A round-up of news from Gracemount High School.

 

OPEN EVENING The school welcomed almost 200 adults and youngsters to its Open Evening towards the end of last year. The visitors were welcomed to the school by our Prefects and provided with a tour of the school. We had great pleasure in showing how our School of Ambition status and resulting funding of £300,000 has been used to improve the learning experiences of our pupils. Our visitors were given demonstrations by our pupils that enabled them to see first hand the variety of teaching approaches used at Gracemount. These included the use of state of the art technology to deliver interactive lessons in a variety of subjects. Several subjects demonstrated the use of our virtual learning environment (Studywiz) which teachers use to deliver new and rich learning materials to pupils in school and which can be accessed at home.  Visitors were also able to use Studywiz on laptops to evaluate their own fitness! Dancers from our Dance Academy demonstrated how they develop and improve their dance using i-Movie software. Our home economics department promoted their healthy eating approach to lessons with hearty soups, pastas and healthy (yes healthy!) cakes made by the pupils. The history department showed a moving Powerpoint display of the recent trip by our pupils to the Battlefields in France. The maths department showed how using interactive games on our Smartboards can motivate pupils to learn.  Pupils in the music department demonstrated how technology is used to enhance the production of their compositions, while in the English department our visitors were entertained by the acceptance speeches from the pupils receiving their Oscars for the Talk of Fame contest – well done to those pupils! Pupils in the science department (pictured, right) invited parents and youngsters to take part in experiments such as making electricity and passing it through your body, along with various controlled explosions!  Our visitors were given the opportunity to learn about the variety of supports available for our more vulnerable pupils from our Pupil Support Team. Also, to hear about our Activate and Jet programmes which offer pupils alternative educational pathways which provide them with opportunities to develop practical employable skills through college and work experience placements. OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD Gracemount has just completed its third annual Operation Christmas Child Appeal programme. This aims to deliver presents to children in third world countries. This year, Mrs Bisset organised for the sending of a whopping 116 boxes to an orphanage for abandoned children in Belarus. Well done everyone! Enterprising Science "How green is your school?" is the question students at Gracemount High school were asked when they took part in a major national education initiative from BP. As part of BP's Enterprising Science programme, S3 pupils took part in an interactive Carbon Challenge road show in late November, looking at how to develop a carbon reduction plan for a fictional Carbon College. In this, they looked at the social, environmental and economic implications for the school. After this, they were challenged in a nationwide competition with other schools via the Enterprising Science website www.enterprisingscience.com Research carried out in June by BP and the Energy Savings Trust (EST) shows that 14-16 year old students currently have a relatively low awareness of climate change issues, but the more that they know, the more they want to be engaged with the topic and find practical solutions they can deliver. Find out more about what's happening at Gracemount High School through the website www.gracemount.edin.sch.uk