Stonelaw Awards

Although in our Education Area, Stonelaw High isn’t one of my quality link schools, so I don’t often get the chance to visit, so it was great to get along to their awards ceremony last night and further add to my clapping repetitive strain syndrome at this time of year! The Depute Margaret Jack is THE master of award ceremony organisation, it was really slick. Enjoyed reading their leaflet “year of achievements” and really enjoyed the whole thing. Janice in the office even made meringues and lots of other nibbles were on offer after the ceremony for us guests too, marvellous.

Lots of highlights from this one – fabulous music from their award winning senior girls vocal ensemble who recently beamed live to Russia and other countries around the world from Glasgow Cathedral. The elements soul singers are in this ensemble and they won the evening’s special George Sherlaw Memorial Prize. Other musical highlights included Rachael Johnston on piano playing Le Onde and Kevin Sturgeon playing Tides – all really talented musicians. I was really impressed by the community links developed by Brian Cooklin and his team with local businesses  sponsoring many of the prizes for this evening’s events, and of course hearing about their, as always, sterling fundraising work with orphans in Africa. But best of all were the young people themselves who were celebrated for all sorts of achievements from academic to sporting with everything else in between, just a delight to watch. A special mention has to go to their Scottish Cup Winner S1 team who won yesterday and who were fit to burst with pride as were all the other young people, parents, carers and satff who were there last night.