Greenfaulds High School is awarded a £10,000 grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund for a special Gaelic Heritage project – Aithne.

The Gaelic and Art & Design Departments at Greenfaulds High School in North Lanarkshire are delighted to have received a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £10,000 for an exciting heritage project titled Aithne (Identity). Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, the project focuses on Scottish Gaelic culture and heritage, particularly its lasting impact in the Cumbernauld area. The project will continue to make Gaelic culture and heritage valued and visible within Greenfaulds High School.

The project will involve pupils who attend Greenfaulds High School, as well as young people in the wider school community aged 3-18 who will be invited to participate in a range of competitions associated with the project, including drawing, design, and photography.

As part of the project the artist Alan Potter will work alongside pupils at Greenfaulds High School to create a series of eye-catching large-scale mosaics, to be displayed throughout the school, with an emphasis on identity, exploring Gaelic culture and heritage. Pupils will learn a range of new skills and will participate in activities inspired by Gaelic culture and heritage. Further activities embedded within this project will include participants exploring literature surrounding folktales, as well as study trips to museums and art galleries.

Click on link to read full press release: Aithne Press Release

Click on link to access Gaelic verion of press release: Aithne brath-naidheachd

Click on this link to access the BBC article (Gaelic)

Please click on the link below to find out more about this exciting project and how pupils of Greenfaulds High School can get involved in a number of competitions that explore and celebrate Gaelic culture and heritage.

Click here to read more about the project Aithne and competitions.

Below are the links to the templates for the competitions.

Colouring-in competition

Design Competition template

A few more photographs of the project being created. We can’t wait to see the finished pieces.

Good morning,

 School photos are now available to view and order online at:

www.clickfoto.co.uk

 Each child will have been handed a unique and individual access code on Photo Day in order to access the photographs.

Families may order with FREE delivery to school before the deadline as shown online.

At any time orders may be placed for delivery direct to home by post. Whilst there is a small cost involved the photos go straight home and not in school bags, where possible we would recommend this.

If you or the parents have any questions or need help please call our helpline on: 02920 448210 or email us at orders@clickfoto.co.uk

Jamie Vaughn-Sharp

Head Teacher

Prize Winners for Session 2022/23

The full list of Prize Winners is available via this link:

Prize Giving 2023

Head Teacher Speech: Prize Giving

Good evening, everyone – pupils, ex-pupils, families, colleagues and guests.  It gives me great honour to stand before you for my first Prize Giving Speech as Head Teacher of our wonderful Greenfaulds High School Community.

Prize Giving is, and should be, a celebration of excellence in a whole range of areas within the school.  The pupils recognised today have demonstrated excellence within their subject areas and have been rightly recognised for their talent and dedication.  To all of you I offer a huge congratulations.

Now as a politics geek and avid box set consumer – one of my favourite all time TV shows is the West Wing.  For the young people in the audience the West Wing was a TV series in the late 90s and early 2000s which tracked the Presidency of a fictional President – Jed Bartlet.

One of President Bartlet’s most famous phrases was an upbeat ‘what’s next?’.  After solving a crisis, a global emergency or similar he would often ask those around him ‘what’s next?’.  The older I get the more I see this attitude applied to all aspects of modern life.  We are often encouraged to move relentlessly on, pushing for more, always thinking about what is next.  Whilst looking for ways to always improve is never a bad think, we are all guilty at times of failing to take stock of where we are, or indeed what we have accomplished.  And whilst I would never want to disagree with a President of the United States (although to be fair, I suppose it depends on who that individual is) I do think that at times we need to delay the ‘what’s next’? question and at times asked the ‘so what have we done’? question.  Indeed, Aaron Sorkin the writer of the West Wing would have benefited from coming to a school whose motto is Tak Time in Time.  Nights such as these should therefore be nights where we ask, so what have we done?  Lets take time in time to celebrate and reflect upon the achievements of so many talented young people.  As a school, this year, Greenfaulds has gone from strength to strength.

