Conference on equality and diversity

On the 25^th of February we – Ellie Alexander and Jessica Kerr –, two sixth years and Ms Jordan attended a youth conference in Glasgow at the Scottish Youth Theatre. The conference’s aim was to promote equality and diversity through peer learning throughout Scottish Schools. We made our way through to Glasgow on the 8:30am train excited about what the day was going to entail. At 10:00am we were welcomed to the event – this included the agenda and vision of the day. An extremely inspiring speech was then made by a pupil who attends Kyle Academy from the South Ayrshire. He spoke about his personal experiences and the schools experiences in tackling the issues of inequality and promoting diversity throughout their school and community.

After the welcome, we made our way to the first activity. This was the ‘Cinderella’ workshop. This was about rights being denied then deeper into that – barriers to learning. The workshop was led by four fourth year boys. Firstly they spoke about their school’s visions and values and how they have improved them over the last few years. Within the workshop, we took part in two separate activities. The first was the barriers to learning. The boys spoke for a little while about what things could be barriers to learning under the four categories – personal, social, physical and emotional. We were given numerous statements with a barrier to learning on them and we had to put them into the correct category. For us we found this a beneficial task as it make us think about things that could be stopping our peers’ learning that had never crossed our minds before. After that, we had to draw our own barriers to learning. It was interesting to see everyone’s different barriers and how they cope with them. We then moved onto the second activity which was to do with rights being denied. This is where Cinderella came into it; we had to decide the rights she had been denied in her story. The boys gave us sheets and we had to mark next to all the rights which she had been deprived of. It was peculiar to think about Cinderella in that  context, but it was 100% accurate!

The second workshop we went to that Alex and Alice also both came to, was the Mentors in Violence Prevention Programme – MVP. All four of us found this session extremely interesting. It started with an exercise where we shut our eyes imagining the woman we loved most being attacked – horrible. The leaders told us then to close our eyes again and imagine the same scenario but with someone standing watching, not intervening to help this woman. The strong message behind this exercise is silence is the biggest violence, it is possible to help people just by shouting “GET OFF!” or if necessary calling the police. The workshop split into males and females, while we were moved to the males to give a girls perspective and two boys went over to the girls group for the same   reason. In the groups we discussed different types of violence, we then focused into one – pornographic pictures. The special MVP leaders of the group informally but thoroughly talked through what we could do in the situation. This was extremely beneficial for us as we had our eyes opened entirely about consequences of our own actions on other people’s lives. We were very inspired by the MVP presentation and it has resulted in us trying to get a MVP group started at CCHS.

Lunch was then provided for us and we all chatted excitedly about the day so far. After lunch we were all separated into different coloured groups. In this we were met with other pupils from different schools. We had to deal with an issue in society today and create a 2 minute presentation on how it can be tackled in the schools and communities.

Overall, the day was full of information to bring back to school. We got ideas from other schools on things we could do to promote our visions and values and to make our school, on the whole, more equal and diverse. It was an extremely beneficial day out and we would like to thank Ms Jordan for taking us through and Mrs MacKinnon for letting us miss a day of school to attend!

By Ellie Alexander 4K1 and Jessica Kerr 4K2

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!

Earth Hour 2015 at CCHS

This year the Eco-committee wanted to mark Earth Hour in a special way. WWF came up with an idea to create bunting to help us remember the things we appreciate most about our natural world. The brief asked us to use the phrase ‘For the love of…’ and complete the sentence about your favourite place, animal and anything that is special to you in our precious planet. WWF encouraged over 4500 schools across the UK to make the bunting in an attempt break a world record. 

Currie High School approached this challenge and the Eco-committee meetings were spent cutting out bunting out of recycled fabric to be transformed into wonderful bunting. Pupils in Art and SDE classes helped to create the design on the bunting. We are displaying our part of the bunting in school before the end of term and then it will be shipped to London to be put together with the bunting from other schools in a huge display.  We also plan to have all lights off in school P1 on Friday 27 March, before the global Earth Hour on Saturday 28 March.

By taking part in this challenge we are hoping to raise awareness of climate change and other environmental issues in our school; as well as to help support WWF raise awareness of climate change globally. We also celebrated all things eco at the One World Show on 26 March which showcased eco art, drama, music, poetry, dance and design.

By Sophie McVinnie and Abigail Odetayo, Eco Committee

The Eco Committee ripping up our donated old bedsheets

and cutting up the flags

to be decorated beautifully!

Our foyer looks great!

Food for Life celebration at the Scottish Parliament

 Scotland’s real food heroes were celebrated at a recent parliamentary reception to recognize those working behind the scenes in schools and communities across Scotland to improve our food culture.  Staff and pupils from CCHS were there, celebrating  the success of the school over the past two years with the Food for Life Scotland programme.  Ministers spoke in glowing terms of the work carried out by Currie Community High School.

Laura Stewart, Director of Soil Association Scotland said:  “Food for Life Scotland is working to ensure more people can access fresh, healthy, tasty food, and increase local, seasonal and organic ingredients and, in turn, helping our natural world to thrive. Our aim to ensure 'good food for all' and these Food for Life champions are working hard behind the scenes to make this a reality.”

At the event our pupils and staff presented to around 200 guests, including ministers and MSPs, and were interviewed live by STV!  Currie is the only mainland secondary school to have been awarded the Bronze Food for Life Catering Award, serving food that is better for pupils and better for the planet.   Currie CHS has been selected as a “pathfinder” school in Edinburgh to develop four key action areas for food: Culture, Catering, Curriculum and Community.   

