Belmont Academy

Dec 26 2008

LED by Mr Pugh and other colleagues from our English department, a group of pupils travelled to the Kings Theatre, Glasgow, for the annual visit to the pantomime. This year’s show was Cinderella and everyone found it hugely enjoyable.

EIGHTSOME Reels and Strip the Willow plus other traditional dances featured at the school’s Christmas dances last week. Everyone looked stunning and a great time was had by all. A special thanks must be relayed to staff in the PE department who taught our young people the dances, and a particular thanks to Bill Murrie of the PE department for his most effective compering.

Special thanks as well to Willie Steel our technical technician; Alistair Clark our ICT technician; and Ian Colquhoun, one of our janitors, for the tremendous work they put in getting the Atrium and the assembly hall ready for the dances and the concert.

THE CHALLENGE given to first year pupils was to fill Smarties tubes with twenty pences – all the money going to support work in Malawi. The result was a splendid £825 with 1 Lomond A raising most money and Luke Lamb filling three tubes in one week – a splendid effort.

Mr Gilmour and Mr Hardie would like to thank all S1 pupils who returned the tubes and also a special thanks to Fern Gillon, Adam Hunter and the other members of the Senior Malawi committee for all their hard work in collecting the tubes.

Through a number of events which included Beat the Goalie (Mr Steve Anderson) and the identification of teachers from photographs of them as children, £265 was raised which will also go to Malawi.

The wind band and concert band played to a large congregation when they made their annual visit to Riverside Church. As a result of their efforts £450 was raised which will go to support charities in Malawi.

THE WHOLE school relocated to Castlehill Parish Church for our annual Christmas service, led by the school chaplains Rev Liz Crumblish and Alistair Simmons. At the service the school captains and their deputies played a role, as did some of the greatly talented musicians in the school – The Junior School Choir, solo singer Jessica Griffiths and guitarist Nick Lynn.

For the whole school the service was an excellent preparation for the festivities of Christmas.

A LARGE and very appreciative audience filled the assembly hall last Wednesday for the first Christmas concert in the new school building. Huge talents were displayed with the string orchestra conducted byJohn Leitch, the wind and concert bands conducted by Gillian Gilmour.

The junior choir were led by Lorna Hardie and the symphony orchestra conducted by Miss Hardie. The concert included a number of solo performances which delighted the audience – Craig Graham on trumpet; Kelly Mathieson sang a Christmas song; Dana Izat played the Clarsach; Rachel Offer gave a flute solo; the vocal quartet of Joanna Wilson, Natasha Szmidt, Rebecca Shearing and Jessica Griffiths sang the Candlelight Carol; a cello ensemble of Joanna Wilson, Alan Cherry, Keir Gilius, Catriona Gaskell, Katie Offer, Jennifer Gaskell, Thomas Chambers and James Riach played Three Kings; and in the final piece of the evening, a vocal quartet of Aileen Jarvie, Julie Burns, Carla Andreucci, Hannah Sosna and Rebecca Lafferty accompanied the symphony orchestra in a performance of Walking in the Air.

Special thanks to Jamie McGregor and Steven Wallace for all their technical support.

At the end of the concert, the chair of the Parent Council Mrs Susan Mills thanked everyone involved in the evening and gifts were handed over to Mr Black, Mrs Gilmour and Miss Hardie and Mr Leitch.

As is again traditional, members of the Parent Council provided excellent seasonal fare and refreshments, and that combined with the Christmas raffle brought the evening to a most successful conclusion.

THE ANNUAL Christmas volleyball tournament attracted the usual high number of team entries and pupils had the great chance of taking part in this in our great new games hall. The tournament organised by Helen McGibbon and colleagues of the PE department once again proved to be a great success.

WELL done to fourth year pupil Olivia Chanock on winning second place in the art competition organised by the Ayr guildry.

VERY well done to head girl Joanna Wilson on securing the nomination to be the Alloway Rotary Club representative at the Euroscola event to be held at the European Parliament for next year. For Joanna this is a great accolade and we are all grateful that our local Rotary clubs continue to support this Rotary International Initiative.

SIXTH year students and twin sisters Cheryl and Ashley Barr were among the national winners of the highly prestigious Philip Lawrence Awards for Citizenship. Ashley and Cheryl travelled to London where they received their awards from Sir Trevor MacDonald and were introduced to HRH The Duchess of Kent. For the girls this was a once in a lifetime experience and needless to say we are proud of the girls.

ANYONE walking or driving along Peggieshill Road can see that the all weather pitch is now in place and that bulldozers are levelling the soil in preparation for the sowing of the grass which will form our playing field.

The driveway into the school is rapidly taking shape and daily we can see change as Belmont Academy Campus evolves – a great prospect as we look towards completion in the New Year.

WITH the coming of the Christmas holidays we say farewell to Susan Doyle who is leaving us to take up her appointment as the principal teacher of modern languages at Queen Margaret Academy.

Also leaving is long term supply teacher Seamus McQuaker, and we wish these colleagues all success in their careers.

SPANISH food was very much in evidence in the school last week as a cross-curricular initiative between modern languages, home economics and business studies resulted in students studying Higher Spanish preparing a series of Spanish dishes which would broadly go under the heading of Tapas. Organised by Caroline Connor, our joint principal teacher of modern languages, pupils and staff who tried the food found it delicious and a taste of sunny Spanish fare on a cold and wet Scottish day.

ORGANISED by principal teacher of RME, Ed Sutherland, fifth year students made a series of presentations to pupils in third year focussing on different aspects of citizenship and the roles all of us can make in them. A great deal of work was pulled together by the fifth years in terms of Power Point presentations and overall information and through discussion and other means a lively debate on a list of topics was generated. The follow up to the day was the sale of a number of fair-trade products which were bought by pupils and staff.

EVERY year (as highlighted in last week’s report) the school has their annual Christmas lunch. This year there was an extra as the wind band and the concert band played seasonal music in the atrium while pupils ate their meal. The music created a great atmosphere and thanks to Miss Gilmour and her instrumentalists for all their work.

CONGRATULATIONS to Connor Hunter of 1 Bute B who won the Nintendo DS as part of the draw for campus police officer PC Claire Jack’s Bin it to Win it initiative.

Runners up, who were given a £20 Argos voucher, were Joshua McGilvray of 2 Lomond B, Frazer Reid of 5 Lomond B and Naimh Rae of 5 Craig B. Well done everyone!

THE ACADEMY closed for the Christmas holiday on Tuesday and everyone in the school community sends their best wishes to all the readers of this report, trusting they have a happy Christmas and a prosperous and successful new year.

The new term begins on Wednesday, January 7, and Mr Moir looks forward to welcoming staff and pupils back to what will be a busy and exciting part of the current session.