On the morning of Thursday 22nd November 20 Higher History pupils went to the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. This is one of the largest and most reputable reference libraries in Europe. The pupils were invited to examine a selection of primary sources relating to the migration of Scots. This was an invaluable opportunity to examine genuine historical sources which are archived and rarely available to the general public. The visit was further enhanced by the guidance and expertise of the very helpful Archivists, Dr Irene O’Brien and Nerys Tunnicliffe. The whole visit provided an invaluable insight into genuine historical research.

Join in this celebration of books and reading by taking part in the S1 Book Cover Design Challenge or the Book Week Scotland Quiz – all year groups

Also, follow @AirdrieAcadLRC and read a story written over twitter by school librarians. Feel free to pop into the library to give Mrs Agnew some creative writing tips or simply to pick up your free Book Week Scotland bookmark.

Visit the library for more details.

During Book Week Scotland all first year English classes will have the opportunity to take part in Miss Frew’s Book Cover Design Challenge.

Pupils who create the best entries from each class will be awarded with a copy of “Robert Burns – A Peculiar History”.

The overall winner will be nominated for the Jim Cook Award for Scottish Literature at the annual prizegiving.

All entries will be judged by our Library Resource Centre Manager, Mrs Agnew.

Good luck everyone!

Ciara, Morgan, and Robyn were Airdrie Academy’s S3 representatives at the Dragon’s Lair event. They created a business name – SolarJuice and devised a product to pitch to the Dragons. Their product was a solar powered charging accessory. As part of the competition they researched their product and completed a comprehensive business report and as a result made it to the final.

Over 200 portions of street food were made and sold by the S2 Health and Food Technology pupils. This was part of their Food Product Development unit to research and design a street food product. It was a sell out with a huge number of pupils and staff coming along to Home Economics to buy their lunch.

The winners were, Meccio’s Pizza Dough Balls and the runners up, Cookie Supreme’s. They are pictured with Miss Iona Marshall who was our industry judge. Iona is a former pupil of Airdrie Academy and is now a Home Economics Teacher.

Pupils in Airdrie Academy have been recognised for their achievements over the 2016/17 session in two ceremonies.

The junior prize giving took place in the school and was a great success.  The event recognised both academic achievements and involvement in the wider life of the school.

The Senior Prize Giving Ceremony held at New Wellwynd Parish Church was another wonderful event, celebrating pupil successes.

The whole school community came together to congratulate pupils on their successes.  Pupils were awarded prizes to recognise academic endaveours as well as sporting pursuits and involvement in the wider life of the school and local community.

Rev. Robbie Hamilton led the proceedings, and was supported by his fellow school chaplains.  Head Teacher Martin Anderson addressed the congregation and prizes were distributed to a large number of pupils in S4-6 from the last academic session.

School Captain Matthew Paul and his Vice Captains Rhea Currie and Lyndsey Rideout from session 2016-17 made very profound speeches detailing their time at Airdrie Academy and had the opportunity to pass over the duties to current School Captain Eman Qasim and Vice Captains Rebecca Morgan and Katie Laing.

Huge congratulations to Georgia Watson who was presented with the School Dux Award and to Katie Laing who was Proxime Accessit.

Performances from the Performing Arts Department were of a very high standard.

A special thanks to sponsors ENGIE, Guidis, Cairnhill Structures, Albert Bartlett and Mary Wilson Flowers.

On the 31^st of October, 2 teams represented Airdrie Academy at the West of Scotland Heat of the Kids Lit Quiz.

The Kids Lit Quiz is an annual global literature quiz with the winning team from each heat competing in a National Final. National champions then compete in the World Final.

Both teams worked very hard to prepare for the event and did exceptionally well on the day. In fact, our first team came out top of all the North Lanarkshire Schools entered.

Although we didn’t make the top three, the final result was very close and all pupils did win prizes for getting top scores in individual rounds. Pupils also had the pleasure of meeting and having books signed by visiting authors Cathy MacPhail, Elizabeth Wein and Alex McCall.

The day was a fabulous celebration of books and reading and the pupils were a credit to the school.

On Friday 10th November, pupils from 1M1, 1F1 and 1C1 geography classes got the chance to go to Amazonia at Strathclyde Park as part of their Brazil unit.

There, they got to experience the climate of the rainforest, and see and handle some of the animals that call the rainforest their home.

A great time was had by all the pupils and other S1 classes will get a chance to go soon!

Well done to S3 pupils Sophie, Emily, Ellie and Teigan who successfully completed the Fire Reach programme last week. The girls were a credit to themselves, their families and the school.