Winter clean up of Roley's Wood

25 S4 pupils volunteered to do a festive clean up of Roley's Wood today as the rubbish around the entrance to the wood had been building up.

Before - lots of litter particularly under the bridge

The litter A team at work...

Many thanks to Mrs MacKenzie, Mr Walton and all the pupils for their efforts, the wood now looks great going in to the Christmas holidays. Happy Christmas to all!

5 black bags full of litter and half a bag full of recycling later....

Fair Trade at the Christmas Fair

The Fair Trade group decided that this term, the profits we make from our weekly tuck shop and stall will be donated to the Red Cross Typhoon Haiyan Appeal.

At the PIP Christmas Fayre we stocked craft products from the ‘One World Shop’ in addition to our tuckshop range. We were very pleased to have sold £109 worth of these ethically traded goods and the sales promotion talk by some of the pupils was impressive!

 

Next term we will start research and work towards the Fair Trade campaign to ‘Abolish the Unfair Banana’, the theme for 2014 Fair Trade Fortnight.

Chogoria fundraising success!

It was a mammoth weekend for fundraising towards the visit to Chogoria High School next summer.

1.       We think the ceilidh will have made in the region of £900.

2.       We raised £1067.52 at the Asda bagpack.

3.       Our stall at the CCHS Christmas Fare made £357

 

Congratulations everyone!

John Byrne Award update!

The John Byrne Award Ceremony took place last night and we had two entries in the final. These were a poem by Kate Murray and a short story by Nikita Tilak-Singh.  Both girls were outstanding and Nikita received a ‘commended’ award and received a cheque for £1000. A fantastic achievement for both girls - congratulations!

More information can be found online at: http://www.johnbyrneaward.org.uk/home/ The 4 minute film 'previewing' the finalists is well worth a watch!

If you went down to the woods today....

... you may have come across some Currie pupils...

Cooking damper bread over a small group fire

or kick sampling the burn in Roley's Wood for invertebrates to test the water quality

Fair Trade Group update

The new Fair Trade team is up and running and working hard to promote Fair Trade. We have decided we need to shout about the products we are selling and why choosing Fair Trade supports farmers and small producers in the developing world. As a start, pupils are creating a very colourful banner to be displayed on our table when we are selling at our tuckshop or providing teas and coffees to the community. We are using 'scrap' materials and many thanks to the Health and Food Technology department for helping with the spectacular tie dyeing of the background material, a piece of an old curtain!

We will be selling ethically traded crafts from the 'One World Shop' at the PIP Christmas Fayre on 24th November  at Currie CHS.  So come along and visit our stall for gifts that are just a bit different and where your purchase will benefit some people in the developing world who are working hard to support their families and communities.

Chogoria penpals

A group of Currie CHS pupils have been exchanging letters and emails with some pupils at Chogoria High School, our partner school in Kenya. The Currie pupils are finding the exchange of information very interesting and sometimes surprising. Here are quotes from Mairi and Katie who are S2 pupils taking part in the penpal exchange project this session.

"I like finding out about how they live and how different it is.  My penpal told me she got a cow for her birthday and I got a new phone!".

"I was surprised that some things were similar like watching soaps on TV.  However, other things are different such as they study architecture as a subject at school".

 

Chogoria Fundraisers coming up

This Saturday!!! - Balerno Farmers Market, bakery stall, 9am-1pm – a great market for a wander round if you’ve never been. If you live locally (or fancy a day out in the buzzing metropolis of Balerno) then be sure to buy some bakery at our stall and help boost our fundraising efforts.

Friday 22nd November – Family Ceilidh at Currie Community High School. The music is by the Miller/Marwick Ceilidh Band.  Raffle prizes to be won. BYOB. Tickets £5 available via Ms Muir or Mr Duncan. A great way to have fun and raise funds. Please consider coming along and encourage your friends and family to join you.

 

Saturday 23rd November – ASDA Chesser Bag Pack, 12noon – 6pm.   If you’re in Asda doing your weekly shop then be sure to get your eggs broken, bread crushed and crisp packets burst open, all in a good cause.

New eco topics for the next two years

The Eco Committee have been hard at work this term, involving as many pupils as possible in doing an Environmental Review of the whole school. We do this to see what we're doing well as a school and what we could improve on.  Using this review, we have decided on our new topics of focus for Eco-Schools for 2013-2015!

These are:
- Litter
- Energy
- Health and wellbeing

We have asked every tutor group in the school to complete an eco ideas sheet, asking for ideas on actions for these and other Eco topics.   We can then put these into an action plan for this year. There are lots of exciting ideas already - keep those completed sheets coming in please!  We hope to make some real progress as a school on these three issues over the next two years, as well as continuing all the other eco-related work that is part of our life at Currie High.  If you'd like to get involved in the Eco Committee new members are always welcome, pupils, staff and parents. Just see Rachel Avery in the Environment office in the LRC on a Wednesday or a Thursday.

Eco homes in French

Pupils have been learning about environmentally friendly homes within Modern Languages classes, and preparing beautiful posters to evidence their learning.

SDE biodiversity investigations

The S1 sustainable development education classes have been learning about biodiversity over the last few weeks - the amazing variety of plants and animals who share this world with us. Last week they worked in groups to do a biodiversity investigation of Roley's Wood. This pair found 14 different species of tree in the wood - that's an S1 record!

John Byrne Award update

Kate Murray and Nikita Tilak Singh in S6 have both successfully reached the finals of the John Byrne Award.   Kate wrote a poem and Nikita a short story, inspired by the sculpture of Nelson Mandela by Marco Cianfanelli.  

The  whole of S5 and S6 were lucky enough to meet Denis Goldberg a few weeks ago when he visited the school.  Denis is a friend of Nelson Mandela and spent 22 years in prison from 1966 for his work campaigning against apartheid in South Africa. 

They will be presenting their work to a team of judges tomorrow. Good luck!