Mark Stewart, an S4 pupil, recently travelled to Luxembourg to take part in a conference on “Inclusive Education in Europe”.  Mark was there as the Representative of the UK and met with other young people from countries across Europe to discuss their experiences of education meeting their needs and possible ways to ensure education is inclusive for all.

Mark gave a speech along with Norway’s representative about his experience of ways in which education has catered for his needs.

The young peoples’ recommendations from the conference will form a document to be sent to the European Parliament.

We are very proud of Mark!

Well done to our fantastic team of S3 Business pupils who have reached the final of North Lanarkshire’s Dragons’ Lair competition with their innovative idea for headphones which automatically switch themselves off!

The successful team are Caitlin Cox, Cara Hirrel and Eva Wynn. Good luck in the final!

A group of 45 S4 pupils have recently returned from a 7-day Social Subjects trip to China. The trip included visiting Beijing and Shanghai.

Pupils had the opportunity to visit Historical and Cultural sites  in Beijing related to China’s past and present. The sites visited included the Great Wall of China, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and Tiananmen Square.

Shanghai is one of the most modern cities in the world with skyscrapers reaching heights of over 600m tall with plans for even taller buildings to come. In Shanghai pupils visited the Pearl TV Tower; had a spectacular night-time cruise along the Pudong River and attended a breath-taking Acrobat show.

This was a trip of a lifetime and it certainly lived up to pupils’ expectations!

The Senior Awards Ceremony took place on Wednesday 23 September 2015 with guest speaker Isabelle Boyd CBE, Head of Service. S5 and S6 pupils were recognised for their outstanding performance in the recent SQA examinations and for wider achievement.

Special Awards were presented to Lewis Brown and Cameron Richardson for Sport, Rachael Brogan for Leadership and Political Literacy and Christopher McKerron received the Peter Rafferty Award for Drama. The Team of the Year was the Senior Football Team 2014/15 and the shield was collected on the night by Jonathan Aitken, Paul Archibald and Jack McKenna.

Megan Bain, Lauren Clancy, Megan Haining and Louise Ridley attended a photo workshop at Summerlee on Sunday 13 September.

Pupils learned a wide range of lighting effects and studio photography. The girls worked through a theme of “Fashion through the Ages”. Models were organised so that a range of fashion shots could be taken. The girls mastered the techniques really well and managed to get fabulous photographs!

Fouteen S6 pupils studying the new CfE Advanced Higher Biology course spent 2 days at Forth Valley College in Falkirk.

During their 2 days they covered practical work in Experimental Biology and had the opportunity to use specialist equiptment. They studied the Polymerase Chain Reaction, Enzyme -linked-immunosorbend assay and end product inhibition.

A group of 24 pupils and teachers from our partner school, Tianjin High School, paid a day’s visit to our school recently.

The Chinese pupils visited classes to get a flavour of the subjects we study in Scotland.  Our pupils were able to speak to them in Mandarin and even boost their own Chinese vocabulary!

Megan Bain and James Craig, both S6, recently attended the book launch for the Illustrated Treasury of Scottish Mythical Creatures by writer Theresa Breslin and artist and illustrator Kate Leiper at Waterstones on Friday 21st August.

The audience received advice about how to achieve success as an artist and writer and listened to the author narrate one chapter of the book as the artist explained the creative illustrations which were used.

Lewis Brown and Cameron Richardson have been selected as our Young Ambassadors for Sport for session 2015/16. Both pupils are keen and very talented athletes who have a passion for passing on their learning to others.

Their role will be to promote sport, motivate and inspire other young people to get involved in sport in a wide range of settings within their local communities, including schools and clubs.

The boys will attend a National conference on Wednesday the 16th September at Hampden Park before embarking on their duties.

In the last year, Lewis has won Silver at the National Indoor Championships in 400m, Gold at the West Districts Championships in 400m, Gold at the Scottish Schools Championships in both 200m and 400m and he was the Scottish Team Captain for the Schools International Athletics Championships and he came 5th overall in the 400m. He won Silver at the Celtic Games 4x400m relay, Gold at the Scottish Youth Development League Championship 200m and Gold at National U17 Age group Championships in 400m. And finally in September, he will compete in the UK School Games Scottish team running 400m and the 4x400m relay in Manchester.

He is currently ranked No.1 in Scotland for 400m and 200m in the Under 17 Boys.

Cameron has won Silver at the Scottish Schools Championships and Bronze at the Scottish National Championships in 2000m Steeplechase. He has also qualified for Team GB in Duathlon for the World Championships in Australia later this year.

We wish both boys continued success.