OPERATION WALLACEA

On Tuesday 11 June 8 pupils and 2 members of staff from Greenfaulds are travelling to Indonesia to take part in several ecology studies. They are travelling with Operation Wallacea and will help research scientists with on-going conservation projects.

These projects are situated in the remote Buton Rainforest on Sulewesi. After this the group will move to the island of Hoga in the Coral Sea, where they will help with data gathering at a variety of Marine Conservation sites. The data gathered will be used to inform conservation agencies and the local government on the best options for reducing environmental damage in a very vulnerable area.

GREENFAULDS HIGH SCHOOL SHOW 2019

SCHOOLS WILL ROCK YOU!

Greenfaulds HS is incredibly excited to be performing our show, ‘Schools Will Rock You’ on the 19th, 20th and 21^st of June. Our pupils have been rehearsing diligently every week to ensure the show will be one of a kind.

‘Taking place in the distant future, Earth has become a world where everyone thinks the same thoughts and wears the same clothes. Worst of all – musical instruments and composers are forbidden and rock music has almost been forgotten! Thankfully, a small group of bohemians are attempting to restore freedom of thought, fashion and live music. Along their journey, they have to be careful not to fall in to the hands of the all-knowing Killer Queen (she’s dynamite with a laser beam!)’

The show will cover Queen’s greatest hits so you know you’re gonna have yourself ‘a real good time!’.  Tickets are £5 and can be purchased from any member of the Music Dept. If you want to reserve tickets then please email: kduncan@greenfaulds.n-lanark.sch.uk.

SUPPORT FOR LEARNING

Greenfaulds High School’s Support for Learning Department took advantage of an offer of free tickets to the Scotland v’s Jamaica football game, and 4 pupils came along to support Scotland (as well as some staff and their families). We integrated this with the opportunity to develop Independent Living Skills, where the pupils travelled by public transport to and from the game from Cumbernauld. It was a great game.

The S3 Achieve class are working towards their John Muir Award, and Accredited certificate to develop skills Outdoors. As a part of this, the pupils have been doing conservation work at Ravenswood Nature Reserve, Exploring new places, and recently we climbed a hill in the Trossachs- Ben A’an.

CORNERSTONE COMMUNITY CONCERT

On Wednesday 29^th May, we held our inaugural Community Concert in Cornerstone Church in the heart of the town centre.  An enthusiastic audience, ranging roughly from age 2 to age 92 were treated to a showcase of the very best of what Greenfaulds Music Department has to offer and our pupils did not disappoint!

Mr Rodgers kick-started the event with a fabulous display of piping, before the Trad Band took to the stage with the swashbuckling ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and a selection of jigs. Next followed a lovely Clarsach solo from Caitlyn Yule, then the Trad band gave their final set, finishing with a singalong version of ‘A Million Dreams.’ This was a particular favourite of our audience members from Glencryan School.

Next, some of the lead characters from this year’s school show ‘Schools Will Rock You’ delighted everyone with their renditions of the Queen songs ‘No-One But You’ and ‘Headlong’. Lots of the audience were clearly impressed, as they immediately enquired about where they could purchase show tickets–from the music department, shows from 19^th to 21^st June, tickets only £5!!

A highlight of the showcase was the 2nd performance ever of our new Samba group, comprised of a selection of enthusiastic S1 pupils, who gave an impressive (and noisy) performance, joined by a few willing volunteers from our community. This ended with spontaneous cheering – clearly a hit!

Throughout the concert we also featured a number of soloists – namely from Caitlyn Andrew, Ava MacKinnon and Amy McPhee, 3 of our beautiful vocalists.

The School Wind Band gave the final set of the concert with an inspiring piece titled ‘Into the Clouds’, then a Dixieland version of the Disney classic ‘The Bare Necessities’. Next, the ever-popular medley of ‘Queen’ songs and another Greatest Showman classic ‘This Is Me’ – audience members joined in heartily in this final segment with singing, clapping and stomping along to ‘We Will Rock You’.

Well done to all the performers, staff, tutors and a big THANK YOU to the ever-helpful staff of Cornerstone and, of course, the appreciative audience – dancing, clapping, singing and certainly lots of smiling. We hope that this inaugural event will become an ANNUAL event, bringing so many members of our community together.

