Kilsyth Academy, Balmalloch, Kilsyth, G659NF – Tel : 01236 632157

Our Senior Awards Ceremony will take place on Wednesday 10^th June, at 7.30 p.m. and we are delighted to be able to welcome Mr Eddie Wolecki-Black, Manager of Glasgow City FC, as our Principal Guest. We are looking forward to recognising the many achievements of our young people, in the areas of sport, academic studies, the arts, music and citizenship. Parents of reward recipients have already been invited. The following day, Junior awards will be presented at a series of special assemblies.

The Parents’ Evening for P7 parents will also take place on Wednesday 17^th June, at 7.30 p.m., which is immediately after the children’s two-day visit on 15^th and 16^th. Letters of invitation have been issued via the Primary schools.

A huge thank you to everyone involved in our school show, ‘Disco Inferno’, last week. The pupils gave fantastic performances to packed audiences and provided superb entertainment over three evenings. All the pupils’ dedication, during months of rehearsals, really paid off and the staff involved gave up a great deal of their own time to ensure that the production was such a resounding success – see separate review.

On Friday 29 May, the robotics team participated in the Scottish Colleges Robotics Competition at New College Lanarkshire. The competition involves teams driving Rampaging Chariots, which are powerful, radio controlled featherweight sporting robots.

In the morning event, the assault course, Calum Baird obtained first and Josh Wood third. Despite some strong competition from the college’s students. In the afternoon football event, which is a cross between football and robot wars, the Kilsyth robots took a real battering, and some hasty repairs were required. With two damaged robots, the two Kilsyth teams battled on and came third and fourth.

Kilsyth came out first overall, narrowly beating Dundee College to win the trophy for a third time. Well done to Calum Baird, Josh Wood, David Bauld and Adam Boyd. The team now have a week to repair their robots and prepare for the Scottish Robotics games in Edinburgh.

Remaining Uniform Evenings will be Monday 8^th June and Wednesday 17^th June, from 5.00 – 8.00 p.m.

Tickets for ‘Disco Inferno’, on the evenings of Tuesday 2^nd, Wednesday 3^rd and Thursday 4^th June are on sale every lunchtime, outside the café. The prices are £7 for Adults and £5 for Concessions.

A group of S3 pupils, studying Modern Studies, visited the Scottish Parliament last week and had a great day. During the visit, they had an opportunity to discuss fracking with MSPs Jamie Hepburn and Margaret Mitchell. The group also toured the Parliament and greatly enjoyed the experience. Many thanks to Mrs Wilson for organising the trip.

Simultaneously, a group of S1 pupils spent the day at Our Dynamic Earth. This was part of their Geography course and, again, the young people had a fantastic day. Many thanks to Miss Moir for organising the event.

Pupils in S4, S5 and S6, who do not have Study Leave, have been working with New College Lanarkshire and Skills Development Scotland, for part of each week. In classes they have been working on some projects, including fundraising for the Nepal Earthquakes.

Our three Uniform evenings will take place on Tuesday 19th May, Monday 8th June and Wednesday 17th June, each from 5.00 p.m. until 8.00 p.m. There will be a number of special offers available at each of these events. At each one, our Parent Council will be selling tombola tickets and we hope parents will take time to support this and to chat to the Parent Council about their work. Donations for the tombola would be most welcome, in the run up to these events. These can be handed in at the school reception or passed to any member of the Parent Council.

The school will be closed on Friday 22^nd May and Monday 25^th May, apart from those sitting SQA examinations. They will run as scheduled.

The next meeting of the Parent Council will take place on Thursday 28^th May, at 7.00 p.m. This is a week earlier than originally scheduled, due to the timing of the school show.

The annual Primary Athletics competition took place last week. Athletes accumulated points for being placed in the first three in each field or track event.  Schools then had the opportunity to gain double points in the 4×50 metres Relay.  After some very close results, Balmalloch Primary was awarded the trophy for best overall school.  Craighead Primary was the runner up.  The event was organised and run by this year’s Sports Leaders group, as the final part of their coursework.  The individual results were are follows:

Congratulations to our 3xl group, on the completion of their Arts and Employability project. The pupils made a film about the dangers of knife crime. Last week, they joined pupils from other schools across North Lanarkshire for a film premiere and Celebration of Success event.

