CHS CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTER

For Parents/Carers December 2015

The Christmas term is a keystone in the arch of the school year. Our senior pupils

complete a very large proportion of their SQA courses during this term, tackling unit

assessments and preparing for Prelims in late January. Our S3s begin the move

towards starting National level courses in Maths and English and then the course

choice process next term. And our new S1 pupils aren‟t quite so new anymore; they

have settled into the changed surroundings and are familiar with the rhythm of

learning in their new school.

Staff are working extremely hard to implement level seven of National Qualifications,

the new Advanced Higher, this is the final building block of our new curriculum

structure. But as the first cycle of Curriculum for Excellence moves towards its end we

turn our attention to improvement in S1-S3, the Broad General phase of our

curriculum. Consultation and discussion with pupils, parents and staff will lead to

adaption and change to the curriculum for all year groups and in particular the

current S2. Consultation will likely lead us to offer considerable scope for

personalisation and choice to our young people in their third year.

We have also continued to re-work our school vision and values and I was pleased to

welcome a group of interested parents to share their views on the priorities and

direction of our school. Combined with the views of pupils and staff our agreed

priorities are to have a school where our pupils will

Achieve the highest possible levels of attainment

Be ready for the world; confident, resilient, adaptable

Secure a sustained positive future

The full version of our 2020 Vision will be shared with you early in the New Year.

While curricular work will always take centre stage, we have had an exceptionally

busy term with other cultural, community and sporting activities too. Shakespeare in

Stratford, art in Glasgow, “silver surfers” being coached on using electronic devices,

Dynamic Earth and Parliament visits, Spanish visitors and French Twinning awards, we

have had sports teams representing our school in rugby, football, netball, golf,

swimming, fencing and giant heptathlon and with our ever busy musicians

contributing to school, community and Angus wide events and concerts you will

appreciate some of rich experience available at Carnoustie High School. I hope you

enjoy reading a bit more about some of the many activities our young people have

excelled in this past term.

I wish you a most restful holiday and a peaceful New Year.

Mr Donald A Currie

Headteacher

STEM Club

Members of the CHS Science

Technology Engineering Maths club

have been working together to

design and create a model eco-

classroom of the future. The team

(shown below) will present their work

at the annual GO4SET assessment

day at „Space‟ in Dundee on the 17th December where they will compete against

various schools around Angus and Dundee for a variety of prizes. The organisers of

the competition (Engineering Development Trust) allocated engineers from Carey‟s

Ltd to mentor the team. The mentors recently arranged an organised tour of the

Forfar Academy Building site. During the tour pupil‟s learned more about the eco-

features of the new school. They were delighted to hear that many of the eco-

features in their classroom of

the future were similar to those

on the site. Thanks also to Roisin

McGrory, Lori McDonald,

Charlotte Blackburn and Emily

Chatton for their support with

the STEM club. Good luck to the

team on the 17th!

The Go4Set Team

From Right to left: Maya O‟Connor, Ciaran

Kane, Kirsten Ireland, Freya Robbins, Glen

Byars, Imogen Crozier, Neve Walker

The Go4Set Team about to venture onto the Forfar

Academy building site.

From Right to left: Maya O‟Connor, Ciaran Kane,

Freya Robbins, Roisin McRory, Neve Walker,

Imogen Crozier, Kirsten Ireland, Glen Byars

We continue to be greatly encouraged by the consistent support of our parents

and pupils for the school uniform policy. The much smarter appearance of pupils

has drawn many positive comments from the wider community of Carnoustie

and surrounds and we are determined to maintain this high standard.

I therefore take this opportunity to reiterate our uniform policy. When in school, or

representing the school, pupils are expected to wear:

Plain black school skirt or trousers

White shirt/blouse which buttons up to the neck

Plain black v-neck sweater/cardigan

Plain black flat school shoes

School tie

Black school blazer

Embroidered blazers, v-necks and other items of schoolwear are available from

tesco at https://carnoustie-high.schoople.com/uniformeasy and academy

uniforms at http://www.academyuniformsltd.co.uk school ties and embroidered

school badges are available at the school office for £3.

Our first priority is the safety of our young people and we need the support of

those parents of our young people who transport themselves to school on two

wheels, or on four; either by bicycle or by car.

We share the concern of our local police that bikes brought to school must be

roadworthy. This means they have effective brakes, and in the dark winter

months, are fitted with lights. Parents have an absolute responsibility for their

children‟s safety as they get to and from school and this means ensuring that

bikes used to get to school are roadworthy. Some young people may be using

these bikes for the school journey without parental knowledge and we appeal to

you to ensure this potentially dangerous practice ceases.

Some of our S6 are in the most fortunate position to be able to drive themselves

to school, and we are happy to allow these pupils the use of the school car park.

