St Andrew's day service

My family enjoyed a St Andrews day service at Pilrig St Paul's Church this morning with, among others, Leithers and Bow-tows (*). Our daughter Lucy and her friend Rachel had been invited to play the clarsach, much to the evident enjoyment of everyone present. Afterwards we enjoyed a chat with several of the delightful senior citizens of the area who regaled us with tales from the days when Newhaven was a thriving fishing port.

(*) A Bow-tow is a native of Newhaven.  I was informed by one elderly gentleman that this name derives from when babies in the area were christened over the bows of a boat.

Canongate Youth wins £38,000

The STV competition for charity funds on Wednesday was won by Canongate Youth.  The project will create a new city centre cafe in the South Bridge Resource Centre that will improve the employment prospects of 25 unemployed youngsters aged 16 – 25 by providing on the job training and experience. The new cafe will also provide a safe, sociable and affordable space for the local community.

Names of new school buildings

Our pupil council has, after heated debate, put forward three names for our new school buildings. They are: 'Malala' for our main teaching block; 'Liddell' for our Sports centre and 'Muriel Spark' for our Performing Arts centre. We will now share these with parents and staff and invite feedback. Of course, Bruntsfield House will remain as it is.

St Andrew's day celebrations

Our creative S6 student council leaders have put together the following programme for St Andrew's day and will be presenting at various assemblies this week.


St. Andrew’s Day

28th November, Break Time, Lauderdale/Darroch

DARROCH
1. 2 Pipers (Adam) piping in Darroch as the bell
goes, leaving the Darroch campus after
around 2 minutes (alt. covered by umbrellas if it
rains)
2. Pipers accompanied by enthusiastic S6s with
placards and Dominic from Pupil Voice.
3. Arrive at Lauderdale 11.05am.

LAUDERDALE
1. Piping on grass outside of Spylaw (alt. covered walkway into Spylaw if it
rains)
2. Roise (fiddle) and Finlay (clarsach) playing for S6 highland dancing in
Quad (alt. in canteen if it rains)
3. Bake sale (S6-run) and face-painting (events committee) Scottish flags in
canteen (alt. in Warrender hallway if it rains)

MARKETING
1. Assembly presentation by S6 Pupil Voice - who St. Andrew was /
significance
2. Posters in school
3. Word of mouth (via Pupil Voice representatives)
Note; Students travelling from Darroch>Lauderdale>Darroch may be late getting
back to class for third period.

John Byrne award

I am, once again, so proud of our pupils for winning prizes in the John Byrne award 2014 competition.
Pictured are both Miriam (Highly commended) and Andrew (overall winner).

John Byyrne awards successes

On Saturday evening I attended the John Byrne awards ceremony at Edinburgh College of Art. Andrew Macdonald (Gillespie's) was the overall winner with Miriam Seddon (also in our s6) amongst the three highly commended. A huge well done to the teachers and parents who continue to support our pupils in so many ways. Pictured are Cat Macdonald, Andrew Macdonald, Peter Capaldi (presenter of prizes), myself and Jen Glass.

There's a lot going on!

As always at Gillespie's, our talented pupils are involved in lots of events. The following is a list (drawn from a letter to Parents from Mrs O'Brien) of what our Music department is involved with in December.

Community Music Performances:

    Charity Concert, Charity Carol Singing and Tree Lighting Ceremonies

We are delighted that we have been requested to provide music at many Christmas community events this year, and that your child is performing at some/or all of these. 

It is a wonderful opportunity to perform out with school, and is an invaluable support to our community, enjoyable for all.

The details of these events are as follows:

Charity Concert in St Marks Unitarian Church: Tuesday 2^nd December at 7pm

Guitarists and Chamber Choir & Clarsach Players

Pupils should meet Miss Millar at on Johnstone Terrace at 6:30pm for a warm-up and dress rehearsal on the stage before the doors open to the public at 6:45pm. 

Tollcross Tree Lighting - Tuesday 2^nd December at 6.00pm

Brass Ensemble and Pipers

Pupils are to meet Mr Hodge and Mrs O’Brien at the ‘Two Thin Laddies Café’ on High Riggs at 5.45pm where instrumental cases can be left, before proceeding to the square to perform.

Bruntsfield Tree Lighting – Wednesday 3^rd December at 6.30pm

Pipers

Pupils are to meet at the offices of McQueen Legal, 103-105 Bruntsfield Place, where they can leave cases and tune up before proceeding to the tree on the Links to perform.

Marchmont and Sciennes Tree Lighting – Saturday 6^th December at 4.00pm

Brass Ensemble and Chamber Choir & Clarsach Players

Pupils are to meet Mrs O’Brien at the German Church on Chalmers Crescent at 3.40pm where cases can be left, before proceeding to the tree where the brass ensemble will perform carols.

This will then be followed by the chamber choir, accompanied by some clarsach players, performing at the German Church after the tree lighting ceremony.

Children First Charity Carol Singing – Sunday 14^th December at 11am

Pupils are to meet at St. Andrew’s Square at 10:45am and warm-up.  Pupils should sing a selection of carols for 15 minutes and then have a 10 minute break, and repeat the same set of carols.  This is an hour slot to raise money for Children First.

Rehearsals

Pupils involved must be at rehearsals in the lead up to these events. Details will be given by the appropriate conductor of these groups

Chamber Choir:         Every Thursday after school in B3

Pipe Band:                 Every Thursday after school in B1

Brass Ensemble:        Friday 28^th November at 1.00pm in B20

Monday 1^st December after wind band in B1

Thanks to all the pupils involved for supporting these community events during a very busy time of year.

As ever, we greatly appreciate all your support and you are welcome to attend these events to join in the fun!

I also hope to welcome you to the JGHS Christmas Concert at the Usher Hall on Thursday 18^th December. Tickets are on sale now, available from the box office or website.