Maths Camp

On Friday 22nd March 2019 at 1800 hours thirty five intrepid Higher Maths candidates and Mrs Bonar, Mrs Gallagher, Miss Somerville, Ms Earl and Miss Docherty of the Mathematics Department headed off to Kilbowie Outdoor Centre for a weekend of Mathematics and outdoor activities.  The pupils opted into this Maths Camp to help improve their understanding of higher maths.  The pupils identified areas for development and activities were directed accordingly.  Pupils arrived at the centre about 9pm on Friday and we settled. The next morning the group started with tutorial sessions on circle, differentiation, quadratic theory, trigonometry and (for those at the top of their Maths game) A/B type exam questions.

In the afternoon all pupils took part in a water adventure. They were put into groups of 8 and had to work as a team to tie two canoes together and then they had to navigate a route around the water picking up markers along the way. They took this very seriously and they were even swimming through the freezing waters to beat their rivals.

In the evening after a hearty meal the pupils were split into groups of four and after some humorous team building they participated in a “mathiversity” challenge and a very heated and fast Maths relay quiz culminating in an overall winning team of Dylan Anderson, Joseph Lorimer, Christy Paterson and Mia Paterson.

All this hard work meant the pupils had worked up an appetite and they wolfed down some Chinese food before settling down to some music.

After a good night’s sleep the maths began again at 9am with a bout of speed dating with past paper questions and again we had a “best male date” Dylan Anderson & Ibrahim Iqbal and “best female date” Amy Ward and Sophie Carus.

The pupils and staff thoroughly enjoyed their time away and pupils feel they have a better idea of their strengths and weaknesses and know what to focus on to revise for their final exam in May.  The pupils were a credit to the school and were highly praised by the staff at the centre.  The maths department would like to express their thanks to the mathematical society of Edinburgh as their financial support meant that the cost to pupils was greatly reduced.

Cyber Treasure Hunt Final

On Monday 11^th March, eleven of our S2 girls attended the final of a national Cyber Treasure Hunt competition at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.  The girls had taken part in the qualifying rounds over a number of months as part of their ICT class.  They worked in teams to complete puzzles that were released every week and earned their invitation to the grand final!

It was a fantastic event, created to inspire and support school girls into the technology sector and was run as part of this year’s Women in Data Science Festival.  Throughout the day, our pupils took part in a number of challenges.  They completed mathematical puzzles, cracked ciphers, solved cyber security problems and programmed tiny computers.  Additionally, they heard talks from some inspirational females working in the technology industry.  A great day was had by all!

Although we didn’t quite make the prize podium, we are so proud of the dedication and effort displayed by our S2s!  Well done to Erin Goodman, Ella Jane Hamilton, Emma Sharpe, Holly Carr, Katie Carline, Olivia Bennewith, Ellie Cooper, Melissa Hamiltion, Kirstie Lyall, Antonia Paterson, Chloe Newlands and Ashleigh Kelly!

Scottish Schools Climbing Competition

Greenfaulds High School entered their very first team into the Scottish Schools Climbing Competition. Greenfaulds High School pupils were the only North Lanarkshire pupils in the competition.  Participants were ranked in accordance to age and gender. The results are as follows, and are Scotland wide. We hope to compete again in the future. Well done to our budding climbers!

David Love – 16th

Andrew Carus – 23rd

Aaron Ashcroft – 30th

Viktoria Bailey – 31st

Aimee McCarroll – 33rd

Cole Hamilton – 35th

William McMurtrie – 39th

VOLLEYBALL

Well done to our S1-3 Volleyball teams who represented the school at the National Festivals. Special mention to our S1 boys Zach Pursley, Andrew Provan & Alasdair Lawson who were second in the S1 tournament. Congratulations also to Leo Penn-Dunnett in S1 who received The Endeavour Award.

HEPTATHALON

Huge congratulations to our S2 Giant Heptathalon team who after winning the North Lanarkshire Competition went on to win the regional trophy. Results just posted show that they are now ranked 3rd best in Scotland! Well done!

Boys Team: Adam Atkinson, Boyd McQuade, Seth Knox, Craig Little, Ethan Cunningham, Euan Wallace & Andrew Carus.

Girls Team: Lucy Roy, Erin Cooper, Rhona Conway, Leah Whyteside, Iona Davidson, Lucy Cowan & Amy Crombie.

2019 ROTARY TOURNAMENT

The Annual Tournament, sponsored by the Institution of Structural Engineers, supported by Rotary International was held on Thursday 7th March at Kilsyth Academy. Our school entered 5 teams which included pupils from S1 –S3. All pupils in each of the teams worked exceptionally well at what was a very challenging task. Their teamwork and performances were excellent on the day. Our S3 team, Matthew Bissett, David Love, Aaron Kelly and Connor Podesta were successful on the day, winning first prize for the Intermediate category, receiving an award from the Institution of Structural Engineers. All of the boys worked extremely hard and showed excellent determination and fantastic teamwork from start to finish. They should be very proud of their achievement.