Tickets for ‘Disco Inferno’, on the evenings of Tuesday 2^nd, Wednesday 3^rd and Thursday 4^th June are now on sale from the Music and Drama departments. It promises to be a great show, packed with all the favourite 1970s songs. The tickets are priced £7 for Adults and £5 for Concessions – they are likely to sell quickly, so please don’t delay.

Our three Uniform evenings will take place on Tuesday 19th May, Monday 8th June and Wednesday 17th June, each from 5.00 p.m. until 8.00 p.m. There will be a number of special offers available at each of these events. At each one, our Parent Council will be selling tombola tickets and we hope parents will take time to support this and to chat to the Parent Council about their work. Donations for the tombola would be most welcome, in the run up to these events. These can be handed in at the school reception or passed to any member of the Parent Council.

Please remember that Thursday 7^th May will be an in-service day, but SQA examinations will run as scheduled.

Congratulations to Carly McLaughlin (1B) on being selected as the Chamberlain for this year’s Kilsyth Civic Week. Carly took part in an interview and performed a reading, prior to being selected from a field of candidates. We are delighted for her and wish her every success in the role.

Pupils in S4, S5 and S6, who are sitting SQA examinations, will be on Study Leave from Wednesday 29^th April until Friday 29^th May (inclusive). Pupils who have no examinations should continue to attend school throughout that period.

School show rehearsals are gaining momentum, as we prepare for our production of ‘Disco Inferno’, on 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th June. Tickets will be going on sale very soon, so please hold the date.

The Parent Council will be running a tombola at each of the Uniform Evenings, during the summer term. They would be grateful for any donations, towards prizes, and these can be handed in at the school reception desk, by 8^th May.

The Parent Council will meet on Thursday 30^th April, at 7.00 p.m., in the school.

The school will be closed on Monday 4^th May and then Thursday 7^th May will be an in-service day.

Plans for Easter School, from 13^th to 16^th April, have been communicated to all those who have enrolled. Tutorials are now full. Pupils in S4, S5 and S6 have received individual exam timetables, where appropriate and all pupils have received a letter outlining arrangements for Study Leave. Pupils who are not sitting examinations will not be entitled to Study Leave.

The Junior and Senior Inter-House Quizzes took place last week. In the Senior Quiz, Balmalloch and Dumbreck were 1^st equal, Antonine were 3^rd and Colzium was 4^th. In the Junior event, 1^st place went to Balmalloch, Antonine and Colzium were 2^nd equal and Dumbreck took 4^th place. Well done to all participants.

Congratulations to the many pupils whose achievements were recognised at our Celebration of Success Assembly, at the end of term. These successes were many and varied, highlighting the breadth of talent we have in Kilsyth Academy.

Happy Easter to all pupils, parents and friends of the school. We will re-open on Monday 20^th April, at 8.55 a.m.

Congratulations to our Dance squads who represented the school at the North Lanarkshire Dance Championships. After two days of competition, Kilsyth Academy was delighted to come away with a total of seventeen medals.  The S1 Juniors, dancing to Circle of Life, were delighted to win gold in the Jazz category. The dancers involved were Ailsa Deans, Hollie Currie, Megan Currie, Eilidh Dunsmore, Bethany Lyall, Ellie Andrews and Hannah McFarlane.  In the Senior categories, the girls were awarded second place in the hip hop section and third in the contemporary category. The dancers in this group were Mollie Kiernan, Connie McFarlane, Nicola Wilson, Mairi McLean and Mhairi McFarlane. The dancers were also very appreciative of the efforts Connie Kirwan (S5), who did an excellent job in applying the junior dancers’ stage make up, for their performance as jungle creatures!!

