SEPTEMBER 2015

Dear Parent/Guardian

Welcome to the first newsletter of session 2015-16. The term has started well and the new first year has settled in and seem to be enjoying the whole educational ex-perience.

We have a number of new staff at the school this session; some are permanent ap-pointments and others are on their probationary year:

Val Paterson—our new Deputy Head

Kaela Stewart— new History teacher

Lee Mowat—Pupil Support Assistant

Hannah Vadler—Art probationer

Ann Morrison—RMPS probationer

Martin Reilly—History probationer

We wish them all the best at the school and I am very impressed with what I have seen so far.

Once again, our SQA results at all levels were of a very high standard and you would have seen this in the local press that some pupils did exceptionally well. I want to thank staff and pupils for their hard work and commit-ment.

Thanks to everyone involved with the Highland Gathering. The weather was okay and we were really pleased with the support from the whole school community. About £5,000 was raised—invaluable to the school, allow-ing us to enhance our pupils educational experience.

Our first parent council meeting takes place on Monday, 7 September at 7.30 pm in the Staffroom, and you are all welcome—a special invite to new members!

Please get in touch if you need to discuss anything.

FORTROSE ACADEMY NEWSLETTER

German Exchange – can you help?

We are delighted to have enough pupils to arrange an exchange this session. We have a group of 16 pupils going to Germany but we still need to find a few extra host families for the return visit in April (first week after the Easter holidays). If you can help out with this, please get in touch with Alistair Ferns or the Modern Languages department. April 2016 may seem like a long way off but we need to match pupils with partners in the next few weeks so if you are able to help, please let us know soon.

Our first fundraising event – selling ice cream from Mario’s ice cream bike at the Fortrose & Rosemarkie vintage

car rally last Saturday.

GRADUATION SUCCESS Congratulations to the following former pupils who have recently graduated from the University of Aberdeen:

Orrin Bryers—BSc in Petroleum Geology

Amy Ferguson—Bachelor of Law

Zak Labanca—MA in Accountancy

Louise Macaskill—BSc in Biochemistry

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FORTROSE ACADEMY NEWSLETTER

HELP THE BACKPACK PROJECT Are you having a tidy up? Do you have items for recycling? Have your young children outgrown some summer clothes? Have you got old school bags and pencil cases lying around? Perhaps you can donate some items to help our S2 pupils who are collecting to provide filled backpacks for school children in less developed countries around the world, to be distributed through the Scottish charity, Mary’s Meals. The following items are required: good quality, clean used backpacks/schoolbags, pencil cases, rulers, sharpeners, clothes for children aged up to 12/13 year old (shorts and t-shirt; skirt and t-shirt; dress), flip flops/sandals, tooth-brush, toothpaste, soap, towels, small spoon and a small ball (eg tennis ball) Please do not send any other items to the school as only the items specified by the charity can be included in the back packs. Any donations can be brought in to the Business Studies department via pupils or left at Reception. For more information on the project check out their website – marysmeals.org.uk

Greg Lobban, our International Squash Superstar has just Tweeted his itinerary for the next 5 weeks:-

“Hong Kong, Macau, Calcutta, Edinburgh, Philadelphia are my next 5 weeks! Covering plenty of miles!”

The view of the squash court it pretty impressive too.

Alan Sinclair is celebrating more success in the Rowing World Championships in France this month. Alan was delighted with his Bronze Medal in the Men’s Four.

If you have more FP news for us then please let us know—we are always delighted to hear of their success and, as

always, extremely proud!

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FORTROSE ACADEMY NEWSLETTER

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for supporting us with our Annual Highland Gathering. We raised over £5,000 for school funds—an excellent result all round! We would also like to thank A&I Butch-ers, Culloden, Iain Chalmers Chainsaw Carving, Fortrose Fire Brigade and the many other stallholders, staff and pupils who gave up their time to ensure the Highland Gathering was a success.

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FORTROSE ACADEMY NEWSLETTER

There are a number of extra curricular clubs at Fortrose Academy. Below is information on the various activities that are on offer. If anyone would like any further information on the sports activities please just ask a member of the PE department or see Mr Morton.

