Category: School News

JMAC Update! 18/12/20

So many things have happened with JMAC!

We are now part of the Mental Health Committee and are thinking of new ways to push forward our message and campaign, even getting our Black Wall spray painted in our school to have the MHM logo on it.

Although we haven’t been able to participate in our tradition with Victoria Park, last Friday the entirety of six year had a socially distant get-together for the full day, while dressed up as Elves! Evan and I where asked to take photos, sell festive masks, and even make a short video wishing all the rooms at Victoria Park a Merry Christmas.

From everyone in JMAC we wish you a very happy holidays and wish you luck for the New Year

See you in 2021 🙂

     

Here are some of the photos of the day!!

   

JMAC Update! 30/10/20

We have presented the Mental Health Matters Campaign to the S6 Captains and the Mental Health Committee, and we in JMAC plan to collaborate on MHM together to get it out there for people to see. And we have started to think about designs and other ways to promote the brand.

We have completed other works as well, such as the Enterprise Story and The Young reporters project

More Coming Soon…

St.Aidan’s SCIAF Fundraising week 

Last week there was a very special event in St.Aidan’s High School. A fundraising week. SCIAF did a collaboration with UK Aid, every pound that is donated to SCIAF – UK aid will match those SCIAF donations. St.Aidan’s is giving £800 to SCIAF meaning SCIAF will get £1600 in total. The money is collected in R.E classes using the WEE BOX. Students donate money in return for certain activities in the classes for example watching a movie or extra study time. 

 The reason for this SCIAF fundraising week in September is due to during lent we were not able to do charity work because of the lockdown in March. 

SCIAF – Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund – does many fundraiser and campaigns to help poor families grow their food, stand with communities to build peace and promote justice as well as educate the poor to help them fulfil their lives. 

Mark booker, an education officer who would often come to the school to do retreats, is contacting the school thinking of ways how to do these activities due to the Covid-19 Restrictions. One of those retreats would be ‘care for the environment’ with 2nd year in return to raise money for SCIAF. The students donate money before–hand as payment for the retreats which then the money will be donated to SCIAF. 

St. Aidan’s has been doing charity work for years now, they have been successful to fundraise a very large amount of money to various charities and we are looking forward to work with many more charities and organisations in the future. 

Experience of S1 

The first year pupils of St.Aidan’s High school have arrived after the National lockdown and have been settling in. Due to the pandemic the transition has been a slightly different transition for S1 with small but many differences. A first-year group has been interviewed by sixth year students, the group that was interviewed were Andrew Irving, Olivia Kelly, Caoimhe McCann, Ellie Smith and Anthony Lamarra. 

 

We questioned our S1 group what their opinions were about their teachers, Ellie Smith shared her opinion on her teachers and classes. “They’re really nice and all the stuff we’re doing is really fun!” The group has very positive opinions on the teachers. On the topic of their teachers we were curious what subjects they have enjoyed the most, Ellie told us she really enjoys Drama, Music and Art and Design the most. “I like Drama because we get to do a lot of things and the teacher I have is really funny and nice.” All pupils we interviewed stated they really enjoyed certain subjects as they’re doing fun activities and that the teachers are friendly and open to help if anyone needs help in the class! 

As only a small group of S1 was interviewed due to Covid-19 safety guidelines We asked Ellie and Olivia what their opinion is of the other S1 pupils of the school and if they met any new people, Ellie Smith explained she met many new people through her friends she already knew. “They had friends that they introduced to me, then there’s people you’ve heard about from your friends and that’s just you getting to meet them.” Olivia Kelly had a similar experience meeting new people by being introduced to others by her friends, but she also met people through school activities such as Kilbowie. “I’ve actually met a whole group of people, I kind of met a bunch of them in Kilbowie.” Majority of the group has met many new people which is a great memory of their experience of their transition from Primary to Secondary school. 

However there are also difficulties when moving into new surroundings, Caoimhe McCann shared her feelings on her difficulties when she first arrived to St.Aidan’s High School. “I was just nervous in general about everything because I never went on a tour around here or anything.” Throughout our interviews majority of 1st year pupils stated that they were nervous when it came to the transition of Primary to Secondary. 