Well done to Murray Gallagher (S6), who took part in the Scottish Civic Trust’s ‘My Place’ photography competition. There were almost 500 entries in total and the panel of judges was very impressed with the quality and range of submissions. Murray’s image, ‘Harbour Walk’ was selected by the jury as a Highly Commended photograph within this year’s secondary school category.

Our annual Primary K’Nex Challenge took place last week and the schools were well represented. As always, the young people came up with some very imaginative designs and worked well as teams. Following the judging, Craighead team 2 were declared the runners up and Chapelgreen Team 2 were the winners. Well done to all concerned and thanks to Mr Turnbull and his S3 helpers, for laying everything on.

Last week also saw the annual Rotary Club Public Speaking Competition, within the school. The eleven competitors had prepared excellent speeches for the judges, who came from the Rotary Club of Kilsyth. At the end of the event, the winner in the Junior competition was declared as Harry Thomson (S1) and the runner up was Ross Chalmers (S2). In the Senior competition, the winner was Sean Climie (S6) and the runner-up was Adam Boyd (S4). Well done to all!

All pupils should have received a copy of the Head Teacher’s Newsletter, which incorporates a copy of the Progress Report from the school’s HMIe Inspection, in 2012.

Plans for the Easter School, from 13^th – 16^th April are now all in place, and those pupils who have opted in have been provided with details about tutorials, study time and transport. Pupils have also been issued with individual timetables and detailed instructions for the forthcoming SQA examinations.

The school will close for the Easter Break on Thursday 2^nd April, at 2.30 p.m. and we will re-open on Monday 20^th April, at 8.55 a.m. Thursday will also be a non-uniform day and pupils wishing to participate in that should pay £1 towards yearbook fundraising.

Pupils from S2 travelled to Hamilton on 19 March to take part in the Lanarkshire finals of this year’s Go4SET competition. This competition links teams of S2 pupils with companies, to offer a 10 week science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) experience. Work-related learning within an industry and enterprise context is the basis of the project, and our team had been paired with Network Rail. Our team consisting of Jodie Young 2D, Jasmine Geor 2B, Emma Stewart 2B, Finlay Sword 2A, Luke Shearer 2A, Jamie Stevenson 2A and Elena Walker 2D had been working very hard to produce a new design for Croy railway station. Their task was to produce a proposal for a sustainable station with improvements in energy consumption, passenger comfort and efficiency.
On the day the team made a presentation to the judges, demonstrated their excellent model of the design, and had their project report scrutinised by the judges. Although not winning the competition, the judges were very impressed with Kilsyth’s proposal. The feedback to our team praised the range of ideas generated, the focus they made of the station being used as a community resource, and their effective teamwork. Well done to all the pupils, and thanks to Mr Dudman and Mr Turnbull and to their mentors at Network Rail for all their help.

Pupils in S4, S5 and S6 have been issued with information about the forthcoming Easter School, from Monday 13th to Thursday 16th April, during the second week of the Easter holiday. We would encourage all those who will be sitting exams to take advantage of this opportunity to attend subject tutorials and to study in a quiet environment. All returns must be made by Tuesday 24th March, so final arrangements can be put in place.

All S2 pupils should now have returned option forms to their Pupil Support teacher and we have now moved to the options process for pupils in S4/5. There was a fantastic turnout of parents at the recent S2 Parents’ Evening and we hope that it was a valuable experience, at this time. S3 Tracking reports will be issued next week.

Immediately after the holiday, on Tuesday 21st April, S3 pupils will be faced with extended assessments in all their subjects. The style of assessment will vary from subject to subject and pupils will have no more than two assessments/day, during class time.

Study Leave, for pupils in S4/5/6 who are sitting examinations, will be from Wednesday 29th April until Friday 29th May, both dates inclusive. Pupils must be in classes up to Tuesday 28th April, as there is still work to be completed. Pupils who have no examinations will not have Study Leave and will be expected to attend school, during this time.

The school will close for the Easter Break on Thursday 2nd April, at 2.30 p.m. and we will re-open on Monday 20th April, at 8.55 a.m.