Non-sports Activities

ACTIVITY NAME YEAR

GROUPS

SESSION (Before School/ Lunchtime/After

School)

DAY AND TIME

LEAD TEACH-ER / COACH

LOCATION

D of E S3-6 Lunchtime Mon 1.30 - Miss A Stewart Room 37/bookable

room

LEGO Club S1-S2 Lunchtime Mon- Friday Room 3

Russian club All Wel-come

Lunchtime Mon 1.20 Mrs Boyer Room 27

Young Journalists for Chatterbox

Magazine

S1-3 Lunchtime Varies – meet 4 times a year

Miss Meikle Room 10

Debating S3-6 Lunchtime

Varies – meet regularly be-fore competi-

tion

Mrs MacInnes Room 9

Public Speaking S4-6 Lunchtime As above Miss Meikle Room 10

Film Club All Lunchtime Thur + Fri 1.20 Miss Meikle Room 10

Art Club S1-S2 Lunchtime Tues 1.20 Miss Vadler Room 41

Korean Class All Wel-come

After School Wed until 4:30 Mr Fraser Room 34

Young Enterprise S6 Lunchtime Thu 1.20 pm Mrs Rhynas Room 24/

Manor

Young Engineers All After School Thu 3:40 Mr Meehan Techy

Young Apprentice S5 Lunchtime TBC Mrs Dawson Room 25

Young Consum-ers

S5 Lunchtime TBC Mrs Rhynas Room 24

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FORTROSE ACADEMY NEWSLETTER

RME has a new name!

Previously known as Religious and Moral Education, the subject now goes by the title of Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies (RMPS).

What’s the difference?

The new name reflects an emphasis on philosophical approaches to ethical ques-tions and on developing valuable critical thinking skills through fun games and activities.

Something wrong with this argument??

What are we covering this term?

Pupils have made a great start, taking part in a Hindu gods and goddesses quiz and responding with loads of enthusiasm, insight and honesty to some common philosophical questions:

Are we born good or do we learn to be good? Is killing always wrong? Should animals have the same rights as people? How do you know if something is true?

This term, S1 pupils are studying Animal Ethics; S2 pupils are exploring the moral theories of Utilitarianism and Kantianism; and S3 pupils will be considering the implications of freewill and determinism on moral responsibility.

Foreign Language Magazines S1 – S6

The Modern Languages Department will be taking orders for Mary Glasgow Magazines during September. These are a range of graded foreign language magazines available in French, German and Spanish. Intended for use at home or in the classroom, they are designed to get students excited about language learning by covering subjects such as sport, fashion, the environment, literature, movies, music and more - all in full colour. They allow students to pick and choose from articles that interest them, or to work through the magazines in a more structured fashion, making the magazines an ideal supplement to your child's language lessons. Written exclusively in the target lan-guage, they contain glossaries, word games and other activities to develop language skills. A magazine subscription also gives pupils access to a website with interactive listening activities related to articles in the magazines.

The magazines are available by subscription and have 5 issues per school year, deliv-ered straight to your child's school. Each subscription runs until the following June and costs just £9.50. All pupils in S1 will receive a letter about the magazines. Pupils in other years will be offered the opportunity to order if they so wish.

To find out more about the magazines you can go to: www.maryglasgowplus.com

Click on “subscribe” and then the language of your choice.

All lost property will be on display at reception on Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th September.

Unclaimed items will be bagged up and sent to Rag Bag on Thursday 17th September.

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FORTROSE ACADEMY NEWSLETTER

Guidance News

Cookwell Project, led by Wanda and Calman Trust This project enables young people to cook quick and healthy meals on a budget. From 24th August till Christmas up to eight senior pupils will cook on Monday mornings for two periods. Each week they will plan and cook a four course meal. On occasion, they will batch cook meals to be distrib-uted within the community. Senior Buddies have been trained and are now meeting S1 pupils and helping them to settle into the Academy. Seniors are also helping in the Learning Support Department and in other Depart-ments as subject Prefects. We have already had two University Presentations, one from Strathclyde University in June and recently the Highland Higher Education Tour has given an overview of the choice of Scottish uni-

