Busy days as school term comes to a close for summer
Martin Stewart visit On the morning of Friday, June 15, pupils enjoyed a visit from author, Martin Stewart.
As part of the school’s drive to raise literacy levels in the Broad General Education phase, Martin was invited to deliver sessions to S3 pupils which focused on strategies to make their creative writing more powerful.
This was to begin working towards achieving their National 5 qualification.
S2 pupils were treated to a presentation from the author, where he inspired and enthused as he described his own personal journey of lifelong learning and developing skills for work.
Pupils were delighted to receive their very own copy of his book Riverkeep, even waiting through interval to have them signed; a truly ringing endorsement of what a fantastic event this was. School prizegiving The school hosted its annual end-of-year prize-giving on Tuesday June 12 in the assembly hall.
The event acknowledged and rewarded the pupils from all year groups who have shown a distinction in academic subject areas; displayed commendable endeavour in their school work; displayed a passion for personal reading; an excellence in sport; a dedication to volunteering or being a member of the school/house captaincy team.
A platform party of distinguished guests were on hand to assist the prizegiving committee with the presentation of awards.
The Rev Derek Pope opened the event with his introductory remarks, whilst staff retirees Mr Paterson and Mrs Keatings, Mr McGhee ( Continuous Improvement Officer for North Lanarkshire Council), and Ms. McMurrich ( North Lanarkshire Council’s Head of Education – South) also attended.
FIFA and SPFL referee John Beaton gave his remarks as principal guest and offered the audience an honest and funny account of his time as a pupil at Braidhurst and his career path as a highly successful referee.
The evening was also supported with a terrific programme of musical numbers including the concert band, saxophone ensemble and our Scottish pipers and drummers. Harry Cochrane visit Heart of Midlothian player and former SFA Performance School of Football graduate, Harry Cochrane, recently visited Braidhurst to participate in a training and held an advice session with our current S3 Performance school pupils. Girls football On Thursday June 14 the girl’s football team participated in the Scottish Multicultural Football Festival which celebrates cultural heritage and active citizenship through football at the Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility.
The girls participated in a minifootball tournament and finished as runners-up. Heart Start A group of third year science pupils from Braidhurst High School received certificates to mark their successful completion of the British Heart Foundation’s Heart Start programme. The course was completed as part of their National 3 Science Course.
Pupils are now proficient in CPR, recovery position, dealing with suspected heart attacks, chocking and bleeding.
The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the course and appreciate how useful it may be in their lives. Visit to a global company Braidhurst High School robotics club have, by special invitation, visited a global leader in technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
The vast complex is a hub for the company’s refurbishment of IT technology, for example laptops, printers and large servers.
Housed within this complex are a number of HPE companies that the club were engaged with. The visit started with a tour of the zero per cent waste, IT equipment section run by DXC.
Then it was on to the high tech work of “app” development by Micro Focus International, who are a HPE global enterprise software company.
The host for the day was Mr Scott McNee who took the club members initially on a tour of the DXC Green engineering, renewal and refurbishment site and then the members were given a workshop by the “app” development team.
After lunch it was the turn of the school’s award winning robotics team to showcase their work to the directors of the various HPE subsidiaries.
After the visit, Scott contacted the school to thank them for bringing such an inspiring group of young people along to HPE.
He commented that, in his conversations with the club members, the visit has had a positive influence on them and broadened their career horizons.
Scott’s final remarks in his correspondence were that “Braidhurst High School should be very proud of these young STEM ambassadors and they were an absolute credit to both yourselves and the school and it was a pleasure to host you all today”.
In his opinion it demonstrates what can be achieved when such an enthusiastic team of teachers/ influencers give these opportunities to pupils.