S3 Hospitality Butchery and Beyond Competition

Working in partnership with FDF (Food and Drink Federation) Scotland, S Collins and Sons Butchers and Quality Meat Scotland, S3 Hospitality pupils participated in an inter-schools ‘Butchery and Beyond’ competition.

The aim was to improve their understanding of job and career opportunities available in the food and drink sector, and skills required by employers.

Pupils were asked to develop a new street food using meat provided by Collins’ butchers. The winning group from OLHS, Tea Boyd, Elise Congalton, Megan MacCrimmon and Ciaran MacIntyre, designed a recipe called ‘Spicy Pork Pinwheels’ with sweet chilli sauce. The winning group have been invited along to the Royal Highland Show in June, to participate in the final between OLHS, St. Ninians and Kirkintilloch High.

Good luck to our team from OLHS!

Taekwondo Success

Kieran Dunsmore (S2) travelled to Iceland over the holiday weekend and participated in a training camp with an Olympic coach for taekwondo.

He participated in fights with the Icelandic team and achieved a silver award for athleticism.

Congratulations Kieran!

Police Scotland Youth Volunteer

Callum McAllister (S3) who attends Police Scotland Youth Volunteering, recently received his ‘Keep Safe Ambassador’ certificate.

Through this award, Callum learned about and discussed the consequences of hate crimes against people with disabilities and the responsibilities of a community to protect their most vulnerable.

Well done Callum!

Class of 2018

Farewell to our S6! 27 April represented the last school day for our S6 students. To mark this memorable occasion parents and pupils joined us for an awards ceremony, staff and pupil coffee morning and Holy Mass with Father McKay, our school chaplain and Father Campbell from Sacred Heart and St Lucy’s Parishes.

In the afternoon a trip to Air Space in East Kilbride was arranged which the sixth years thoroughly enjoyed. We wish all our leavers every success in their exams and future pathway post school, and look forward to hearing how well they are all doing in the future.

Chinese New Year 2018 – Year of the Dog

On Wednesday 28 March, Our Lady’s High School celebrated Chinese New Year, a bit later than expected due to the snow!

Approximately 80 S1 and S3 pupils took part in a broad range of Chinese cultural activities such as ribbon dancing, tangrams, tea ceremony, Origami, checkers, chopsticks as well as biscuit decorating and calligraphy.

Each pupil sampled the broad spectrum of activities on offer spending time at each of the stations. All of the pupils who had attended the Edinburgh Zoo Confucius Classroom Open Day in February were leaders at each of the workshops demonstrating and modelling the activities to their peers.  Pupils had a wonderful morning with ribbon dancing, tea ceremony and biscuit making being a massive hit!! In addition, staff also celebrated Chinese New Year with a beautiful Chinese lunch served by our senior pupils! 新年快乐 / 新年快樂

Barcelona Trip

During the Easter break, 32 pupils from S3 and S4 enjoyed a 4-day trip to Barcelona accompanied by 4 members of staff.

The trip included visits to Palau Guell, The Magic Fountain, Casa Batlo, Casa Mila, Parc Guell and the Sagrada Familia.

Pupils also enjoyed the FC Barcelona V Leganes match on Saturday evening and a stadium and museum tour of the Nou Camp the following day.

A wonderful time was had by all !

Karate Success

Ganre Akpubi (S3) took part in the Scottish Regional Karate Competition on Saturday 28 April in Bishopbriggs.

She progressed well through the competition and she eventually won the bronze medal.

Ganre competes at the 12-15 age group and has been involved in Karate since a young age. Well done Ganre!

The Season of Lent

During Lent pupils and staff in Our Lady’s participated in a number of activities to bring home to them the true meaning of the season. We were delighted to be joined by the Salesian Sisters, who worked with our S3 pupils delivering their UrSpace programme, allowing our young people to focus on their God given gifts and talents. Holy Mass was offered four times a week, and we are grateful to all our cluster priests who made this possible.

A number of fundraising activities also took place to raise money for our Lenten Charities, including the SCIAF 24 hour fast, a non uniform day, and a St Patrick’s Day coffee morning. Pupils have also been reflecting on the season in their RE classes and in the wider school. Well done to everyone who was involved in all of these activities.

Attainment Success

As you may have seen recently in the press, Our Lady’s High School is now amongst the top 50 state schools in Scotland, based on Higher passes. This is the second year we have been included in this group, and we moved from 40th place last year to 27th this year ! We are also now amongst the top ten overperforming schools in Scotland, as calculated by the Sunday Times, again based on Higher results.

This is a fantastic achievement for everyone connected with the school – well done to all our pupils, staff and parents. Some of our students who achieved 5 As at Higher are pictured. Congratulations also to the other schools in North Lanarkshire on their fantastic performances as reported in the same articles.

Arran Residential

3 of our S4 pupils enjoyed a 4 day residential experience at Lochranza Outdoor Centre, Isle of Arran. This experience was fully funded by the Scottish Attainment Challenge and involved a variety of outdoor pursuits as well as classroom time to help them prepare for their SQA exams.

The girls Kimberley Gallacher, Devon McElhinney and Mackenzie Souch had a terrific time taking part in abseiling, archery, hillwalking and a firewalking celebration event.