Most are fully aware of the responsibility implicit in exercising this privilege and

drive in a considerate and safe manner. I am disappointed then, to intimate that

some of our young drivers do not, and we have had instances of cars being

driven too fast and without consideration for others. We are fortunate that, as

yet, there have been no accidents in the school car park. We would appreciate

the help of parents in re-emphasising the critical importance of safe driving and

reinforcing the message that all those behind the wheel of a car carry a weighty

responsibility for their own safety and the safety of others.

School Uniform

Pupil Road Safety

Staff from Glamis Castle, Pauline Cawdery and Linda Cumming, visited

Carnoustie High School on Monday 26th October to talk to the young people

about working in the tourism industry.

Mr McInally opened the event by illustrating with statistics the importance of

Tourism and Leisure, within the UK as a whole, but especially in Scotland and in

Angus in particular.

Pauline and Linda explained how best to write a CV and present oneself for a

job in Tourism. They suggested ways of gaining valuable experience in order to

strengthen one‟s job application, including working abroad. The castle guides

underlined the usefulness of language skills and Linda gave examples of how

speaking four languages had helped her in different posts throughout her varied

career. Simply being able to greet guests in their own language can make them

feel much more positive about their visit.

The young people in S3 in Carnoustie High now have a challenge to each

produce a poster to market Glamis Castle in one of the languages they are

learning. The forty best posters will win a visit to Glamis Castle. Modern

Languages and Expressive Arts teachers will help the pupils with this task.

For the fourth year running, the Modern

Languages Curriculum Group in

Carnoustie High School celebrated the

European Day of Languages with a

„Languages Week‟ (September 28th-

October 2nd) Pupils had the opportunity

to join learning lunches where they could

experience a taster of a language along

with a taster of food.

On Tuesday, Mrs Fraser and her

colleagues, assisted by senior prefects,

ran a British Sign Language café, where

pupils, in complete silence, ordered their food and drink by signing. On

Wednesday, Mrs Joss introduced the learners to the basics of German and they

tried out some German specialties. On Thursday, Ms Jiang had prepared senior

Mandarin pupils to deliver a performance for the Moon Festival, which

celebrates the September full moon. The event was led by School Captain,

Rebecca Cook. Kevin Shand in S5, very bravely sang a traditional Chinese song

and Fiona and Susan Muirhead, both in S6, recited a poem about the Moon

Goddess. The young audience then had a chance to try Chinese food and

practice their chopstick skills. During Modern Languages lesson, learners were

given the opportunity to experience other languages and cultures in games and

activities. The aim of the week was to allow the pupils to enjoy the diversity of

human communication and cultures and to encourage them to gain awareness

and confidence as active global citizens.

Glamis Castle developing employablity link with Carnoustie High School

European Day of Languages

Carnoustie High School received the

Young Ambassadors‟ Trophy from the

Carnoustie - Maule Twinning Association

on Friday 30th October, following a

unanimous decision by the committee

that Carnoustie High School was the

local school which had done the most to

further twinning links with the town of

Maule in France in the last year. Mr

Donald Currie, Head Teacher, accepted

the shield from Mr Max Fordyce and Mr

Roger Jeffrey of the Twinning Association.

Over the last year, the Modern

Languages Department in Carnoustie

High School established links with Mme

Veronique Ernoult, Coordinator of English Teaching in the secondary school

Collège le Mauldre in Maule. The result was that over 180 pupils and four

teachers took part in letter and information exchanges. The pupils were

motivated to write about their lives and very excited to receive their cards and

letters. Discussions between the schools on a two-way pupil visit are in the initial

stages.

On Monday 9th November 2015 a group of 16 Spanish pupils from Santander

came for the day to Carnoustie High School.

After an introductory ice breaker session, the pupils spent the day involved in

sports and academic activities both in Spanish and English with the Nat5 Spanish

Carnoustie pupils.

In the evening they all took part in a “wee Scottish soirée” at the Station Hotel,

where the Spanish folks were introduced to Scottish traditional music, Scottish

poetry, Highland dancing and a Ceilidh.

Young Ambassadors’ Trophy awarded to Carnoustie High School

Immersion Day Visit for the Salesianos pupils

I was a bit apprehensive at first

but then I really began to enjoy

the day and the experience.

I really enjoyed meeting

the Salesianos, learning

about their school and

making friends with

them.

The experience will be with me forever

as I made new friends. It was also really educational and

helped with our speaking and listening.

It was great fun socialising and

dancing with them. The Spanish people were really

nice.

Younger and older people are the two groups

most affected by marginalisation in our society.

We were lucky enough to have some visitors to

the Computing department in CHS. Senior

pupils invited members of the community to

visit our school, offering them our skills and

support with IT, e.g. mobile phones, iPads,

Internet, PCs and cameras.

