School News
Illustrator visit The S2 Art and Design and Creative Media classes were joined by students from James Hamilton Academy to hear illustrator and author Debi Gliori talk about her work and career. They were treated to a slideshow of her development as an illustrator and heard about the ideas and creative process behind one of her picture books. Debi’s visit was part of the Spring Read series of events organised by East Ayrshire School librarians with funding from the Scottish Book Trust and East Ayrshire secondary schools. S2 Nurture Class Raffle The S2 Nurture class took part in a fundraising event to raise money for the Nurture room in school. The prize, a Diorstyle handbag, was donated to the school and pupils felt it was a good prize especially with Mother’s Day so close! Pupils created posters and sold raffle tickets to staff and pupils. The eventual winner was Margaret McWilliam, one of our lovely kitchen staff! Aaron Baird was one of the main pupils responsible for selling raffle tickets. He said: “I enjoyed selling the raffle tickets because it was fun. It was a good experience because we raised money for our room and I feel good about that.” Another pupil, Arron Hill, said he enjoyed going round the different classrooms to sell the tickets. “It was not like a usual lesson. It felt like I wasn’t doing work! I know we were though because we had to use our communication skills to try and sell lots of tickets.” As Aaron added, “Some folk aren’t good with their communication skills!” One of the girls who helped to sell tickets was Michaela McGovern and she said she enjoyed working as a team whilst Eilidh Crawford said: “I am very happy for the person who won the bag.” Through their good communication and team skills, pupils raised £ 53.50 in only 4 days! National Pi Day: It’s Pi Day! In the Maths department our pupils were memorising the number pi to as many decimal places as possible. Many of our students took part and enjoyed their prize, which of course was a pie. Third place went to Fraser Maxwell, 1B1, who managed 36 decimal places. Adam Gatherer, 1A1, achieved second place with 89 decimal places. The outstanding winner was Ailey Porter, 3B1, who recited pi to 300 decimal places. Young Musician of the Year Competition This year Auchinleck Academy will be holding their 3rd Annual Young Musician of the Year competition on March 28. This promises to be an exciting evening with performances from our 12 finalists in the competition as well as entertainment from our junior and senior choirs and the Auchinleck and Cumnock Senior Concert Band. The concert begins at 7pm and tickets are available from the school office in advance or on the door. Tickets are priced at £ 4/£ 2 with a family ticket being available for two adults and two concessions at a cost of £ 10. This includes refreshments. We look forward to seeing you there! Sporting News: School of Rugby Carrick Academy 7s Tournament: What an afternoon! The weather was perfect for open and fast flowing rugby. With Auchinleck being one of only four state schools in attendance, today should have been a real test of where rugby in Auchinleck stands in the wider scheme of things. Wellington School were first up and probably were the unluckiest, going down 41- 0 in only twelve minutes of rugby, WOW! Second in the group stages was Lenzie Academy. Another strong performance saw Auchinleck win 40- 5. The final group match saw Glasgow Academy lose 33- 5, meaning Auchinleck Academy were in the semi- finals of the cup competition. St Aloysius topped their group and were the semi- final opponents. In the tightest game yet for Auchinleck, St Aloysius scored first but Auchinleck showed their class and rallied to score 24 unanswered points to reach the final. The High School of Glasgow waited. Again the trend of losing the first try in the knock out stage continued which spurred on Auchinleck and in a fine display of offloading and quick hands scored 33 points with no reply. Auchinleck Academy had the mindset of being brave in attack and aggressive in defence and the High School players had no answer to both. Overall well deserved and well done! School of Rugby: Carrick 29 - Auchinleck 19. Unfortunately our U16 side lost on Wednesday night to a much bigger and more physical Carrick side. Auchinleck did try to play more flowing rugby with several moves ending in good movement forward and even a try. The half time score was 29- 5 to Carrick. Auchinleck showed great character and commitment to win the second half 14- 0 playing the game at pace and keeping the ball in hand. Rugby will start back up again after the Easter holidays for our U13 and U15 sides. Dates for your Diary The school will close for the Easter holidays on Friday, March 31. It will re- open to staff and pupils on Tuesday, April 18. Duke of Edinburgh awards Throughout the year pupils have been participating in varying stages of the Duke of Edinburgh award. To achieve it, they had to complete four sections; volunteering, physical, skills, and finally