Extracurricular Activities: Learning Skills for Life - St Columba's School

2 | sCHooL neWs THE COLUMBAn ISSUE 31 THE COLUMBAn ISSUE 31 sCHooL neWs | 3
Charity
The past couple of months have been a great success for
charity events. Events included a Wii Ski Challenge held
by SIV, which allowed many of the pupils to show off their
skiing skills. However, Maxine Muirhead outperformed
them all with a winning time of 1min 14seconds. Well done,
Maxine! This event alone raised over £100. The charity total
is now approaching £2000 and will towards the Teenage
Cancer Trust, benefitting many young people as they face the
challenges of a serious illness.
In February members of the Pipe Band, the Junior Choir and
Senior Ensemble performed at City Halls in Glasgow as part of
the Sounds of Scotland Concert, raising money for Quarriers.
There was a roaring trade in Fairtrade products, including
chocolate and jewellery in early March, as part of Fairtrade
Fortnight.
Following the devastating earthquake and tsunami which
struck Japan, the children of Junior School raised a fantastic
£1180, to be split between Save the Children and the Red
Cross to help towards their efforts there. Transitus had a sale
of baking and home-made jewellery, while Gavin Findlay and
Jonathan Bradford of Junior 6 got their year group selling
baking and sweets to contribute towards the funds.
How You Can Support
the Work of the
Teenage Cancer Trust
Alastair and Rosalind Lauchland, together with a group of
friends, have embarked on the project of creating a “Calendar
Girls” calendar for 2012 based on the theme of “Horse and
Rider” to raise funds for The Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity
with a close personal connection to the Lauchland family.
They are now seeking sponsorship to cover the costs of
production, so that 100% of the proceeds of all sales will
go to the charity. They are delighted to have already raised
over £1000 from businesses and individuals, but as you can
imagine, the cost of a quality publication is fairly high.
If you would like to sponsor this project, please contact
alastair.lauchland@btinternet.com
Guidance
SI pupils have been learning about healthy lifestyles,
including diet and alcohol. As part of the School’s Eco Week
activities, SI Duchal helped prepare and analyse a lunch
questionnaire. Subject choices and career research have been
the focus for SII, IV and V pupils throughout much of the
second term. Camille Anderson (SII) won the inter-house
career poster competition with an innovative and informative
poster about working as an illustrator. SIV pupils benefitted
from individual interviews with a representative of the
Independent Schools’ Careers Office and pupils across all three
year groups have had the opportunity to discuss career and
subject choices individually with their Heads of House.
SVI ended their PSE programme with three afternoons
dedicated to a variety of guest speakers. As part of the
Preparation for Adult Life afternoon, we welcomed back to the
School Mrs Tracey Carlyle with her baby son Thomas to speak
about breast-feeding, whilst former pupil Jane Wylie-Roberts
entertained students on the topic of parenting. Students have
also enjoyed talks on finance, road safety and blood donation
and in February Olivia Giles returned to the School to speak
about her charity 500 Miles.
Eco School
senior school Committee
In anticipation of the Eco Schools’ inspection, which will take
place in June, the Senior School Eco Committee has continued
to work hard towards achieving Green Flag status.
Our second annual Eco Week was held in February and played
host to a variety of events. There was a CD and book swap,
organised by the English Faculty, a sale of Fairtrade products
in the foyer and a sale by Ms Zhang of jewellery made from
recycled magazines. The money raised will help towards the
work of Open Arms, a vocational training charity based in
Uganda. There was also a highly successful inter-house Eco
Quiz involving all year groups. Many thanks to Matthew
Garrett, who wrote all the questions, and to Sean Yacoubian,
who chaired the event. Congratulations to Duchal for winning
the quiz. To round off the week, a Healthy Heart Day took
place on the Friday, during which the committee worked
alongside the SVI Scottish Baccalaureate group to promote
healthy living. One of the highlights was the smoothie bike
which enabled pupils – and some staff – to prepare a healthy
drink whilst exercising. In addition, lessons in all faculties
focused on a variety of environmental issues.
Junior school Committee
Junior School held its first ever Eco Day. Everyone came to
school out of uniform (but wearing something green!) and we
raised £326 for our chosen eco charity, the World Wildlife Fund
(WWF).
The day started with Assembly led by the Eco Warriors. We
watched films of endangered animals like polar bears and
turtles. Polar bears are under threat because climate change
is melting the ice on which they live. We learned that we can
help by saving energy and that simply switching off the lights
when we don’t need them. We also discovered that sea turtles
often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and eating them can
prove fatal. Disposing of our rubbish properly and recycling
is important. Two of our Eco Warriors, Laura Smith (J4) and
Amy Crawford (J6), gave a presentation about WWF’s Earth
Hour 2011. Earth Hour took place on Saturday 26th March at
8.30pm and billions of people across the planet turned off their
lights for an hour. Famous landmarks like the Golden Gate
Bridge, the Eiffel Tour and the London Eye fell into darkness.
Laura and Amy helped us to realise that if we all make little
changes in our lives, it will make a huge difference to the
whole planet.
During Eco Day every class took part in a special eco activity.
Two of our priority areas for achieving our Green Flag award
are litter and waste minimisation and these were common
themes. Prep learned about litter, organised a litter pick-up and
performed their anti-litter song at Assembly. Junior 1 made sock
puppets out of recycled materials as part of their Toys topic.
Junior 2 created two wonderful dinosaurs out of rubbish.
Junior 3 created slogans to remind us all not to drop litter.
Phoebe Maclean-Bristol (J3) said, “On Eco Day I dressed in
green and we made a big poster which said ‘Put litter in the
bin’. I also liked doing the Eco Assembly.”
Junior 4 taught everyone a song in French about walking to
school. They also worked in groups to create some Healthy
Eating Heroes. “Blueberry Boy” and “Cherry Champ” were
just two of their imaginative creations made entirely out of
recycled materials.
Junior 5 enjoyed a talk about renewable energy from
Mr Cameron Smith and then made their own windmills.
They also collected recyclable materials to create a display
about recycling. Junior 6 made bird feeders out of empty juice
containers. nicola Lambert (J6) said, “I thought Eco Day was
really fun and I’d like to do it again. The assembly really made
me think about the animals and it was great to make bird
feeders.” Our Junior 6 and Transitus Eco Warriors also helped
to run a Fairtrade stall selling a range of goods, including
sweets, chocolate, pencils and small toys. The stall proved
very popular and sold £958 worth of Fairtrade products.
We are hoping to have a dedicated page on the School website
very soon which will keep parents and pupils up to date with
our activities both at Junior and Senior School.
How you can help us become an eco school?
We hope to offer recipients of The Columban the option of
receiving it as an e-magazine. At the beginning of the next
academic year a letter will be sent out with further details
about this. Please look out for it.
If you are a Former Pupil and would like to receive
the newsletter in this format please email
kzhang@st-columbas.org