We all had a great time working together and

some of us even learned new skills too! A big

thank you to the pupils that volunteered their

time to help out, we look forward to running

this again in the future.

CHRISTMAS CONCERT

The Music Department at Carnoustie High School will be holding their annual

Christmas concert on Thursday 17th December at 7pm. Tickets will be available to

buy on the evening priced £3 (£2 for concessions). There will be performances by

our instrumental groups and soloists from our Strings, Brass and Percussion sections,

songs performed by our Junior and Senior Vocal groups as well as our school's

signing group. Let our young and talented musicians help get you into the festive

spirit!

ANNUAL ART & DESIGN TRIP

Annual Art and Design trip to Hunterian Gallery - part of Glasgow University and

Gallery of Modern Art. 35 pupils and 4 staff left Carnoustie High at 8.30 am and

travelled through to Glasgow University where they participated in guided tours

around the reconstructed Charles Rennie Mackintosh building in small groups.

Those not on the tour engaged in various critical discussions of how and what to

look for in the work of the Scottish Colourists, Impressionists, Contemporary Scottish

artists, etc. to reinforce skills they have developed in Art and Design. This

opportunity to see first-hand the work of various artists really benefits them when

they came to sit their Art Studies written exam at the end of May, next year.

The Group then travelled into the city centre, where they walked down to and

visited the Gallery of Modern Art. There they visited the various different floors of

the Gallery where they engaged with at more contemporary instillations,

animations, prints, sculptures paintings, etc.

The group then split up into smaller groups and went for lunch, a spot of shopping

and back to the bus just in time, before the „forecasted‟ horrible weather actually

started, arriving back at Carnoustie just after 6pm.

Expressive Art News

Intergenerational Community Project

Last season‟s U15 Angus Champions, our S4 Football boys kicked-off the new

season with a bang!

They have been progressing well within the Scottish Schools Cup Competition. In

the first round they beat Glenwood High School in Glenrothes 7-0. Later in the

competition they beat Blairgowrie High School. It was a difficult match ending 3-

3 however the lads kept their heads cool and won 5-3 on penalties.

Good work lads—fingers crossed you get far. Mr Kozlowski

Since the start of the session in August, following events from Spring and Summer

terms, School of Rugby kicked-off again. Our award winning partnership with

Carnoustie High FPRFC see‟s players attend extra training early on Tuesday

mornings to boost their fitness and rugby skills.

The S1/S2 and U16 teams took part in a few regional and district school

tournaments. The majority of boys also play for Carnoustie High FPRFC so their

development continues outside the school walls.

We are pleased to announce that Carnoustie High School has registered to work

towards achieving status within the Rights-Respecting School Award. The purpose

of this scheme is to embed the principles of respect, equality, dignity, non-

discrimination and participation as outlined in the United Nation‟s Convention on

the Rights of the Child into the school culture and ethos. The scheme aims to

involve pupils more fully in key decisions that affect their learning and well-being.

We are confident that scheme will act to further strengthen the positive

relationships we already have within the school. Further information can be

found on the UNICEF website.

http://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools

Our Christmas Fayre in November was a great success with lots of vendors taking

tables to sell their wares, including our Expressive Arts department and our ASN

Enterprise Group in conjunction with our Technical Department. Many thanks to

everyone who supported the event by taking a table or coming along on the

night—it is greatly appreciated—we rasied £756.32 which will be divided between

the School Fund and Scottish Charity Air Ambulance.

S4 Football Team (Under 16’s)

School of Rugby

Christmas Fayre

Rights Respecting School

Thursday 7 January 2016 Spring Term Starts

Thursday 21 January 2016 S3 Parent Contact Evening

5.30pm—7.30pm

25 January—10 Feb 2016 Prelims

Fri 12 & Mon15 Feb 2016 Mid Term Break

Tuesday 16 February 2016 In Service Day—School closed

Tuesday 23 February 2016 S4 Parent Contact Evening 5.30pm-7.30pm

Wednesday 2 March 2016 S5/6 Parent Evening 5.30pm—7.30pm

28 March—8 April 2016 Spring Holiday—School closed

Monday 10 April 2016 Summer Term Starts

Monday 2 May 2016 Mid-term Holiday—School closed

4 May—3 June 2016 SQA Exams

Monday 30 May 2016 In Service Day—School closed

Friday 1 July 2016 Summer Term Ends

Tuesday 16 August 2016 Autumn Term commences

30 Sept—16 October 2016 Autumn Holiday

Monday 17 October 2016 Winter Term Starts

Mon 28 & Tue 29 Nov 2016 Inservice Days—school closed

Wed 30 November 2016 St Andrew's day holiday, schools closed

Wed 21 December 2016 Winter Term Ends

Important Dates for Your Diary