versities and the variations of courses and locations they offer. The focus then fell on the application process, finance and particularly the all-important Personal Statement. There will be a series of University Open Days during September and October which provide pupils and parents with an insight to student courses and life. Dates of these are online and also printed on the Noticeboard outside Guidance. A large number of mainly S6 pupils have started their UCAS application for university places, with Guidance staff helping pupils fill in the online forms during Lifeskills periods, although these can be continued at home. We shall oversee these till they are submitted. The deadlines for Oxbridge, Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary courses remains 10th October but all other applications will be completed during November. Deadlines for all stages of the process will be found shortly on the school website. We encourage seniors to talk through their applications with us at any time. We are in the process of arranging a workshop with the Social Enterprise Academy for Senior pupils who wish to contrib-ute their time and efforts to a good cause of their choice. We hope the new venture can be continued even when these pupils move on from school. Watch this space! “So You Want to be a Doctor”. This Health Careers Day will take place on 23rd September at the Centre for Health Scienc-es at Raigmore Hospital. Three places have been allocated to our school so S5 pupils should make their applications to Mrs Mackenzie asap.

From time to time we are contacted by members of the public who are concerned about the anti-social behaviour of some of our pupils. Recently there has been a large number of broken bottles, litter etc left in an area close to the railway line in Fortrose.

The pupils concerned have left belongings and a consider-able amount of debris which is obviously an eyesore but is also a danger to dog-walkers, wildlife and youngsters using the area to get to school. This has been reported to the Police.

We continue to address this issue by holding presenta-tions on respect, responsibility and community engage-ment through assemblies but would ask for you to sup-port us in this matter by reinforcing this message at home.

Litter left at the weekend

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FORTROSE ACADEMY NEWSLETTER

Modern Languages Exchanges

This session we hope to run two exchange trips, the first to Schongau in Bavar-ia,Germany in November for pupils in S3 - 6 and the second in May to Manosque in southern France for pupils in S2 and S3. Flights have already been booked for the trip to Germany and we will shortly be holding an information evening for the French ex-change.

Trips of this kind are enormously beneficial to pupils who participate and not just for their lan-guage skills. Pupils gain confidence and also ex-

perience fully living in a country with a different culture. Other pupils at the Academy benefit from meeting the exchange partners on their visit to Scotland.

We have sometimes had trouble getting enough interest to run the exchange trips, some-times because pupils have committed to going on another school trip, sometimes be-cause of the cost involved and sometimes because pupils worry about staying with a fam-ily they do not know, but there are solutions to these issues.

Other trips are the ski trip in February open to all pupils, the History trip in June for pupils in S3 and the Malawi trip which usu-ally happens every 2 years at the end of June takes a group of about 12 pupils from S3-6.With a bit of planning it should be possible for pupils to take part in several trips if they are keen to do so without it all happening in one year!

We are keen for all pupils to be able to take part in our exchanges and would ask you to contact us to find out how we could help if your son or daughter is keen to go to France or Germany but you are not in a position to take up the opportunity. For example, some pupils in the past have not been able to host but we have managed to find a host family here for their partner.

We do sometimes have pupils who suffer from homesickness but this is rare and the pupils concerned often feel more confident after the event about going away on their own again. The majority of our exchange pupils have a great time both abroad and back

here in Scotland and several lasting frienships have been forged.

We have also in the past taken pupils on an exchange trip to Russia where we visit a school in Perm near the Ural Mountains. The last trip had to be cancelled due to insurance issues when the problems between Russia and Ukraine began. We hope to be able to organise another trip next session if enough pupils are interested. Russia is a fascinating country and despite the image often portayed on TV the Russians that we meet are wonderfully hospitable. This exchange in particular is an oppor-tunity for pupils to experience living in a country not so well known to us in Western Europe and to promote better under-standing between us.

If you would like any further information on any of our trips please get in touch.

Mrs A Boyer (PT Modern Languages)

Getting to Know Your Techno Getting to Know Your Techno is a class that is run by pupils in the School showing the older people of the wider communities how to use their different items of technology. What have the young people done in the class?

Helped set up e-mail address accounts Demonstrated the use of iPads, e-readers, Talking Kindles and laptops How to make, receive calls and texts on a mobile phone, set up contacts and calendars Showed older people the basics of a computer as little as how to turn them on Setting up huddle’s & IPad

The Aims of Getting to Know Your Techno Young people learn how to use technology to pass on their knowledge and skills Young people gain a Saltire Award Younger and older people build positive relationships with each other

Getting to know your Techno runs on a Wednesday Morning in the Open Learning room next to the Library