Olivia Kelly also commented on her difficulties with navigating around the school. “I was scared to ask people where to go around the school.” Some advice from a 6th year myself, please don’t be scared to ask for directions! Most of us will give you the right directions, most. If you’re still unsure where to go ask a teacher! If it comes to the worst go into a class and ask a teacher for directions there, as awkward as it may be, it will certainly get you to your class! Caoimhe commented as well that the older years were friendly and helped her with navigating around the school “I’m surprised how nice a lot of the people are” Ellie was worried that due to them being new to the school people might not like them as much however it was the opposite, “A lot of the older years are actually really nice and help you find your way around the school.” 

Due to the pandemic, school timetables had to be altered to follow the guidelines that were set to prevent a rise in infections, S1 now has double periods while last year only years from S5-6 had double periods Andrew Irving commented on this change “It’s good for classes like art”. Our group had positive comments on the change as it allowed them to focus more on classes that perhaps need more time to work on different things that may take a very long time to do. 

The group has really enjoyed their experience in St.Aidan’s High School so far and are enthusiastic about their classes and they’re looking forward  to what they will do in their classes in the future! 

Mirror Journalist Returns to her Roots

Geraldine McKelvie, former student and investigative journalist at The Daily Mirror visited the JMAC class and other students with an interest in moving towards a career in journalism and the media.

During the visit she spoke about her 11 years of experience in the journalism industry. After leaving university she worked her way up from small local newspapers to her current position working for a national tabloid in London. Geraldine is now a top investigative reporter who always has to carry her passport with her as she never knows where in the world her next assignment will be

Jack McClung, a senior pupil in the JMAC journalism class said “It was really inspirational to see someone from our school community move on in life to become a successful journalist. It was also interesting to hear about all the projects she has worked on”.

Miss McGrogan, head of the English department also commented “It was fabulous to see a former pupil of mine doing so well in a field related to English. It was fascinating to hear about the very important work she does. It was also really good to hear about what journalism is like in the modern world with social media and how it’s changing”.

Geraldine commented “It’s really encouraging to see that even though journalism is going through a transition, there’s still so many young people potentially interested in going into a career in journalism”.

Strathclyde University Language ambassadors!!

St.Aidan’s Modern Languages department received a visit from three students from Strathclyde University. The students all study languages and came to discuss with second and fourth year pupils the benefits of languages and also university life.

The ambassadors talked about their personal experience of languages and when deciding what they wanted to do in the future they decided to go for languages as they were a good foundation for any career they became interested in for the future as its considered an ‘added bonus’ by most employers.

However, for pupils who didn’t feel the academic pathway to languages was right for them the ambassadors reminded them that there was other more practical ways of learning a language e.g. taking up a job in a foreign country.

The ambassadors prompted the second and fourth year students to participate in the talk and went on to discuss the differences between university and high school life (contact hours, work load etc.) and then also told the pupils about their experiences spending a year in a foreign country as part of their studies and how different it was compared to living in Scotland.

Speaking to one of the ambassadors – Paul Farrell-  he commented on why he decided to study a language “At first it was kind of an accident, it was only after I started studying the course that I realised how much I enjoy it. For anyone who’s going into it I’d just say it’s very practical and interesting.” Paul also commented on why it was important to share their experience of languages with the younger pupils “I think especially here there’s not a lot of awareness about foreign languages, a bit of an attitude about it. I’ve had people say to me they’re not keen on learning a language because “everyone speaks English.” I don’t think that’s a great attitude, I think some people are scared of learning languages because they may find it difficult or a waste of time. I’ve personally found that not to be the case, it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I’m here to get people to be more aware of it and more relaxed about it. I think it would do us the world of good.”

Reading Ambassadors

St Aidan’s high school began running a reading ambassadors programme to bring S1 and S6 together and promote reading. Mr McCrory, an English teacher from St Aidan’s, started the programme to encourage kids from a young age to start reading and uses the help of the S6.
S6 and S1 pupils come together and read books to talk about. One of the S1 involved said “We get to talk to S6’s which is good because we don’t really get to talk to them. Their asking you what’s going on and they listen.”
Another girl when asked about if she liked reading more said “They don’t make us read what we don’t like. If I had nothing to do now I would pick up a book and start reading. When I start to read a book I get really interested in it,”

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