HOLYROODHOLYROOD

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Mr Laurie Byrne

At the end of June we say goodbye and good luck to Mr

Byrne who has been Head Teacher of Holyrood for the past

five years.

He started as a Modern Languages teacher back in 1980 and

throughout his illustrious career has worked in a variety of

schools across a number of education authorities. He has

held the posts of P.T Guidance, Assistant Head, and Senior

Depute as well as his first Headship which was in

St Maurice’s, Cumbernauld.

While in St Maurice’s Mr Byrne also was President of the

Catholic Head Teachers’ Association of Scotland, a post he

carried out with great commitment.

He has successfully led the annual trip to Malawi in June with S6 pupils over the years.

Holyrood is renowned for its work in Malawi and Mr Byrne has played his part in ensuring

that that good work will continue.

The love, care and compassion that he has shown in his time here to staff, parents and

especially the children shows that not only does he promote Gospel values but he lives them

on a daily basis.

We wish him a long and happy retirement with his family, good health and lots of love.

Staff and pupils of Holyrood R.C. Secondary

Well done to our two teams who qualified in 1st and 2nd place for the Na-

tional Final of the SAGT World Wise Quiz for the third year running. Well

done to Peter Millar and Martin MacLeod of S2, Conn McGeever and Sam

McKinley of S3 and Catherine Hannah and Fraser McFarlane of S4.

Congratulations to Sam McKinley of S3, Catherine Hannah and Fraser

McFarlane of S4 and Calum Lowe of S5 who gave a fantastic quizzing in

the Knights of Saint Columba Quiz. Very well done to our runners up

who performed very well against S5/6 opposition from 19 other schools.

As part of Holyrood’s 80th Anniversary

celebrations we held this years Art & Design

portfolio Exhibition at Scotland Street School

Museum. The show featured as usual, folios

from this years exam diet at National 5,

Higher , Higher Photography and Advanced

Higher levels. The exhibition opened to the

public for six weeks and allowed us to bring

our pupil’s incredible talent to a wider

audience. The school received a fabulous

response from the public.

Our thanks go to Miss. Leyden for her endeavour in negotiating Scotland Street Museum as our

exhibition venue. This is the first time we have been able to celebrate our pupil’s work outwith

Holyrood. We hope to repeat our success next year….

We are currently working with Viridor who recycle waste in their Polmadie plant. This is a major

project which will see our third year pupils working with professional artists and art facilitators

culminating in a sculpture which will have pride of place in the plants visitor centre for the

foreseeable future. Check the school App. / website for regular progress updates.

For the past few months, 12 second year pupils have been taking part in an exciting programme called

'The Brilliant Club'. The programme employs doctoral and post-doctoral researchers to deliver

programmes of academic enrichment. Holyrood pupils took part in tutorials based on 'How we can

use lasers to cure diseases'. Through a combination of university trips, in-school tutorials and online

resources, pupils develop the knowledge, skills and ambition needed to progress to highly-selective

universities. Pupils successfully completed a 2000 word dissertation and will graduate at Strathclyde

University on the 23rd May. All pupils worked extremely hard and should be very proud of their

achievements.

Huge thanks to all pupils and staff who contributed to the Mary's Meals

backpack appeal. We sent away over 70 backpacks and also managed to

raise £1035.96.

A group of S5 &6 pupils accompanied the

Art Department to the Theatre Royal to

see the ‘Ballet Rambert’ perform ‘Ghost

Dancers’ and other works. A great night

was enjoyed by all.

Our S2 pupils participated in an

Interdisciplinary Project with English and

Art. After reading 'The Book Thief' with

Mrs. Connelly the pupils created the

character 'Death'. Well done to Cara

Lowe, Cody Jarvis, Hannah Coll, Sophie

Reid, Cara Goutcher, Sophie McGinley

and Eve McGolgan.

Who says ‘The Sky’s the Limit’ in Physics!

Scottish Space School

Congratulations to Rachel McIntosh, 5G, who has won a place at

this year’s Scottish Space School against stiff opposition from

schools all over Scotland.

Rachel will now take part in a week long residential summer

school at Strathclyde University on a space theme supported by

NASA astronauts and engineers.

If she is successful in the next stage of a selection process she will get the opportunity to go

on a learning journey to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas.

Lunar samples and meteorites

Pupils at Holyrood will soon be able to examine up

close samples of extremely rare moon rocks and touch

some tennis ball sized meteorites including a 1.2 billion

years old piece of Mars and a 4.3 billion year old nickel

meteorite – the oldest thing you are ever likely to hold in

your hands! Remember, the solar system is only 4.6 billion years old.

The moon rock samples were brought back to Earth in the late 1960s and

1970s as part of NASA’s first manned missions to the Moon. The meteor-

ites fell to Earth from a variety of places including the main asteroid belt

between Jupiter and Mars. Due to the precious nature of these moon

samples and meteorites, we are not allowed to tell you in advance when

they will be in the school, so listen carefully for an announcement from

your Physics teachers to let you know when they are here!

On 27th April Azaan Bhatti and Tony Wright from S3 won third place in the Young

Chemical Ambassador programme. They have been working with Strathclyde

University to learn about Chemical Engineering by

taking part in a variety of workshops and site

visits. As part of the competition they had to

teach a lesson to their class and lead them

through an experiment. They were commended

for their strong delivery and high regard for safety

during the practical part of their lesson. Well

done to both boys!

The Music Departments string quartet

played at the afternoon tea in No 10

restaurant as part of the 80th

celebrations of our school on 26 April.

