Today’s Nativity

Today’s nativity was at Greenlees nursery. Another lovely tearjerker. Well done the children and staff at Greenlees, which is a partnership nursery with SLC. Its one of those places where you’d have loved your own children to have attended. One more show tonight at Westcoats, which are always a real treat and then I’m off for my Christmas break. Maybe time to get things organised at home then….

Holocaust Memorial Day 2010

Plans are well underway for our Education Area’s Holocaust Memorial Day event on 27th January 2010. The  resource at http://www.hmd.org.uk/ gives ideas/resources/links which can be used to take this forward in schools. In Rutherglen and Cambuslang the event will be hosted by Trinity High School. Schools from each of the three learning communities in our area will be represented. Art work from local establishments will be displayed related to the theme  “The legacy of Hope”. The draft programme which has been devised by an area working group with the help of our cultural co-ordinator includes poetry written by children inspired by Ernest Levy, songs by various schools, prayers of hope, survivor monologues and reflections on a visit to Auschwitz Birkenau in September 09 by pupils from Trinity. Guests at the event will be asked to attach notes to our area’s tree of hope at the event, suggesting ways we can all make a difference in the future.

Outdoor Learning

Calderwood Primary have been working on their outdoor learning area for the past few months. A grant from the RBS Superground helped set it up. Parents did a huge amount of work digging and organising. An after school gardening club run by one of the staff beaver away in all weather! Every time I look out my office window I see children out working away. Over the past few weeks, community artist Nicola has been working with all classes in the school to make art for the garden – pottery, paintings, bird feeders, recycled tyre pots etc. Today they were having a little opening event for all the children to go out and see the art works. Their next steps will be to develop a seated literacy circle area where classes can go out and work. By the way the very last photo below shows the normally glam heidie cosied up in her hoody – good to see head teachers out getting their sleeves rolled up in today’s freezing Scottish weather!

December Round Up

Its been a busy few months with lots happening in the Cambuslang Rutherglen Area. This is a brief roundup of some of the work thats been ongoing. The school modernisation programme in SLC carried on with the new Trinity High Building being finished in our area. The “street” element is core to the design of all the 19 new secondary schools in SLC, including Trinity. Its a flexible space with  a variety of uses – assembly, dining, circulation, social interaction, theatre productions, formal events and displays. Pupils at Trinity had a brief phased return in August and are now well settled in their new building.

The Stonelaw High refurbishment is now completed. Every room was repainted, refloored. Replacement ceilings, minor adaptations in certain departments and general landscaping upgrading was carried out.

The new build Loch Primary and Burgh Primary opened their doors to   pupils too, St Anthony’s moved to their decant building. Hallside Primary annexe was completed and opened.

Cathkin High School, Rutherglen High and Cathkin Community Nursery who are now in one newly built campus held their official opening events.

Numerous special visitors have been in and out our establishments. Provost Cleary is a stalwart of our area and is a well known face who shows his support at educational events. The previous education secretary Fiona Hyslop dropped in to Burgh Primary on her way to the Scottish Learning Festival and Andy Murray dropped by Burnside Primary to look at their RBS sponsored garden area.

Interesting events continue to take place in our establishments with a high emphasis in particular on enterprise and charity work – from Stonelaw High now sponsoring 300 orphans in Africa to St Columbille’s working with @GlasgowJacky (on twitter) and his events management team.

Too many other exciting events to mention but here are a few:

Home school partnership programmes continue such as Querks work on diversity at James Aiton Primary, Loch and other schools recieve eco awards (all schools in the area now have either registers or have bronze silver or green awards), Cathkin PS and Cathkin HS and other establishments devised interesting homecoming events, interesting sporting events and winners across the area, senior pupils visited Auschwitz, several new blogs set up, Crucial Crew attended, visitors gave many takes such as gradparents talking about WW2 at Loch, pupil run banks set up at eg Cathkin PS in conjunction with RBS, playgroun/garden areas developed with a variety of Lottery and Supergrounds funding eg Calderwood PS and Bankhead, prowrestler vists Burgh, Cairns get involved with other schools in learning about the M74 project, Universal Connections run a question time event for young people in the area, Wear it Pink events held, musician of the year events, Burns competitions etc etc……

Teaching staff in the area attended a variety of CPD training – inhouse, at the advisory centre, nationally e.g. the Scottish Learning Festival and also area based e.g. Ollie Bray talking about ICT in August, HT meetings around HMIe preparation, EY Area Forum and PT Drop Ins. All schools held a CfE based additional Inset day to assist driving forward curricular developments

Senior Managers Pupil Support in the area continued to raise awareness of a variety of intitiatives such as staged intervention procedures for early years, single agency assessment referrals, information sharing protocols. They continued to support vulnerable children and assist schools in their work. Child Protection audits were carried out on a rolling programme with schools.

Integrated Children’s Services in the area continued their work with vulnerable children and their families. An ICS self evaluation interagency event was held. Training and partnership working continued to grow and improve.

Several  positive HMIe follow through inspections have taken place over the past two months at Glenburgh Nursery, Cathkin Primary and Loch Primary. Westcoats PS HMIe report went to the education committee in August, much to their delight and they congratulated the HT and school on their hard work.

Calderwood Winter Wonderland

Lovely afternoon watching Calderwood Primary’s Winter Wonderland Show. Each class performed a medley of songs, the school bands performed and we had a sneak preview of some songs from next week’s nativity. The children in p7 had organised the programme, tickets, invites etc etc as part of an enterprise topic and would give many an events company a run for their money. Well done to all involved.

Cathkin High Christmas Concert 09

A huge well done to the music teachers, instrumental instructors, drama department, AV technician, librarian, janitors, DHTs and the young performers. I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s Christmas Concert at Cathkin High. Why? It was great to see all the young people on stage giving their best – all levels of development were represented from beginner musicians to those older students who had been playing for some time. It was a showcase of tuition and learning during school lessons but also represented the after school and lunch time clubs which pupils attend to widen their achievement. Not just the dedication of the young people on show, but the staff at the school who put the extra mile in, day in day out.

Not mentioning names I also loved the DHT’s knock knock Christmas variety turn….

But not just music was on show. There was a really funny drama called “A credit Crunch Christmas” which caused lots of snorts and hoots of laughter. Chick Murray would have enjoyed it – Comedy is alive and kicking in Cathkin!

I often say it but its getting in and about the youngsters and staff that is what my job is all about. I know what my new year’s resolution is already – refocus continually on remembering that time spent in my office is less time to spend in schools. I tried as a Head to remember that and I need to keep working at that.

Loch Blog

At Loch Primary at the moment with Ashlea and Sheena. They are setting up a wordpress blog. It is here.

Cathkin High Official Opening

Enjoyed today’s official opening of the new Cathkin High. The highlights? Some absolutely fantastic art work on display at the entrance to the street area, listening to the young people singing, dancing, creating music. Great to see the effort put in by the SLC glow team to assist school in streaming the event to all classes. The provost Russell Cleary unveiled the opening plaque with the assistance of the Head Boy and Girl. The organisation of these official openings is now down to a fine art, central staff support the schools during the process in lots of ways. One man who is rarely mentioned in dispatches is the wonderful Des Dickson and his team who help the school pull the whole event together.  This was the tenth official opening of a new secondary school in South Lanarkshire. The school modernisation programme  in SLC has been a mammoth undertaking, the secondary phase is now almost complete, the primary programme is still ongoing. All 19 secondaries and 124 primary schools will have been rebuilt or modernised by the end of the programme.