Elgin Academy
School NotesWednesday 17 January 2018
The Scottish Teenage Book Prize Champion for 2018Trip to the Capital - Next week, the S3 group, with Mrs Bodiam, Mrs Toonen and Mr Campbell, will travel to Edinburgh for two days and participate in activities and visits linked to the three shortlisted books. The trip will include a visit to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood when pupils will share their ideas about what the Scottish Parliament does and what changes they would like to see made in Scotland. By exploring what’s devolved/reserved, they can discuss how best to get ideas listened to, for example, petitions and the Public Petitions Committee. We shall be looking at democracy in action and are looking forward to an interactive session. There will also be a session in Edinburgh Castle and another in Blackwell’s Bookshop, with time for book buying. We are grateful to Scottish Book Trust for supporting Librarian Mrs Toonen’s and English teacher Mrs Bodiam’s plans for the project, which also links to the school’s efforts to become a Rights Respecting School. Pupils are looking forward to being advocates for the Prize and to developing the project.
Active Schools Badminton Championships - The first round of the Active Schools Badminton Championship is on Wednesday 24th January. Any S1-S3 pupil who would like to compete in this should attend a short meeting in the PE classroom (B35) on Wednesday 17th at break time. If for any reason you are unable to attend and would like to play please see Miss Turnbull in the PE department beforehand.
Holocaust Memorial Day - Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on 27 January each year. It’s a time for everyone to pause to remember the millions of people who have been murdered or whose lives have been changed beyond recognition during theHolocaust, Nazi Persecutionand in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.On HMD we can honour the survivors of these regimes and challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experience to inform our lives today.27 January marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.One of the ways in which we will mark Holocaust Memorial Day will be in the S2 Library book talks next week, when the books Once, Now and Then by Morris Gleitzman will be discussed with pupils. Our S6 Auschwitz Ambassadors, Cameron Purdy and Conal Taylor, will share their experiences and impressions of their trip to Poland and Auschwitz-Birkenau during the book talks.
Prelim exams - Prelim exams for students in S4, S5 and S6 began on Monday 15 January and will be ongoing until Friday 2 February.
Postcard Project -S2 and S3 pupils have been writing postcards to two Holocaust survivors, all part of the library project, The Power of Words, for Holocaust Memorial Day 2018. Mrs Toonen read stories from RenieInowSedinMustafic to the pupils and there were lots of thoughts shared and discussion with classes. Renie is a survivor of the WW2 Holocaust and Sedin survived the Bosnian Genocide in 1995. The Holocaust Memorial Trust has been in touch to ask us to send them the postcards for display at the UK Ceremony for HMD.