They performed brilliantly.

Pupils in the Quartet:

Eve Boyle , Erin Andrew, David John and

Peter Tompkins.

In March this year we were lucky enough to secure the

fabulous workshop on Growth Mind set run by the Live ‘n’

Learn Company. The workshops were delivered to all S4

pupils over two consecutive days. The focus of the workshop

was to help students recognise that ‘with hard work. Time

and deliberate practice they can improve on absolutely

anything. Their potential is unknown!’

The workshop was timed nicely with our S4 exam prepara-

tion and they were able to take part in several activities such

as the creation of a study plan and team building skills that they could adapt to suit themselves. Along

with this focus on exams pupils were shown how to de-stress and shown the importance of have a

positive mind set when tackling challenges or even everyday activities. The reactions from the pupils

were overwhelmingly positive and many have said that the workshop helped change not only their

study methods but the way they plan their own daily routines.

We are pleased to announce that we have secured the

company to come back, once again next year for our

new cohort of S4 students to ensure that they can also

benefit from the wonderful work of the programme.

Pupil Feedback

I enjoyed the social aspects of the workshop and learned

to have an open mind set. (Siobhan Boles S4)

I enjoyed the way the presentation was interactive and

that I could get my opinion

across. (Blair Stewart S4)

Last week the Computing department

hosted pupils from St Convals, St Brigids

and Holy Cross primaries in taking part in

this event. The pupils, from P6 and P7,

were organised into teams to create a

game using Scratch throughout the day.

Just like at any game jam, they are given a

theme at the start of the day around

which all game projects will be based. This

was a great opportunity for children to

work together and learn about the craft of

making games, highlighting the varied and rewarding career opportunities in this

medium. The winners of this heat will go forward to the next round of the

competition.

The John Muir Award is a non-

competitive award scheme based on

outdoor learning and exploring ‘wild

places’. The Holyrood John Muir Group

meets every week and ventures outside

to explore. The groups main aim is to

appreciate the outdoors and consider

ways to improve the environment. We have recently conserved an often unused part

of the school known as the “wild meadow” into an attractive outdoor space that can

be used as a place of learning and enjoyment for our young people. Our pupils have

also completed personal projects and displayed a wide range of skills to promote this

outdoor space in our school community. Congratulations to our members who will be

presented with their Discovery Award at the end of term – well done!

S2 pupils from many classes took part in an e Twinning project with IES Ventura Arqitecto Rodriguez school from Madrid. Many projects were set up on the twinspace with pupils from Spanish, Geography, Maths , SFL , PE and Drama participating. The projects involved; investigating football pitch dimensions , a sponsored run, a mannequin challenge and many more activities to help develop a partnership with the Spanish school. '

LENT 2017

Thank you to those in the Holyrood school community who once again this year responded

to our SCIAF Lenten campaign. On hearing of the famine in East Africa we decided to di-

rect ALL our 24 Hour Fast sponsor money to the SCIAF Emergency Appeal for East Afri-

ca. This along with monies raised through ‘Wear It Green Day’, ‘The Talent Show’ and the

‘Spanish Sponsored Run’ raised a fabulous TOTAL of £3500, THANK YOU !

Extra special thanks to Sara Khalid, Joseph MacKenzie (1st Year) and Kara McCrory

(2nd Year) whose individual sponsor money totals ranged between £100 and £300 each,

very well done!

We also collected £500 in our

SCIAF ‘Wee Boxes’ and donated

this to SCIAF’s Lenten campaign

helping the people from Zambia

in South West Africa, giving

them not simply ‘a hand out’ but

‘a hand up’ to help them grow

enough food for their children

and hopefully help avoid a famine

situation happening to them in

the future.

S3 trip to Alliance Française

S3 pupils had the opportunity to take part in a library workshop at the Alliance

Française. The pupils explored what was on offer and they were able to put to good

use skills they had been learning in the classroom. The pupils enjoyed the

workshop and will return for another workshop next term.

Congratulations to those students from our 6th Year who have successfully

completed their Caritas Award Year and will receive the Pope Benedict XVI Caritas

Award on 8th June 2017 along with 6th Year students from all over Scotland. This

award is in recognition of their faith Learning, Reflection and Witness within their

school and parish communities.

Their certificates state: -“The Pope Benedict XVI Caritas Award recognises the

efforts of young people, through Faith-inspired learning, witness and reflection, to

demonstrate that Caritas – God’s love – can be ‘an extraordinary force in life.’ “

Michael Cotter S6 ‘I greatly enjoyed my Caritas experience particularly attending

morning Mass in school as it allowed me to prepare for the busy day ahead and to

clear my head in a peaceful environment’.

Lucy Coyle S6 ‘The Caritas Award has made my sixth and final year in Holyrood a

very worthwhile one. I believe that God’s love has grown within me and that my faith

has been strengthened massively. God’s grace has given me the confidence to lead

prayers and spread his love with

others.’

Clare is deeply committed in her

living and practising of her faith.

During this Caritas year she has

taken on an extra element in her

worship life by becoming a mem-

ber of the parish choir. We are

delighted to see new, particularly

younger members joining which

reassures use of the future faith

life within the parish community’.

Local Parish Priest

Tapas visit

To celebrate the Fin de curso (end of term)

S3 pupils who currently study Spanish and

S2 pupils who have chosen to study

Spanish next session were invited to

sample Spanish “tapas” at Tinto. The pupils

were able enjoy the Spanish atmosphere

while socialising and ordering in Spanish.

¡Viva el español!