Congratulations to our former music teacher, Amy Papiransky, who was a finalist in BBC Radio Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician 2018 competition. Click on the image to view Amy’s wonderful performance.
Category Archives: news
Safer Internet Day 2018
Safer Internet Day 2018 will be celebrated globally on Tuesday, 6th February and offers the opportunity to highlight positive uses of technology and to explore the role we all play in helping to create a better and safer online community.
The internet has transformed the way we communicate and connect with each other and this has impacted our digital wellbeing and our relationships. The theme for Safer Internet Day this year is ‘Create, connect and share respect: a better internet starts with you’.
This theme encourages young people to work together to be positive, safe and respectful online and to consider how they interact with others to develop healthy online relationships.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/247778468″>Take a minute – Safer Internet Day 2018 film for 11-14 year olds</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/uksic”>UK Safer Internet Centre</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
For more information, see the Safer Internet Day 2018 website and check out some of the links on our Useful Links page.
Parent Council – 8th February
The Parent Council meets on the first Thursday of every month and the next meeting will take place in the school on Thursday, 8th February 2018 at 6pm in the school.
Any parent or guardian can come along and observe the Council’s meetings.
Please note that the Parent Council also has a Twitter account @CalderheadPC which you can follow.
For more information about the Parent Council and to see the previous Minutes, please see the Parent Council page.
Authors Live
Pupils from Calderhead High School, accompanied by Ms Faulds and Mrs Lumsden, had the opportunity to join the panel at the recent Authors Live event at the BBC in Glasgow.
Authors Live is a series of live webcasts filmed by BBC Scotland Learning and presented in partnership with the Scottish Book Trust. They feature some of the most prominent authors, poets and illustrators, and the webcasts can be accessed on the BBC website.
This latest Authors Live event talked about unheard voices in the writing industry and the barriers that stop diverse voices from being heard. The panellists included Alex Wheatle, author of the award-winning Crongton sequence, Scottish rapper Dave Hook from hip hop band Stanley Odd, and Anni Cameron, poet. As well as the discussion, pupils enjoyed raps from Dave Hook and Alex Wheatle reading from his latest novel ‘Straight Outta Crongton’. S4 pupil, Heather Duncanson, asked the panel whether they felt that they had to be role models for teenagers and you can see their response on the BBC site. Pupils were gifted books and were delighted to have these signed by the author and poets.
Pupils were also treated to a tour of the BBC after the event. They enjoyed lunch in the BBC canteen and had great fun spotting famous faces. They also managed to see the newsroom and the various departments, including BBC Bitesize, which will be familiar to our senior pupils preparing for prelims at the moment.
We would like to thank the Scottish Book Trust for choosing our school to attend this event and to the BBC (especially our excellent guide, Kimberley, who was a font of knowledge about the BBC).
Holocaust Memorial Day
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) takes place on 27 January every year to remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and the millions of people killed in Nazi Persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. 27 January marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.
The theme of HMD this year is ‘The Power of Words’ and all year groups attended moving assemblies presented by history teacher, Mr Reilly, which included his personal experiences of visiting Auschwitz.
There is also an HMD display in the Library with many fiction and non-fiction available to borrow.
Book Week Scotland – Jenny Lindsay
Book Week Scotland is a national celebration of books and reading. Initiated by the Scottish Government and supported with funding from Creative Scotland, Book Week Scotland is delivered by Scottish Book Trust. The theme for Book Week Scotland 2017 was ‘nourish’.
We successfully bid from funding which enabled us to organise a visit by the poet, Jenny Lindsay. Jenny visited our S3 and S4 pupils during Book Week Scotland and explained how reading fiction and poetry can help your mental health. She also spoke about how creating your own work can be massively beneficial. The pupils had an opportunity to try writing their own poetry and we were very impressed by the results! The school was also able to buy some books to add to the ‘Shelf Help’ section of the library, which contains books on health and well-being, including mental health issues such as exam stress and anxiety.
Skills Scotland Glasgow
S4 pupils recently attended the Skills Scotland Glasgow event at the SECC in Glasgow to get some information about future careers and opportunities. There were a number of stands and seminars offering careers advice and information on jobs, volunteer opportunities, careers with the armed services, traineeships, apprenticeship schemes and many other opportunities.
Pupils also had the chance to try many activities, including building a wall, plumbing a tap and wiring a light bulb/doorbell; using an augmented reality demonstration to look for technical data on cars and identifying the engine and transmission components; working with glass and metal at the City of Glasgow College arts and crafts stand; designing fashion accessories using upcycled materials; driving an articulated dump truck, controlling a tower crane and steering a truck and trailer using Go Construct’s plant and construction simulator; using a raspberry pi selfie roulette app; and trying The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow’s virtual reality laparoscopy simulator as used by trainees surgeons.
More career information is available on our post school destination pages.
Budding Authors
P
upils recently participated in a writing competition with Young Writers, an organisation which aims to encourage and inspire children to engage in creative writing. Their ‘Welcome to Wonderland’ challenge asked students to write a story about a fictional world using just 100 words. We are delighted to announce that S2 pupils, Kenzie and Jennifer, were successful and their stories will be included in a book which will be published next year. Well done, girls!
P7 Transition and Open Night 2017
We have been delighted to welcome Primary 7 pupils to the school over the last few weeks as part of our initial transition process. Pupils have participated in classes in Art, English, Maths, Music, Modern Languages, PE and Science and learned more about Pupil Support at Calderhead High School. Senior pupils (and MVP Mentors) Jay Casserly, Caitlin Smith and Callum Mathieson talked about the Mentors in Violence Prevention scheme in school and how we promote positive relationships at Calderhead. Pupils also got a chance to visit the school Library.
Many of the pupils come from our four feeder primaries and we have been impressed by their excellent behaviour and eagerness to become part of the Calderhead High School community.
Open Evening
Parents, carers and families also had an opportunity to visit the school on the evening of Tuesday, 21 November and were able to tour the classrooms, gyms, social areas and library and speak to staff. Thank you to our senior pupils who acted as guides.
The Royal Society
We are proud to say that Calderhead High School is a member of the Royal Society’s Associate Schools and Colleges Network. The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering, and medicine. The Society aims to recognise and support excellence in science.
Pupils in our book group recently participated in a judging panel for the Royal Society’s Young People’s Book Prize. We were given a shortlist of six books to read and evaluate and the pupils greatly enjoyed considering the books and awarding points based on a number of different criteria, such as ease of reading, layout, interest, and the appeal of the book. Most points were awarded to “Robert Winston’s Home Lab” which proved extremely popular with the pupils, and the science department, who tried some of the experiments detailed in the book. Physics teacher, Mr Jack, attended the award ceremony for the Book Prize at the Glasgow Science Centre on Monday, 20 November 2017 and the subsequent reception and planetarium show.