 

Our pupil team in one of the committe rooms at the Parliament

Speaking front of around 200 delegates

 On the 3^rd February, after school, three 3^rd year pupils (Mairi Mitchell, Katie MacBeth, Abigail Odetayo) and one 2^nd year pupil (Gregor Menzies) went to the Scottish Parliament accompanied by Mr Pache, Mrs MacKinnon, Miss Stuart, Ms Avery and Julie and Anne (from the Dolphin Café). This was to celebrate the Food for Life Award and schools serving fresh healthy food for pupils.

When we arrived we learnt about the bees that are kept at the parliament and how they are monitored. We then got to taste some lovely food that was made for us. The recipes were designed by a committee of people who work in school cafes across Scotland. The food included Carrot and Coconut curry, lentils in filo pastry, less beef beef burgers and beetroot and chocolate muffins and much more. After we got to listen to amazing talks given to us by schools across the country who had Food for Life Awards. We also gave a talk about the wonderful things our school has done to promote Food for Life and our hopes for achieving the Silver award and we are thankful to everyone who made it possible.

By Abigail Odetayo

The school teams, with Scottish Ministers. Our pupils are at the back!

Mr Pache and Mairi Mitchell being interviewed live on TV!

With our MSP in the debating chamber

In one of the 'think pods' 

Big Schools Birdwatch

Pupils from Science and Biology classes participated in the RSPB Big School’s Birdwatch over the last few weeks, along with pupils from thousands of schools across the UK.  We watched birds coming to the feeders outside the canteen in shifts for a whole hour, and recorded the maximum number of individuals of different species seen at the same time.  

We saw a large variety of birds, including 23 beautiful Goldfinches with bright red heads and golden wings. They seem to particularly enjoy the niger seeds we put out for them.  

We also saw a small brown bird with a red forehead that we were able to identify as a Lesser redpoll, a relatively uncommon species and a new record for CCHS!  

Our final results have been submitted online and will help RSPB monitor populations of birds across the country. 

Bird species	Max number seen at any one time
Chaffinch	26
Goldfinch	23
Magpie	7
Blackbird	2
Woodpigeon	2
Collared dove	2
Crow	2
Lesser redpoll	1
Bluetit	1
Dunnock	1

    

Holocaust Memorial Day

Holocaust Memorial Day was commemorated at school today with a very powerful assembly for all S5 and S6 pupils, put together by pupils and staff. Holocaust Memorial Day is a chance to remember the millions who were killed during the Holocaust and also all those whose lives have been lost or marked by genocide since then and to this day.The theme of this year is ‘Keep the memory alive”.

 

Sophia Purcell and Robbie Forbes spoke movingly about their recent trip to Auschwitz. Haris Brder gave a very powerful speech about his own family’s experience of the recent Bosnian conflict.  Rachel Birrell read out a prize-winning poem she had written in P7 for Holocaust Memorial Day ‘Because we were Jews’.  Catherine Park and Lynsey Pearson gave accomplished performances on the piano, and Anna Schmidt sang an unaccompanied version of ‘Tears in Heaven’.

We had also had two visiting speakers, facilitated by the Edinburgh Interfaith Association. Irina Winfield spoke movingly of her great grandmother’s experiences in the 1915 Armenian Genocide and a music producer from Rwanda, Patrick, sang a powerful song in his own language of hopes for peace after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

At the end of the assembly, everyone lifted up an image of a burning candle in silent commemoration and remembrance.

“A light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John Byrne Award Entry

I recently took part in the John Byrne Award, reaching the final ten places.  Our brief was to produce a creative piece in response to two stimuli: an Oxfam briefing paper and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation paper, both dealing with the themes of poverty and wealth.  I  decided to build on my creative writing skills and wrote a poem entitled ‘What Is’.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of the whole project but meeting Peter Capaldi and John Byrne at the Awards Ceremony was definitely a highlight.  I would encourage anyone to really think about entering as it is a very rewarding experience and I gained a huge amount of experience and confidence from it!

‘What Is’

Poverty: the state of being extremely poor.

Poverty: the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount.

Poverty: the burning pit of hunger at the bottom of your stomach that grates the insides into a thousand screaming mouths.

Poverty: the roof over your head a cool sweep of stars that welcome your plight and send it out into the void, unheard.

Poverty: the filthy black liquid oozing from the tap, a regular sight you have come to crave.

Poverty: the lack of sufficient contraceptives, leaving the life of a young girl in the hands of a nation who do not see any other way.

Poverty: the opposite of wealth.

Wealth: the choice of cereals becoming a game in the morning.

Wealth: the plush new blanket matching the curtains very well, thank you.

Wealth: the heat of the water on your back as you scrub the day away.

Wealth: the comfort gained from a single touch.

Wealth: the lies and corruption from the politicians snatching the tax from innocent workers.

Wealth: an ‘abundance’ of knowledge.

Knowledge: a saviour.

Knowledge: a pathway into the most fruitful wonders imaginable.

Knowledge: a key to power, and passage to happiness.

Happiness: improving, sustaining, accomplishing.

Happiness: a product of empathy, a partner of humanity, an integral aspect of love.

Wealth: love, knowledge, happiness.

Elaine O’Donnell, 6K2