Category: Secondary Department

Welcome to the Secondary Department

The secondary department has 8 classes and pupils follow the principles of Curriculum for Excellence: a broad general education in S1-S3 and the Senior Phase in S4- S6.   The curriculum is varied, relevant, challenging, enjoyable and adapted to meet our pupil’s individual needs.  Pupils also visit a range of specialists, have access to relevant therapeutic inputs and participate in wider community events.

Tidying Up In Howes Hoose

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The pupils of Howes Hoose have been sprucing up their outdoor environment since returning to school. One of our first tasks was to wash and paint  our garden furniture. Running out of paint called for a trip to the shops which gave us the chance to practise our life skills out and  about in the community. We also helped tidy up the school sensory garden to make it a welcoming place for our peers as well as some litter picks along the farm track to care for our local area. 

2023 Leavers

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Our Secondary Awards and Leavers Ceremony was held in school on Wednesday. Congratulations to all of the Award winners and thanks to the families that joined our celebration.

Today we bid a final goodbye to another fantastic group of young people who have all made huge progress over their years in Orchard Brae. It was an emotional day all round as we celebrated their success and wished them well.

Thanks to Nadine of Elm Music Therapy for making our Leavers video this year:

To our leavers, it’s been an honour and privilege to work with you all and we wish you all every success in the next stage of life. We will miss you all!

Room 19 Working Hard

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Coming into the last weeks of term Room 19 are continuing our good routines and embedding those relationships with both staff and peers. The pupils have been working hard to follow the class timetable this term and take part in all activities throughout the day around the school. 

We have been focussing our efforts and looking at Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood. We have been utilising resources from the https://rshp.scot/ website. For more information about supporting or reinforcing these lessons, adults at home can follow the link which provides a vast range of resources. 

When some of our peers were away in Bendrigg on their residential trip, we took the opportunity to come together outside for class novel time, music and enjoyed some fun in the sun. 

During the second last week of term Room 19 engaged in the Whole School Event of Safety Week. This focus was on valuable lessons before the summer holidays focussed on Water Safety, Fire Safety, Internet Safety and Road Safety.

30 Days Wild with Room 16

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Room 16 have been taking part in 30 Days Wild, an annual challenge run by The Wildlife Trusts. We have to “do something wild” every day! With our pack we received a poster wallchart and cards with ideas we could choose from, and every time we do a “wild” activity, we write it on the wallchart and add a sticker. 

For this activity, we used some flowers to explore and print with. We discovered that the rose made an excellent paintbrush and some of the flowers and grasses made lovely patterns when we printed with paint. You can find more information on this initiative at https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/30-days-wild .

Exploring Houses And Homes In Room 12

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Here are some pictures of the work we have been doing on the topic of Houses and Homes.

We have made both 2d and 3d constructions. We recycled materials to make a colourful village.

We used Google Maps to find our own houses and then made a map of our own.

We used large cardboard boxes to explore den-making and imaginary house building.

We have been out and about, visiting Doonies Farm to see how animal homes are different from ours. 

We have also been looking at nests and bird houses. Then we used crackers, suet and bird seed to make some small edible bird houses for our school garden.

Fun In PE With Room 16

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Room 16 have had great fun at PE this term. We have been playing table football using switches to activate hairdryers that move the ball across to our opponent’s goal. Some of us have been climbing up steps, along benches and down a chute. We have also been playing tennis. Thank you to the PE staff for making our sessions fun every week!

Flying High In Room 12

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The pupils in Room 12 have been collecting data and making charts about the planes and helicopters we have seen flying overhead. We did this for 4 weeks. It was a great opportunity to talk about the idea of “more than”.

During Steam Week we had an amazing opportunity to visit a helicopter hangar, to see the size and scale of real helicopters as well as the details. We got to sit in the seats, try on their ear defenders and experience the noises and smells of the heavy machinery. Thank you to the welcoming staff at NHV!

Howes Hoose Fundraising Champions

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Howes Hoose Fundraising Champions 

Over the past month the pupils in Howes Hoose have been taking part in a fundraising project to raise money for those in need as a result of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Pupils were shown a variety of causes and videos to explain each then voted which one they wanted to raise money for. The majority chose the earthquake.

We did an Easter themed ‘guess how many in the jar’ fundraiser where we filled a huge jar with tasty chocolate treats and went round classes asking to make a guess at the total and collect donations. The last few pounds are coming in but we have raised roughly £60 which we are very proud of! Incredibly one member of staff guessed the exact number of eggs in the jar so that very fortunate person is all sorted for Easter! 

Howes Hoose Fundraising

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As part of our ASDAN work we have been raising money for a charity of our choice. Pupils were shown 3 videos of different charities then used symbols to select which one they would like to fundraise for. The majority of the class chose the Earthquakes in Syria and Turkey. We have seen this a lot on Newsound so it is a familiar story to our pupils.

 We are going to be doing an Easter themed  ‘Guess How Many In The Jar’ so we have been counting out lots of tasty Easter treats into a big jar. Some pupils took turns dropping the eggs in and others preferred to listen to the sound of them as they dropped in. One of our pupils was really keen to help us count out loud and impressed us with how far he could keep counting as we don’t usually talk about numbers that big in class! We are looking forward to visiting classes to collect guesses and donations over the coming weeks.