NLC Battle of the Bands

Greenfaulds High School was proud to be represented by our resident band, ‘Bright Ideas’ at this year’s NLC Battle Of The Bands (Rockfest). The band is made up of Owen Breingan, Finlay Hutchison, Lewis Brooks, Harry Govan and Jack Hamilton. This was the bands first public gig and they certainly brought energy and enthusiasm to the performance. The band set included a cover of Arctic Monkeys, ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor’, and their original song, ‘Lock And Key’. The band are looking forward to competing again next year.

Battle Of The Bands 2019 also featured our very own JOSH Barker on Drums as part of the NLC Collective. This band of handpicked NLC students demonstrated a high level of musicality through performing Queen’s ‘One Vision’ , Porcupine Trees ‘Blackest Eyes’, and Biffy Clyro’s ‘Bubbles’.

A massive well done to everyone who performed.

Bring on Rockfest 2020!

Environmental Science

Higher Environmental Science pupils have been taking advantage of the good weather to try some fieldwork techniques as part of their course. They have successfully completed a range of experiments in local woodlands, pond, river and hill environments using scientific equipment.

For more information on Higher Environmental Science, please see Ms Morrow in F044 Geography.

S1 Geography

S1 Geographers have been working on their Ideal Town of the Future presentations creating both models and detailed speeches. A lot of sustainable strategies were included such as power from renewable resources including wind turbines and charging points for electric vehicles.

S1 Dynamic Earth Trip

S1 recently visited Dynamic Earth as part of their Natural Disasters topic. They experienced an earthquake, wandered through the Earth Galleries experiencing different biomes including the Rainforest and Tundra ecosystems. They also viewed a film in the Show Dome followed by an interactive workshop where they used GIS mapping, decision making and engineering skills to decide on where to locate the Mark Zuckerberg Hospital so that it was in the least risky area of San Francisco.

Achieve Group

The S3 and S4 Achieve pupils are working on a Digital Creativity project alongside Scottish entrepreneurs. The aim is to use Social Media as a platform to advertise and sell a product, whilst learning about Business and developing ICT skills.

We have been fortunate enough to be working with Mr John Moore, who has a well respected teeth whitening company. He has agreed to allow us to create our own product which he will manufacture.

We are also working with Wendy Gilmour (#thankfifi), a famous Instagram influencer and blogger who is advising us on marketing our product.

Keep your eye out for Greenfaulds’ very own teeth whitening products ‘Flawless’ and ‘Frosty Bite’.

DANCE

The school hosted a Workshop on Thursday 24 January for our pupils and pupils from surrounding schools from both North Lanarkshire and Glasgow Councils. We had two unbelievably good Dance Teachers up from Pineapple Dance studios in association with Premiership Experience (with whom we have ran dance tours in the past). This was a fantastic event which some of our pupils are calling the best night of their lives.

SUPPORT FOR LEARNING

On Thursday the 31st January the Support for Learning department led a trip to Glasgow. This was mostly for senior pupils to support with Transition. We took the public bus, got around the city by subway and returned by train. Pupils were responsible for finding out times and costs, following signs, and going shopping and for lunch without the teachers.

We visited Scotland Street Museum. (It is fair to say that everyone is glad to be in the education system of the 21st century!) We also got to see Dippy in Kelvingrove Art gallery.

CHRISTMAS CONCERT

Greenfaulds Annual Christmas Concert will take place on Wednesday 19th December at 7pm. Tickets, at the bargain price of £3 each, are available from the school office. Featured on the night will be show choir, school band, traditional band, drama, rock band and more! So come along for what looks set to be a great show!

S4 ACHIEVE AND CORE SKILLS

On Tuesday 4 December pupils from our S4 Achieve and Core Skills group were invited by Cumbernauld Living Landscapes to take part in a Parliamentary Reception at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

The event had been organised by the Central Scotland Green Network to show the projects that young people are taking part in to improve our greenspaces. The event gave an opportunity for our pupils to showcase and talk about some of the work they have been doing in the past few months in Ravenswood Nature Reserve. They were also given a guided tour of the chambers by an MSP!

The pupils had a fantastic day out visiting the smallest wildlife reserve that the Scottish Wildlife Trust own, spent some time in the Christmas Market in Princes Street Gardens to see the importance of green spaces and the ways in which they can be utilised. They then attended the evening reception before travelling home – exhausted.