To round off a recent interdisciplinary project on Oscar Romero with Religious Education and Modern Languages during Catholic Education week, S2 pupils celebrated a Spanish Mass with Father Martin Chambers.

Father Chambers spent time living in South America and was able to share his experiences as well as celebrating Mass in Spanish. Pupils and staff thoroughly enjoyed it and were very grateful to Father Chambers for giving his time to celebrate an uplifting Mass with us.

The S3 into S4 Options Booklet can be found by clicking the picture below.

S6 Advanced Higher Chemistry pupils recently attended Forth Valley College to complete an SQA Unit in Instrumental Chemical Analysis.

The two-day visit was a fantastic opportunity for the pupils to gain experience of important techniques widely used in Chemistry such as spectroscopy, melting point determination and gas chromatography.

Ten S3 pupils from Modern Languages visited the Scottish Centre for International Language Teaching (SCILT) Business Brunch on Wednesday 13th January at Strathclyde University.

Our linguists had the opportunity to listen to leaders from dynamic organisations where languages are key to the growth of their business and visit the ‘Marketplace’ which consisted of 11 different companies.

All pupils felt this was an extremely worthwhile visit as it not only contextualised language learning for them but they all felt that promising, future links were established.

Nine of our senior pupils took part in the UK Mathematics Trust Senior Maths Challenge. Over 82000 pupils from across the UK took part with the top 10% receiving Gold, the next 20% Silver and the next 30% Bronze – tough competition!

A huge congratulations are therefore due to Cara Cecil, who attained a Gold Award, James Craig who attained Silver, and Paul Archibald, Euan McLay, Peter McGinness, Cara Cecil, Kieran Millar, Lewis Ferguson, Claire Martin, Matthew Kiernan, James Craig who attained Bronze.

Mathematics Masterclasses

Seven of our keenest S3 Mathematicians participated in a series of 6 masterclasses which took place in the Mathematics Department at the University of Glasgow.

The pupils enjoyed the experience and then, back in school, took the opportunity to share some of what they had learned with their class. The pupils were David Hughes, Matthew Jaffray, Kenzie McLaughlin, Alex Moffat, Jonathan Reynolds, Tom Sewell and Douglas Rodie.

Primary Maths Challenge

The Mathematics Department are preparing for our annual P7 Mathematics Challenge. Teams from each of our associated primaries come along for a morning of fun activities with a competitive edge, supported by a group of our S3 pupils.

Peter McGinness, Paul Archibald, Matthew Kiernan and Cara Cecil were the winning team from St Barbara’s Primary back in 2009. All four are now in S6 and studying Advanced Higher Mathematics – almost all of the Advanced Higher pupils represented their Primary school that day!

Congratulations to two of our pupils who achieved success at the recent North Lanarkshire Swimming Championships at the Tryst Sports Centre.

Euan McDonald (S2) won a silver medal in the 200m backstroke and Elle O’Reilly (S2) won silver medals in both the 200m individual medley and the 200m butterfly.

What a fantastic achievement!

 40 pupils who are studying Hospitality as part of their S3 Broad General Education have also completed their REHIS Introduction to Food Hygiene Course. This is a fantastic opportunity for wider achievement. Well done to all our pupils!

Mrs. Kerrigan and Ms. Heffernan are pictured with the pupils as they received their certificates.

Well done to Andrew Frew, Lewis McGill and Kenzie McLaughlin from S3 who have been successful at gaining a place on the Police Scotland Youth Volunteers project. PC Michael Duffy spoke at an S3 Assembly in November and he asked that interested pupils submit an application form and attend an Open Day in December. The pupils are absolutely thrilled at being selected.

Andrew, Lewis and Kenzie will begin the 12-week course on Monday 11th January. We look forward to hearing all about their experience!