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me at school.

Kind regards,

Deirdre S. O’Brien

Curricular Leader of Performing Arts

Anti bullying week 17-21 November

During this week across Scotland teachers will take the opportunity to highlight how unacceptable bullying is. At Gillespie's all of our S2 have recently completed a short unit on bullying behaviour – how to define it and how to report it – as well as completing the ‘Safe from Bullying Survey’ put forward by the City of Edinburgh Council.

All of the current S3 finished and/or started this session looking at LGBT issues and in particular, homophobic bullying.

Stonewall, working with celebrities, workplaces and schools, is calling on individuals and organisations to tackle abusive language this Anti-Bullying Week by supporting the NoBystanders campaign. The campaign has already been backed by celebrities including Stephen Fry, Nicole Scherzinger, Perez Hilton, Sinitta, Clare Balding and David Williams.

 http://www.stonewallscotland.org.uk/documents/scot_teachers_report_2014_final_lo_res.pdf

(This is the major report that came out last week regarding homophobic bullying in schools – many recommendations for government, local authorities, schools…)

Athlete Support Programme

The PE department within James Gillespie’s High School are currently looking to select pupils for our ‘Athlete Support Programme’, which is for pupils who show high ability in sport.  This programme will provide support and assistance to those of you who are participating at a high level within a particular sport and help you to reach your sporting potential. If you think this is for you then please ask any member of the PE department for an application form.

Dear Parent/Carer

The next Parent Council Meeting takes place on Tuesday 25 November at 7 Pm in our school library at the Lauderdale campus..

Items being discussed includes:

1. Feedback from last year's exams
2. Making online appointments with teachers for parents' nights
3. Update on new school building

For final agenda and access to previous minutes go to:

http://jghscouncil.btck.co.uk/

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 25 November.

Thanks,

Donald J Macdonald

Headteacher

Mark Zuckerberg and the art of being smart casual

I received an email today with this link attached. In the weeks ahead we will, as aschool engage in discussions on what dress code or uniform best suits us.

This makes an interesting read.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/mark-zuckerberg-and-the-art-of-being-smart-casual-9852479.html

Online booking system for parents

Earlier this evening I was delighted to attend a presentation for parents on our plans to move to an online booking system for parents' nights. To allow us to do this we are working with a company called 'On The Button' (OTB). 100 % of those in attendance supported this initiative so we now look forward to sharing this with our Parent Council on 28 November and piloting this early in 2015.

Remembrance assembly

This morning's Kyi assembly, presented entirely by pupils in S1-3 covered:

• Fireworks night
• Diwali and
• Armistice day.

After various readings covering each of these areas, Siera, Lolly, Iona and Maisy read 'Flanders Fields', written in 1915 by the Canadian Physician John McCrae.

Pupils also read extracts from the 1915 school magazine. 'Cookery classes have been delayed as Miss Graham is absent giving cookery classes to the soldiers in Peebles'. 'Miss Dudgeon, teacher of PE, leaves tonight for London to take up work helping the wounded soldiers so lessons will be suspended' and 'Captain Maclaren, Lieutenant Muir and 2nd Lieutenant Heggie were all killed in action'.

Patrick brought the assembly to a close with a tune on his bugle.

Thanks to the Kyi Guidance staff (Ms Glass, Mrs McQuade and Mrs Kerr) for supporting the pupils in their preparations.

Gillespie's Pupil Voice

Our pupil council can be contacted in a variety of ways. This includes via class reps, facebook, twitter or by leaving a message in their school mailbox. It is important that the pupil voice is heard at a time of so many changes.

This picture shows our S6 Pupil Voice leaders.


https://www.facebook.com/pupilvoicejghs

Model United Nations award winners

Congratulations to our MUN award winners! Ranjana, Kai and Molly! Everyone at the MUN Penicuik conference did really well! Looking forward to the next conference!

National Gaelic debating competition

Well done and warmest congratulation to two of our girls - Catriona and Mikaela - who are through to the national Gaelic debating semi-finals. Both girls have island connections. Catriona is the great niece of DR Macdonald (a North Uist man) who was the revered head of Gaelic at Portree High School in the 70s and 80s. Mikaela has family connections with Colonsay. Tha mi cho proiseil!

Are you planning to do some shop online for Christmas? You can help to raise money for JGHS at no extra cost to you by signing up to easyfundraising.org.uk. Every time you buy something online through a partner retailer, they will give a donation (up to 5%) to James Gillespies High School  Parent Council which will be used to improve the educational experience of all our children.

At the last count we have raised over £450 through the 41 people already registered.

Here’s how it works:

1. Let’s say you want to buy a computer from John Lewis. Instead of going to johnlewis.com directly, you first go to easyfundraising.org.uk. 

2. From the easyfundraising website, click through to JohnLewis.com to make your purchase. This tells John Lewis you came from easyfundraising. The price of the computer is exactly the same.

3. After you buy the computer, John Lewis will donate money to JGHS via easyfundraising.org.uk

Almost all the major retailers are signed up, including John Lewis, Sainsburys, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Boots, Amazon, iTunes and many more (2,700 + in fact).  There are also many travel companies and service providers such as insurance companies.  There are also business suppliers, so if you run your own business, please consider purchasing through easyfundraising.

It's super easy to register (for free) and you don't need to provide any payment details. And if you think you might forget to shop via easyfundraising then the Donation reminder will help you. It provides a little reminder everytime you shop online. There can't be many easier ways to raise money, visit here to sign up now:

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/JGHSparentcouncil

Please don't delay.  Register now, bookmark the website, download the “find and remind” facility.  Please also sign up grandparents and friends by forwarding this email.
 
Thank you 

on behalf of the JGHS Parent Council