Have a look at a montage of the Strictly Come Dancing event that raised £750 for the APD project
Month: December 2017
Cool Yule in Saint Aidan’s
Christmas Jumpers Make the Day
“Wear your Christmas Jumper to Work” took on an extra dimension when the students of Saint Aidan’s ditched their uniform for a day and wore their festive finest. A colourful array of Christmas jumpers were the crowning glory of the students who turned up in their smart-casual outfits.
With everyone paying a pound for the privilege of wearing their festive best a £642. was raised for Save the Children and the APD partner-project in India. The party mood was added to as first and second year held their party in the social dining area, with the Saint Aidan’s massive DJ’s Deepcat and Ginger filling the floor as they dropped some monster beats! Big shout out for Jamie and Josh please. Respect! 🙂
Strictly Come Dancing- The Saint Aidan’s Edition
Strictly came to Saint Aidan’s on Wednesday the 20th December when staff and seniors took to the floor to entertain the students in a glorious extravaganza of stylish dance and elegant costume. To be fair, that was the aim, but delivery was more comic than composed. However, the good-natured event saw the staff and students deliver a fun-filled afternoon at the expense of only a little dignity leaking from the participants.
Elf-costumed PE teachers cavorted wildly and Mr McKague, Depute Head Teacher, delivered an homage to the dance influences of his distant youth that had the hall roaring its approval. Mrs Claire Connelly, head teacher, stepped into the shoes of Darcy Bussell to lead the judging panel. Those wildly cavorting elves, specifically PE Teacher Jamie Craib and Social Studies Teacher Melissa Bourke, won the day with a routine that really impressed the panel as it referenced the slosh, Grease and Dirty Dancing, but which was ultimately its own unique performance.
Nearly three hundred students watched the show and a £750 was raised to support the Saint Aidan’s ongoing commitment to the APD project for disabled young people in India.
Social Studies Department teachers Lucy Kelly and Caroline McHenry organised the event and commented: “Thank you to all the staff who gave up your time (and dignity) to put on an excellent show- it was so worthwhile and great fun! Mr. McKague’s performance was a particular treat. We raised a fantastic £750 for APD and couldn’t have done it without support from the whole school community.”
Christmas Hampers Delivered
Food Hampers
Every year the students and staff of Saint Aidan’s work hard to bring some extra Christmas cheer to the local community. One annual event that is going from strength to strength is the appeal that goes out to all of our students to collect food that goes into festive hampers for distribution to pensioners in local parishes.
Students bring in their donations and everything is brought together and organised through the tireless efforts of our fourth year citizenship class, led by Mrs Elisabeth Hynes. Boxes are wrapped in Christmas paper and the donations are sorted and organised to make sure each hamper becomes a real Christmas Treat.
Mrs Hynes commented, “Thank you to everyone in the school community, teachers and students, who have worked to make the Christmas Parcels project complete. Local people will be getting our Parcels now.
Thanks to all the staff who helped in any way and huge thanks to the staff who delivered parcels to the parishes:
Mrs. Brown – St Athanasius, Mr. Connarty – St Ignatius, Miss Donnelly – St Aidan’s, Miss Muldoon, St Patrick’s Shieldmuir and St Thomas’, Mrs. Telfer – St Patrick’s Shotts, and Father Bruce – St Brigid’s and St Mary’s Lanark.
School Christmas Concerts
The school Christmas Concert went with a swing once again as the Saint Aidan’s musicians put the festive season into overdrive. Close to one hundred young people participated in two events- The Christmas Concert on Monday 18th December and the Pensioners Concert on the afternoon of Tuesday 19th December. The school assembly hall, elegantly decorated with festive finery, was filled to bursting point for both events.
The young musicians created a range of great groups: from the Junior Band, Choir, and the Senior Concert Band through to the Samba Band, Swing Band and ensembles for clarinet, saxophone and flute. The variety of talent performing at the concerts was amazing and some of the classic sounds of Christmas were given a fresh and exciting spin by the Saint Aidan’s musicians. Special mention should go to Katie McCrum of S4, who performed a technically brilliant and emotionally powerful solo performance of “My Grown up Christmas List”, a song that really got to grips with the real moral message behind the festive season.
Over two hundred pensioners from the community were invited to a matinee performance of the concert and enjoyed a festive tea while being entertained by the young musicians. Once again the event was a great success.
Mrs Celia McEachen, Faculty Head of Music and Art, was delighted with the commitment, hard-work and talent of all her young musicians within the department, commenting, “It is wonderful to see our young people deliver such a high level of performance and it is a real testament to the hours of dedication they put into their musical education. These young people really go above and beyond our expectations of them when they collaborate in creating events like this. The amount of energy and enthusiasm in the room that they generated through their performance was amazing.”
Gymnastic Success
The North Lanarkshire Gymnastics Competition, held in the Ravenscraig on Friday the 8th of December, was a roaring success for the St Aidan’s gymnastic girls. Emma McConville, one of the successful young gymnasts played a role in securing first place and gold medals for her team at level 3. Individually she placed 3rd overall and was delighted to discover it meant she received an A band 1 for her national 5 PE prelim.