In the last school session, Greenfaulds High School was recognised as a Golds Rights Respecting School, making us one of only 20 high schools in Scotland to be awarded for the work undertaken by the school community to embed the United Nations Rights of the Child within our practices.  We were awarded the Digital Schools Award which recognised the excellent work in promoting, recognising and encouraging a whole school approach to the use of digital technology.   And we ended the year by becoming the first and so far only high school in North Lanarkshire to be recognized for its environmental work by a Green Flag.  The Eco Committee worked over the course of 3 years to achieve the award, focusing on the themes of Litter and Waste Minimisation, Climate Change and Health and Wellbeing. Our pupils organised an amazing COP26 Climate Emergency Action Week within the school with a wide range of activities, lessons, challenges and competitions for pupils, families and staff to get involved in – all designed to raise awareness of the part we play in climate change and how to reduce our carbon footprint. They were also invited to present their ideas to the virtual NLC Youth Climate Conference, reaching an estimated 7000 people!

As a school community we also actively reached out to our wider community through the work of our incredible Pupil Parliament.  The GHS Generations committee spent their year working with and supporting local care homes to help the elderly and frail members of our community, bringing brightness and joy to the many members of the public that they met, spent time with and made memories with.  Our Social Justice Committee ran a refugee week where lessons on refugees were taught across the school and a charity fundraising football match was held between pupils and a group of refugee children.  As a school we opened our GHS kitchen located within the Sacred Heart Church in Kildrum. On a Monday evening each week pupil volunteers provide hot food to the vulnerable members of our community.  As a school we ran our annual Christmas appeal. This allowed us to as a school, come together and gather an immense number of gifts for all different ages and genders in order to support those families in need and give a merry Christmas to all.

Our pupils became World Champions in Cheer, World, European and Scottish Champions in Street Dance, Scottish Champions in Javelin at 2 different age groups, selected for National Rugby Squads, GB Gymnastic Teams, competed in the UCI BMX World Championships held in Glasgow, became North Lanarkshire League Champions at football and North Lanarkshire champions in Athletics, the list could go on and on, to all of these pupils and the other incredible achievements this past year I offer my sincerest congratulations and a huge amount of awe in what you have accomplished.

We are rightly proud to be the only school in North Lanarkshire which teaches in the Medium of Gaelic, and we were delighted to host and say failte to the first ever Central Schools Gaelic Conference where young people learning in Gaelic came together from schools across Central Scotland for a day of language and culture.

I was delighted to see the return of school trips, after their enforced absence because of Covid regulations.  Our pupils travelled to Poland, across Europe and more locally to the Fife Coast and the Highland Show amongst other places.  Everywhere they went, pupils from Greenfaulds were recognised as being polite, articulate and excellent ambassadors for all of us.

As well as travelling outwards it was fantastic to welcome families back in to the school for events such as the Science in Science Fiction Show in which Mr Cochrane walked the very fine line of demonstrating the science behind some of our favourite films whilst not breaking the substantial health and safety precautions.  The 2022/23 session also saw a very welcome return to live music for the Performing Arts Faculty. Families were invited to a festive open rehearsal held before Christmas, which quickly expanded to a full ‘Summer Showcase’ in June – featuring Greenfaulds’ own Pipe Band, Wind Band, Vocal Group, Senior Rock Band, S3 Drama Group, Guitar duo extraordinaire and the Gaelic Trad band – who you also heard performing so well as you arrived this evening.

We ended the year with a fantastic prom with our S6 leavers and we even managed a couple of cheeky Taylor Swift numbers which I promise I did not pay the DJ for!

Upon our return to school in August we all felt the anxiety and nerves around the results from the exam diet in May.  I am a great advocate of recognising hard work and I was delighted to see that as a school the hard work of our pupils, staff and families was recognised in an excellent set of results.  Pupils in S4 gained a record number of 5 or more National 5s, there was nearly a 50% increase in the number of S5 pupils gaining 5 Highers and over 20% of our S6 achieved at least 1 Advanced Higher.

And so to the ‘what’s next’? question.  For many of our young people gathered here this evening they move on to work, college, training or University and they do so with our very best wishes and the open invitation of ongoing support for wherever life takes them.  For the other pupils I would challenge you to push on for even bigger and better things not because what you have accomplished is not enough.  Far from it, you have achieved amazing things but more because we as a school should always live by our values and we are constantly ambitious.  Our community is capable of so much as demonstrated over the last school session, but I genuinely believe that this forthcoming year we can achieve even more because the talent that sits within this room and within the school community is so rich and diverse that it is almost inevitable.