the expedition section. Pupils were delighted to find they had achieved bronze and silver awards and were invited to the South Ayrshire prize giving. Callum Eccles gave a speech about his experiences throughout the course of the DofE. The participants were as follows; BRONZE: The Bronze participants were: Shaun Laird, Haley Meikle, Sarah Reilly, Morgan Sweeney, Megan Hiddleston and Leona McLean. SILVER: The silver participants were: Heather Devaney, Iona Fulton, Eilidh McKay, Sarah Braund, Callum Eccles, Harry Smith, Mathew Field, Josephine Keggans, Stephanie McFadzean and Callum Watson. Election time Pupils had the chance to vote for candidates in the MYSP elections on Wednesday 8th and Friday, March 10 in our school library. Well done to all pupils who took part in being responsible citizens and having a say. Thanks to Brian Borland from the Youth Work team and Mrs Picken in the library for helping arrange the opportunity for pupils to have their say. Deborah Misipah gave a presentation to 3K about modern day slavery and human trafficking. She explained how wide- spread this issue is; that we may have trafficked people in our communities right now. She spoke about the charity ‘ Hope for Justice’ and what they try to do to help those caught up in modern slavery. The young people were asked to think about what they would say to a trafficker, to a slave, and why schools should be teaching about this. The young people will be continuing to look at this issue in class with a view to raising more awareness of the issue and perhaps fundraising for the charity. Apprenticeship Well done to Technical pupil Jack Craig S5 who has secured himself an apprenticeship with SCOT JCB Glasgow. Jack went to JCB on his work experience and they were impressed with his skills and ‘ can do’ attitude. He has been a credit to the school and the Technical Department. Good luck in your future Jack. Science centre visit On Wednesday, March 1, S1 pupils were given the opportunity to visit Glasgow Science Centre. During their visit they took part in many fun and interactive exhibits. Within the Science Mall pupils were able to work out physics based problems, burn some energy in the giant hamster wheel, perform a virtual autopsy and even bust some moves at the DNA disco! Pupils also visited The Planetarium, a spectacular state- of- the- art full dome digital projection system. Here they were taken on journeys through the solar system, into the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond by a team of expert astronomers. Amy Dempsey, 1G, commented “I enjoyed the science centre because we got to explore new levels of science. I especially enjoyed the marvelous planetarium!” Netball league Our S1/ 2 netball team were playing in the Ayrshire League against Belmont 2nd and 3rd teams with mixed results. It was a convincing win against Belmont 3rds, 7 goals to 1, and a narrow defeat to Belmont 2nd’s, 6 goals to 3. Katie Cunningham and Layla Rogerson were voted ‘ Player of the Match’ respectively. S1/ 2 Team v Belmont: Layla Rogerson ( C) Katie Cunningham ( VC) Karis Campbell Aimee Kennedy Tygan John Melissa Sloan Rianna Doolan Ebony Sharkey Beth McNae Katie Parkinson Roadshow The Smallpiece Trust was recently in school to deliver their Energisers roadshow to S1. As well as learning about the increasing energy demands and how to meet them, pupils built electric powered cars and through trial and error formed the relationship between charge time and distance travelled. Pupils competed in a distance challenge with the winner travelling as close as possible to 14 meters. Members of the winning teams each received USB pen drives. Choral performance The choir have been out and about in the community over the past few months. They recently performed at the councillors’ Burns Supper. The choir are gearing up for their performance at Culzean Castle on Mothering Sunday where there are high teas being served while they perform. The choir will perform to an audience of 120. The choir continue to work hard and are working towards their annual participation at Camerons concert in Carrick Centre, Maybole, raising funds for Yorkhill Hospital now Glasgow Sick Kids Hospital. Music triumph Our Brass Ensemble took on Kyle and Queen Margaret Academy amongst others yesterday and came first in the Ayrshire Music Festival. The adjudicator commented positively on their tightness as a group and the controlled balance of their sound. The brass ensemble are: Tygan John, Katie Cunningham, Gregor Morris, Layla Rogerson, Melissa Sloan, Jenna McCormick, Eilidh Wright and Chloe McIlwraith. Design Art Piece of the Month is by S3 pupil Maile Parkinson. Working through a design process in response to a design brief, S3 pupils have designed and created a contemporary sporran inspired by the theme of “natural forms”. Maile’s design has been chosen as art piece of the month due to the creative and imaginative use of shape, form, colour and pattern. Maile has also applied her surface decoration with a high quality of finish.