Emma Commented saying “It gives me and my teammates a good reputation within the department and it shows we can work well in a team. I think it really benefits the school and its image.” Additionally she commented on her teacher and in school coach saying “Miss Cairns is over the moon! She’s a very good coach and is always so supportive.”
Miss Cairns commented herself saying “Hard work definitely pays off. I’m a proud teacher and coach, these girls are talented and great role models within the school.”
The girls were joined at the event by family and friends and the gymnastics team at St Aidan’s has always received overwhelming support from staff and students alike.
Victoria Park Party – The Saint Aidan’s Elf Service
An annual highlight of the school year has once again been a tremendous success. Every year, Sixth year students take on the huge task of providing a fabulous Christmas party experience for the children of the Victoria Park School.
This year over sixty children from Victoria Park School were welcomed by the sixth year for an afternoon of fun, games and gifts. The sixth year students immerse themselves in the festive experience by dressing as Christmas Elves. The year group took charge of decorating the hall and piling the individual presents for the young guests high.
The transformation from assembly hall into a Santa’s grotto is amazing and is a product of the enormous enthusiasm and energy of the sixth year students. The effort that goes into creating this fabulous day was also clear in the smiles, the energy and the excitement of everyone who took part in the party. The young people’s excitement reached a peak when Santa made a special appearance to distribute the gifts.
The event was the culmination of a long period of planning, organisation and fundraising by the sixth year students. They have organised and supported events as diverse Halloween discos, coffee mornings and handmade Christmas gifts.
All their efforts resulted in over a thousand pounds being raised to fund the party. The real commitment of the students over the whole process of planning such an ambitious event and their enthusiasm for making it such of success on the day was clearly rewarded by the smiles on the faces of everyone who took part.
Edited by David Russell.
Fifth Year Ceilidh
If you were looking for the premier social event in the Wishaw area this Christmas season then the Fifth Year Ceilidh in Saint Aidan’s High school would be the invitation you would have wanted. Over one hundred and fifty students and staff celebrated the festive season in style. The young people were elegant and stylish in attire while sitting down to a three course banquet before launching themselves into some of the most energetic Scottish dancing to be witnessed at any ceilidh, anywhere! A great night, made all the better by the fact that the young people, ably assisted by their Principal Teacher of Guidance- Mrs Emma Large, organised the event themselves.
Mrs Large commented, “The students have organised a great evening and have been a real credit to themselves and the school. Special thanks go out to the Ceilidh Committee who put so much hard work into organizing this wonderful evening”
Edited by Christopher Quigley
Thanks to Miss McGrogan for the photographs.:-)
Football.
The boys Under-13 football team secured an overwhelming 10-4 victory against Lanark Grammar. The first half of the match was a hard fought contest and was poised at four-each. However, a dominating second-half performance by the Saint Aidan’s squad sealed an emphatic victory for the home side. It was a great performance by all the young Saint Aidan’s players but special mention goes to Nicholas Wells who netted a double and helped set up two more goals to be recognised as the man of the match.
Edited by Reece Larkins.
S6 Charity Committee
The S6 charity committee did some great work in support of Breast Cancer Care recently.
The group got themselves out into the school community and raised £196.88 for this amazing cause during October by selling pink ribbon badges, bands and collecting money in their pink buckets!!
Press Report 6th December
The sixth year JMAC students have been busy compiling a wide range of stories and photographs for this week’s press report.
You can click through on any of the headings below to take you to article and photographs.
How about leaving some comments about the pieces? We would love to know what you think!
Parent and Pupil Event
Parent and pupil event
Last Wednesday a member of St Aidan’s staff Mrs Hyslop organised and even for pupils and parents to bond through interactive and fun activities. The Pupils involved were pupils who took part in Summer School even during the summer holidays, were asked to come along with their parents to participate in the event to help with their transition in coming in to secondary school. Mrs Hyslop said “We had a variety on Christmas activities such as making a soap bombs in the science department and a wooden candle holder in the tech department”. There was 8 parents and 9 kids which attended. Mrs Hyslop mentioned “We got a lot of positive feedback from parents as they said things like “it’s good to actually be able to sit down and do something with my son, as he sits in his room and plays his PlayStation all the time.” The event was very successful and helped parents and pupils bond.
S1/S2 Bookfare
Recently, St Aidan’s High School’s library held a book fare to allow children to purchase books from a variety of different genres and styles. The event was in aid of book week Scotland. It was mainly targeted at S1 and S2. This not only encourages the improvement of their literacy skills but is also helping to feed a child via Mary’s Meals for a whole school year as the money raised goes to this great cause. Even after the event the books leftover were still sold throughout the week to raise more funds. Miss McGough, the school librarian commented saying “Most of the books were fiction, some were non-fiction and were sold to a lot of the pupils who planned on giving them to younger siblings.” Authors such as Jaqueline Wilson were featured in the sale and the pupils had great fun choosing from the wide selection. On the day of the event, the library was very busy and the children had an exciting time, listening to music which included a soundtrack made by a senior pupil. Staff also supported the book fare and bought books for their classrooms and family members.
