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.
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.
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.
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