Queen Margaret Academy: 19 November 2008

Nov 21 2008

RACHEL Home, who is a second year pupil at Queen Margaret Academy, is one of those youngsters who is multi-talented.

Rachel has just been accepted to play in the Ayrshire Chamber Orchestra. She will be one of the youngest players.

Rachel is already a grade seven violinist and pianist and she is working towards grade eight in both instruments, although violin is her first love. She only began playing this instrument at the age of nine, so she has had a meteoric rise in terms of her development and skill.

Currently she plays with the Ayrshire Fiddle Orchestra and she toured America with them last year. On June 29, 2009, she will be off to China and Hong Kong with the fiddlers. What an experience for one so young.

Rachel has been a member of the National Children’s Orchestra since she was in primary 7. She was one of the youngest children to be accepted and she has been successful again in her annual audition.

But her talents do not end here. She is also a medal winning Irish dancer and she travels across the country dancing at a competitive level.

For the second year in a row, Rachel has won top prize for her age group in a Royal Geographical Society competition, which requires pupils to submit a project with an environmental theme.

Last year Rachel’s project was entitled Volcanoes and the Tundra, and this year it was entitled An Environmental Study of South Ayrshire.

This year the RSGA has to present Rachel with a new atlas, because she had already won the one which is normally presented, and this was presented to her by the eminent mountaineer Hamish Brown.

She has been asked by the RSGA to give a presentation to the members of the RSGS on her project in March 2009.

By anyone’s standard, Rachel really is a star pupil in Queen Margaret Academy.