Spring cleans and other things

Two S1 classes did a fantastic job of cleaning the far corners of our school grounds this week, as part of their Gold JASS Award. Thank you folks!

The gardening club were out as usual on Tuesday and we sorted out our soft fruit bed, giving each plant some well rotted manure and then covering the weedmatting with a new layer of bark chips. 

The Fair Trade group had stall at the S5 parents evening last night, providing a welcome service of tea, coffee and Fair Trade snacks and raising awareness of Fair Trade at the same time. 

And S3 Health & Food Technology pupils sowed seeds in our greenhouse to grow over the holidays - we planted two varieties of tomatoes, peppers, courgettes and basil, that they will be able to use in dishes later in the year.

Have a good break over Easter everyone.

One World Show!

This lunchtime we had an amazing One World Show in the assembly hall. Over 180 pupils and staff came to watch. There was an exhibition of art work from all years S1 to S6. 

S3 mirror and clock designs made out of recycled materials

Senior fashion designs inspired by the natural world

S4 corsets inspired by nature and made using recycled materials

S4-S6 eco architecture. Sustainability focussed and nature-inspired....

John and Jenna were our comperes for the event

Two S1 classes had African dance lessons in PE today, alongside live drumming, and some brave volunteers gave a public performance of the Kpanlogo dance from Ghana that they'd learnt

Elaine O'Donnell read her powerful poem 'What is?' that she submitted for the John Byrne Award competition

The Junior Drama club did short sketches they'd developed on the theme 'Its Not Fair!'

More from the Junior Drama club

The Fair Trade group did a presentation on why Fair Trade matters

Pupils modelled some amazing fashion designs inspired by our world and nature, created for Higher and Advanced Higher. 

Many thanks to everyone involved in making it a fantastic event!

The BFG takes over CCHS

All our S3 pupils had three days off timetable at the end of last term to take part in a cross-curricular learning project.  They went to see the show of Roald Dahl's classic novel the BFG at the Lyceum Theatre and then came up with their own creative responses based on three themes; That's not Fair, Visions and Values, and Taking on Giants.  Each group had to generate their own ideas and then work together to see the project to fruition, often with limited resources. Groups performed their presentations to parents and other guests at the end of the third day.

One group created an art installation in the corridor outside Art & Design, inspired in part by Martin Luther King's speech ' I have a dream'. Half of the corridor was poorly lit, with art work and slogans respresenting the nightmarish reality some people face in their daily lives. The other half was brightly lit and highlighted the group's wishes and dreams for an ideal world of equality and justice for all.

Another group used a news report format to look at the lives of asylum seekers coming to the UK to seek safety, and highlighted the inequality between food and water resources of people living in different countries around the world.

Another group tackled giant multi-national food companies, often encouraging us to buy food that is bad for us.  The group showed the difference between this type of food and drink and healthy alternatives made with local or ethically traded produce. Everyone was given a taste of the dishes they'd been creating over the 3 days, and was encouraged to think about their own shopping and eating habits.

One group chose to tell the story of Malala Yousafzai, the girl from Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban for campaiging for the right to education and who recently was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Whilst the pupils were working on their installation, Taliban fighters killed 141 children and teachers in a school in Pakistan, showing the vital and urgent need to protect everyone's right to an education.

One group chose to tackle the 'That's not fair' theme by creating a Wheel of (Mis)/Fortune game show to illustrate the inequalities between rich and poor in this country.  The wheel could land on education, health care, Christmas or life expectancy, and in each case the likely scenario was acted out for both a rich, fortunate contestant and a poor, unfortunate contestant.

It was a very thought-provoking event, and so inspiring to see what the pupils had come up with in only 3 days. Well done to all our S3s!

Traidcraft Snack Attack Success!

 

For this year’s Traidcraft “Snack Attack” Challenge, all of our S2s created a healthy Fairtrade snack in Health and Food Technology. Then, in Art & Design, they designed the graphics, packaging and advertising campaign for their snack. There were some wonderful designs but we could only choose one winner! Our highly commended designers were Sarah Brown, Riya Bodas, Emma Boyle and Stella Lumsden. The design chosen to represent CCHS was by Charlotte Brock with her “Berry Burst” - a crispy, fruity, chocolaty bar. Well done to all of our chefs and designers for their excellent ideas and hard work!  

Message from Traidcraft:

'Runner-Up 2014,

 

Thank you for entering Snack Attack 2014. We were bowled over by your entries, we had more this year than we’ve ever had before! So many of them were simply amazing and showed real ingenuity, an entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and demonstrated great team work. Thank you so much for putting in all of the work you did. You all learnt about fair trade and developed other important skills at the same time.'

FairAchiever Award

Great news – the school has just been awarded ‘FairAchiever’ Award by the Fair Trade Foundation!

This is in recognition of all the work that we have done over the last three years to teach and research Fair Trade issues as well as providing opportunities for pupils to take action to promote Fair Trade. Pupils have sold snacks in school, served Fair Trade teas and coffees at community events and many other initiatives. Thanks to all the pupils and staff who have helped!

New banner for the Fair Trade group

The Fair Trade group decided that we needed to make our stall for the weekly tuckshop, parent evenings and other events look a bit more striking. So we tie dyed some old curtain material, cut up some even older pieces of material and here is the banner we made!

