This involved several departments, including maths, science, business and PE. That activities Pupils went round in groups visiting five activities experiencing Numeracy in the different environments. Some of the activities were Rubik Cube challenge, Numeracy Corners, Measuring using scales and code braking. Although I organised the event I could not have don’t it without some of our S2 pupils. They were escorts for the primary 7’s and some of our pupils helped out within the classes. More impressive three of our girls actually delivered the activity. Beth Wilson, Fatima Jaffrey and Nicola Roger organised and ran the activity in Business.

Thursday 15th and Friday 16th
Numeracy for S3 and S2 pupils – Over the two days pupils were engaged in an activity we have on loan form the University of Glasgow through the STEM ambassadors. It was several numeracy activities where pupils, whilst in their Maths classrooms, went around in groups solving different numeracy problems.

Easter School will take place from Tuesday 3rd April until Thursday 5th April – 9.30am to 2.15pm. The aim is to provide additional support, advice and extra practice in the majority of subjects in the lead up to the SQA exams. Pupils in S4/5/6 who are sitting Higher or National 5 have had the opportunity to sign up for Easter School during FOL time this week.

If you were 16 between 30 September 2017 and 28 February 2018 and wish to apply for an EMA, applications must be submitted by 31 March 2018.

Application packs are now available from the school.

Alternatively you can download an application and guidance notes here:

EYC_00105_ema_application_form_2017_(low-res)

EYC_00105_ema_guidance_note_2017_(low-res)

Click here for more information.

Following a successful Live Literature bid through the Scottish Book Trust, Airdrie Academy welcomed author Gill Arbuthnott to the school library. Gill braved the cold winter weather to inspire our readers and budding creative writers. During the first session of the morning a group of S2 English pupils learned more about the creative writing process and where stories come from. Many of our pupils had already read one of Gill’s books, “Dark Spell” (shortlisted for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards 2015), so found it fascinating to hear where Gill got a lot of her ideas from.

Gill Arbuthnott also writes non-fiction for children. She passionately believes that science should be fascinating and has written a collection of popular science books which help make science easy to understand and interesting. The second session of the morning allowed some of our S1 Science classes to be treated to an interactive session on The Brain.

The thrill of having an author visiting the library was evident by the many very interesting questions pupils asked Gill.

A selection of fiction and non-fiction books written by Gill Arbuthnott are available for loan in the school library.

We were delighted to welcome  Lisa O’Rourke (Product Development Manager from Albert Bartlett) who delivered a workshop for S3 Health and Food Technology pupils during Developing the Young Workforce Week. Lisa inspired the pupils to consider a career in the food industry, especially Food Product Development. Pupils learned about food trends and the development process. They also got to make and evaluate potato wedges with 3 different varieties of potatoes.

One of our feeder primaries, “Golfhill Primary School”, is holding a fundraising event tomorrow night 9^th March in Airdrie Workingmen’s Club.  Ticket prices are £12.50 which includes a chip shop supper of your choice. Carrie Jones will be the entertainment on the night, a great singer and comedian. Fantastic Raffle prizes to be won include. Click here to find out more:

GOLFHILL LADIES NIGHT 2018