Category: Specialist Areas

Specialist Areas

Duke of Edinburgh Awards Ceremony

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On Tuesday we were delighted to see our first ever Duke of Edinburgh Award winners receive their Certificates at the Aberdeen City Award Ceremony. These young adults have now all left school however it was a pleasure to catch up with them and see how the confidence gained by completing their Bronze Award has supported them as they have moved on from school life.

We have another group of 6 S5 and S6 pupils working hard to complete their Bronze Award this year, culminating in their Excursion section at Whiston Lodge. They are all making excellent progress with their Skills and Volunteering Sections and enjoying all the practice sessions that will support them to complete their Excursion.

Drama in Room 11

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Children in Room 11 have been enjoying drama sessions with Sam. This week’s theme was musicals. We have been listening to a various songs such as “Good Morning” by Debbie Reynolds and “Singing in the rain” by Gene Kelly.

All children loved dancing to the music and enjoyed sensory experience such as feeling rain (we used plastic bottles to squirt water) and wind (sensory umbrella).

A Musical Visit

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Yesterday afternoon, we were extremely fortunate to have had a visit from Mary Raunikar Page and her harp.  We had a great time listening to her play the harp and there was lots of fun as we all had the opportunity to explore the instrument and make our own music.

Our Colourful World Of Art

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‘Our world of colour’ is our whole school interdisciplinary learning context this term and we are loving exploring a different colour every week. We choose one of three activities and are asked to try and sign the colour of the week. We have enjoyed creating with primary colours and secondary colours, tomorrow we are going to experiment with the tertiary colour brown, through cave painting, transient sand art and rubbings. Karen has attached her lesson ideas if you would like to use these at home.

Live Music Now

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Today we welcomed Lloyd and Danielle, student and graduate respectively of the Royal Scottish Conservatoire Scotland and members of Live Music Now Scotland. The pair will join us every Thursday until May. We have two groups of ten pupils nominated by their classes, who will join them to make music. The book ‘Ocean Commotion’ will be used as a platform for music making with a performance on their last week. Today we were introduced to their instruments, trumpet and tuba….what amazing sounds!

Our Eco Achievements

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Over the last year everyone at Orchard Brae has working very hard on developing our Eco awareness as part of our Eco Schools journey and we have participated in a range of activities based around the topics of Litter, Waste Minimisation and Food and the Environment.

We conducted litter picks in the local area as well as in the school grounds, planted seeds and bulbs and cared for the plants, and made soup from our bumper crop of tatties grown in the school garden. The work that classes put into the Rag Bag scheme and Orchard Brae Fashion Boutique was recognised with a nomination for the Aberdeen City Council EcoCity Waste and Recycling Champions Award and while we were not the winners of the categories, we were rewarded with a certificate for our hard work and effort.

We are absolutely delighted that all of our hard work and effort has been recognised and we have reached the gold standard and been awarded our first Green Flag!

The Green Flag Award is presented to nurseries and schools which have demonstrated a commitment to Eco-Schools Scotland programme and usually takes place over two years. We are so proud that our Eco work has managed to get our first Green flag awarded in just one year!

We have been truly amazed by the comments we received from the Eco-School Scotland Team who noted that our action plan and evidence ‘was innovative and engaging’, ‘demonstrated a true commitment to improve the environment’ and ‘our dedication to embedding sustainability within the curriculum’.  They also highlighted aspects of our work as ‘examples of good practice’ which may be used as future case studies to support other schools.

A huge well done to all the students and staff for their on-going work and effort in enabling us to achieve our first Green Flag in one year.

 

Howes Hoose Plant the School Logo

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A team member from the Parks Department at Aberdeen City Council came to work with Howes Hoose pupils. We were asked to design a flower bed. He then took all our designs and put them together to make the design for the new flower bed. We set to work planting daffodil bulbs in the shape of an O for Orchard Brae. Over the next few weeks we will plant out more bulbs to make the B, put down bark in the shape of the hands on our badge and finally plant more bulbs to finish the design. Please look out for the flowers as they begin to grow on the bank at the far side of the car park over the next few months. Many thanks to the Parks Deparment for helping us with this project. We are looking forward to working with them every second Tuesday.

Football Tournament

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The football team recently played another session of matches at Aberdeen Sports Village. They showed great improvement and battled on despite fierce opposition. Congratulations to them all for their sportsmanship. They were all a real credit to the school!

Happy Valentine’s Day from Room 13

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Room 13 have been making Valentine’s cards for those special people in their lives: Mum, Dad and Auntie. We took a lot of care making our cards and enjoyed the process.

Room 18 Keeping Fit!

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As part of our Senior Phase Curriculum, pupils from Room 18 have been keeping fit at our local Sports Centre. They have taken to it very quickly and are very much enjoying the cardiovascular equipment. We’ve shown enthusiasm in cycling, rowing, using the cross trainer and treadmills. Many of us enjoy walking uphill on the treadmill and some of us have even been for a run. Good effort Room 18! We all need to follow in your footsteps a bit more!