In summary, it fills me with so much pride to work within this school community.  Our prize winners have worked so hard and contributed so much to our school that we are delighted to recognise them here this evening.

This notice only affects pupils who qualify for school transport.

Despite our best efforts we have been unable to find a bus company who can provide a Friday afternoon service for pupils attending Future Friday clubs. Finding transport across the region whether it is  for trips, events or school clubs has proven challenging due to significant shortages of drivers.

Can we ask where possible, that parents organise to pick up pupils from Future Friday clubs. If this is not possible can we ask that pupils finish at the normal 12.30pm time on Friday this week and take their allocated school bus. We will continue in our efforts to find  a resolution to the transport issue.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

School photographs for S1, S5 & S6 will take place on Wednesday the 30th of August. As well as their individual photograph, we offer the new S1 pupils an opportunity to have their photograph taken with any siblings they may have in the school. Please note due to time constraints we have to restrict this to siblings only, not cousins or friends.

Click on the form below if you require a family photograph including a new S1 pupil.

https://forms.office.com/e/KxZm4LWAJd

Our S3 parents’ evening will take place on Tuesday 28^th March 2023. This will be a face-to-face meeting within Greenfaulds from 4.15pm until 6.45pm. We look forward to being able to meet with parents/carers and provide information on the progress of your child at this stage. We use an online booking system to allow parents and carers to make appointments easily and I have included a step-by-step guide on how to do this in the link below. Booking will open on Monday 20^th March at 6.00pm and close on Tuesday 28^th March at 9.00am. Please note that teachers are limited to 30 appointments and, where they may have more than one S3 class, they may not be able to see every parent. We look forward to seeing you on the night however if you have any questions or issues logging on and making bookings, please contact the school office and we will try our best to deal with them at the time, or to follow up on them immediately afterwards.

S3 ParentsEveLetter Mar 23

Dear Parent/Carer

 I hope you are well.

 You may be aware that the weather forecast for the next 24 hours shows a yellow warning for snow for Central Scotland.  Whilst this may bring us some disruption, it may also pass without incident.  However, I did think that this was a pertinent time to highlight a few things regarding adverse weather.

 Firstly, we will always do our utmost to keep the school open.  Unless otherwise advised by North Lanarkshire Council or the Police our expectation is that the school will be open.  Families will be notified directly from the school or the council if the school is closed.  This will be done using our usual communication channels.  However, your working assumption should always be that the school will be open.

 Where your child is not able to attend school because of adverse weather we would aim to have materials available via TEAMS for your son/daughter to access.

 As you will understand the school phone lines can get very busy when there is disruption caused by adverse weather. So as to avoid frustration and busy phone lines, we would ask that you report the absence of your child via other means to keep the phone lines as clear as possible. This also allows us to link with our bus companies to provide updates on the whereabouts of the buses or if buses are cancelled. By keeping the phone lines clear it allows us to relay information to families as quickly as possible.

 Alternative ways to report your child’s absence are as follows:

 School Text message system: 07860030498

 Email: enquiries-at-greenfaulds@northlan.org.uk

 Parent Portal: parentsportal.scot

 If you can let us know your child’s Forename and Surname, the year they are in, the reason for the absence and if it will be a full or part day absence.

An example: Joe Blogg, S3, Heavy Snow, Full day

 I hope you find this information helpful and fingers crossed that we do not have any disruption caused by snow in the next few days.

 Kind regards

 Jamie

 Jamie Vaughn-Sharp

Ceannard Sgoile / Head Teacher

 Àrd-sgoil Greenfaulds / Greenfaulds High School

Rathad Auchenkilns / Auchenkilns Road

Comar nan Allt / Cumbernauld 

Glaschu / Glasgow

G67 4AQ

Click on the link below to access the Scottish Child Payment Information Sheet.

Click Here: Information Sheet.

Click on the link below to access information on how to apply.

Click Here: How to Apply

A number of Greenfaulds High School pupils had the fantastic opportunity to participate in a series of workshops run by artist Alan Potter to create a Covid themed mosaic project.

The workshops were funded as a reward for Greenfaulds High School Art Department and their talented pupils winning the Brodie’s Inspirational Art and Design Prize through the Friends of the RSA (Schools Art Award)

Below are some of the images of the finished mosaic mounted on the school building and of pupils working on the project with artist Alan Potter.