National Recognition for Stonelaw High School Achievements

The Social Enterprise Awards, the nationwide competition that celebrates the work and achievements of the UK’s most inspiring and successful social enterprises took place last night in the 02 venue in London.

Stonelaw High School, Rutherglen won the Young Person’s Social Enterprise of the Year Award for the excellent work undertaken by the school’s Fair Trade group.

Ed Miliband, presented the Award to pupils, David, Carys and, Radika and teacher I Gilchrist who represented the school at the award ceremony.

The Stonelaw Fairtraders group has raised the amazing sum of £120,000 selling Fair Trade products this year which has been used to help support over 300 young people in other countries with Aids

Fantastic to see recognition for all the work undertaken at Stonelaw. Its a great school with lots of exciting things going on. Brain Cooklin HT and the whole school community must feel so proud!

Its sometimes easy to take for granted the work that goes on in our schools on a daily basis. Stonelaw is one of those places where work like this is so embedded that we sometimes need reminded about just how remarkable our young people and those working with them are.

Congratulations to everyone at Stonelaw!

 

Stonelaw Fairtrade and Land of Me

Wow! Sat through two of our learning community management meetings today. First of all Cathkin learning Community then the Stonelaw Learning community. Sometimes you’re just gobsmacked when listening to the fantastic work going on around you! For instance Brain Cooklin from Stonelaw high today told us that the school’s fairtrade group have broken through the £100 000 trading barrier.Impressive for a school group, add to that the fundraising work which goes on there to support 300 orphans schooling in Africa and you get just a flavour of some of the work going on there on global citizenship. Anyone interested in this kind of work would be well advised to give the school a ring!

Listened to some P4s from Cairns Primary who presented to the Heads with their teacher on the project they have been doing linked to the ClydeGateway Regeneration work going on in the area. They have been involved with the M74 development in particular around the building of a new bridge – making site visits, getting involved in the ecological issues. Wonderful piece of work. Currently they are designing 3d art sculptures linked to bridges, painting bridges by different designers and investigating wildlife in the Clyde – who knew there are otters, salmon and deer down there?

Listened to lots of things going on in lots of schools from world at work events in the primaries, to outdoor area developments, to numeracy dvds being made for parents and thats just the tip of the iceberg, to banks being set up within school run by the children. In the pm the Heads talked about some of the grants they have been awarded recently from groups such as Pride of  Place, Awards for all, RBS etc etc. This money went into tens of thousands – real entrepreneurial leadership in action.

Loving this link from @DerekRobertson via twitter for early years practitioners – lovely! Its the land of me – interactive online games to inspire creativity in young children story time, rhyme time, numbers etc. Well worth a look as is the great site around Games Based Learning

Multi Agency Working

One of the joys of my job is being able to see how well we can do things together when all the right pieces are in play. I really enjoyed my evening at the cinema in Hamilton tonight where there was a first viewing of a new DVD called Make A Difference. 3rd year pupils from Cathkin High, Stonelaw High and Trinity High came together with volunteer teachers and police officers from Rutherglen Community Safety Deprtment over several weeks after school. The pupils were involved in producing the DVD – script writing, lighting, camera work, sound, editing and acting. FPS Media provided the techy help. The DVD includes dramas, documentaries and some out takes. It deals with a range of aspects related to anti social behaviour – racist incidents, weapons, loitering and drugs.

It was great to see how this multi agency approach with funding from various partners came together to produce such a worthwhile resource which will be used by schools and groups throughout South Lanarkshire.