Doing the Splits for Fair Trade Fortnight

The focus for Fairtrade Fortnight this year is the unfair price of bananas. The cost of staples like bread, eggs, sugar and milk has gone up by about 79% in the last 10 years but the average cost of loose bananas has gone down by more than 40% while the cost of production has soared. It is the banana growers and workers that have lost the most and many are being forced into poverty.

We wanted to encourage people to buy Far Trade bananas so pupils were asked to bring a banana to school or buy a banana from us and we made it into a Fair Trade banana split. This was a very delicious though rather sticky activity!

We also sold home baking using Fair Trade ingredients and altogether raised £49.50 for Burma Assist, the charity we are fund raising for this term. Many thanks to Scotmid who supported our event.

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.

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.

Acting to make food fair!

This week the Fair Trade Group have organised a big school-wide petition. We gave a mini marcher to each tutor group along with a petition form for signatures. Our petition form said

"Despite producing 70% of the world's food, over half of the world's hungriest people are smallholder farmers. I am calling on David Cameron to go further and champion a better deal for the world's smallholder farmers at this year's G8 meeting. I support the campaign for a sustainable food system, which works for everyone and ensures that farmers get a decent livelihood from the crops they grow."

All the signatures were collected and counted. We sent a total of 249 signatures off to the Fair Trade Foundation!

Karen Craigie and Clara Morriss, S6

Mini marchers out on display at today's tuckshop

Signing the petition

Fair Trade Bake Off

As part of Fair Trade Fortnight, the CCHS Fair Trade group are organising a Big Fair Trade Bake-Off.   Open to all, pupils and staff - can your cake rise higher than Mrs Stuart's? The rules are....

· Bake at home and bring your creation with your recipe to H&FT (Home Ec) before registration on Thursday (7th)
· Your recipe must contain at least one Fairtrade ingredient and no nuts.
· Judging will be at the ‘Marketplace’ in the Assembly Hall at lunchtime Thursday
· If you let us sell your cakes the next day all proceeds will go to comic relief
· Find out more and register in the LRC NOW!



My mouth is watering already.....

CurriEco Grant Scheme final results....

The school received £3500 from PiP for environmental improvement projects in the school. The Eco-Committee organised for pupils and staff to apply for some of this money.  After careful consideration, the ‘winning’ applications are below.  Money remaining = £362.50 to be allocated on a rolling basis.

Project	Cost	Who is involved
Supporting S1 SDE projects. All S1s do a practical  project to improve the environment (9 weeks at the end of  their Sustainable Development Education course). £40 per class maximum per year.	£1000 over 4 years	Mr Toal and SDE teachers (Ms Bond, Ms Barlow, Mr Radford and all S1 pupils)
Eco-Art posters. Two or three large scale (A0) posters professionally printed onto boards of eco-themed Art work for permanent display in foyer.	£300 max	Mrs Steel & A&D pupils
Redecorate the school canteen using eco-themed decorations (wall mural and on lockers)	£300 max	Katherine Macfarlane & Joanne Pryde S6 + JASS group + Advanced Higher Art pupils + Mrs Steel
Eco-Film competition - Pupils make a short film on an environmental topic. Shortlist shown at lunchtime and best voted for by pupil audience. Entries used on website, shown in foyer, at parents evenings etc. £100 each year. (£50 1st prize, £30 2nd prize, £20 3rd prize)	£300 over 3 years	Mr Farren + CurriEco team
Bird boxes and materials for making birdboxes. Installing some long-life woodcrete boxes to start monitoring their success in the Nest Record Scheme from this Spring. Wooden boxes made for common and threatened species by CDT pupils later this session and in subsequent years.	£250 max £100 for woodcrete boxes, £150 for materials	Mr Walton + Mr Watson + S5/6 CDT pupils + group of  pupil volunteers as bird box monitors
Watering system for greenhouse. A simple automatic timed watering system would mean we can use the greenhouse to grow fruit, vegetables etc as they wouldn’t die over the holidays.	£280	Rachel Avery + Int Biology + Other pupils
Wireless bird box camera to show live footage of the  inside of a bird box on the screen in the foyer	£183.50	Mr Walton + other staff
Bed of soft fruit bushes at front of school and manure for school orchard, vegetable boxes and soft fruit.	£181	EDGE Explorer Scouts (Led by Owen & Trish Davies, parents)
Pin badges for pupils in the Eco Committee & working on Eco projects in the school to raise profile of Eco activities.	£100 max	Clara Morriss & Karen Craigie  S6 (Eco Committee)
Big pupil-designed stickers on litter bins in school foyer and outside, encouraging people not to drop litter	£70	Gemma King 6K2 with S2 JASS litter group
Native wildflowers for a wetland in Roleys Wood	£68	EDGE Explorer Scouts (Led by Owen & Trish Davies, parents)
Solar powered fountain for wildlife pond in Quadrangle. To oxygenate water to help the health of the pond and as an example of renewable energy.	£65	Mr Hermiston
Three thermos jugs for serving Fair Trade teas and coffees at events, parents evenings etc. This raises money for good causes such as our sponsored pupils in Chogoria High School, Kenya	£40	Fair Trade group