Peterhead Academy Newsletter

30th June 2017

Dear Parent/Carer

We have reached the end of yet another session. Having been at Peterhead Academy now for three years,

I am immensely proud of the progress pupils and staff at the school have made. The pupils when I started

that were in S2 are now S5s and have become responsible young adults that show a determination to

achieve and succeed. Since the change of timetable in early June, they are settling into their new courses

and are taking the work seriously. This is encouraging for the coming session. The senior team will be

keeping a close eye on the progress of youngsters across all year groups and we ask for your support to

ensure that they give 100% commitment to their studies. For too long, many pupils in Peterhead have

lacked confidence and aspiration and we need to work together to convince them that they can achieve as

well, if not better, than anywhere else in Aberdeenshire. We have amazing young people in this community

and staff at the school are working with them to realise their full potential.

This term was largely focused on SQA exams but that did not detract from the numerous other

opportunities that our pupils endeavoured to succeed in:

Young Enterprise:

Just Coastin’ made it to the Grampian finals at RGU on 27th

April. It was a hard fought battle and our team did

Peterhead proud. Their use of social media in order to

attract sales for their enterprising scheme of coasters was to

be commended and they worked incredibly hard to produce

such an entrepreneurial and successful business.

The end of the evening saw them Runners Up as well as

winning the Peoples’ Choice Award which was much sought

after.

Our teams have done well to reach the final in the past and

this year was the best they had ever done so a huge

congratulations to them.

All participants in both of our Peterhead Academy teams,

Just Coastin’ and Simply Framed, also gained Young

Enterprise Strathclyde University exam awards which will be

a further addition to their already impressive CVs.

Rotary Young Photographer Competition:

Epiphany

S2 Engineering Challenge:

This is a National competition with thousands of entries.

Two of our girls did exceptionally well in the local and

regional finals. Jean came first in the local heats and third

in the regional final in her age category.

Iona came first in the local heats and highly commended in

the regional final in her age category.

The entrants from the school were of a high standard and

the judges commented how difficult it was to choose

finalists.

Well done to everyone who entered.

A talented group of youngsters have formed a

band and are impressing the local community

with their performances. They had the

opportunity to promote themselves at Waves

Radio on 7th May and we hope to hear much

more of them into next session

Every year, a number of Aberdeenshire

schools take part in the Engineering

Challenge led by NESCol and sponsored by

a number of oil related businesses, including

our flagship partner, Score. This year, two of

our youngsters achieved the runner up prize.

Well done to them as hundreds of pupils take

part in the initial stages.

S2 Football Team:

Success with Horses:

A huge well done to Aberdeenshire S2 boys

cup winners. Peterhead beat Kemnay

Academy 3-0 in the finals. The boys were

rightly very proud of their achievement and

took home a shiny cup to mark their success.

This is the first Aberdeenshire cup win

Peterhead has had in football since 2006.

Let’s hope for a repeat performance from the

team next session.

Sarah Macintosh has a hobby that is

reaping great reward. She shows

Highland ponies and is the youngest

registered breeder in Scotland. She has

10 ponies and does all the work herself

in rearing, training and presenting them.

Her overall champion highland pony at

the New Deer Show has now had a foal

so she has a long and hopefully

lucrative future ahead.

Other champions amongst her ponies

are Lochewe Magnus and Tiana May.

As you can see from the photo, Sarah

and her ponies have won numerous

prizes. These beautiful ponies are

endangered and so we celebrate

Sarah’s passion to keep the breed alive.

Well done!

My Fair Lady:

Health and Well Being Week:

The drama and music team put on an ambitious production this year.

Apart from some sound glitches, pupils gave impressive performances,

especially the leads, who had so many lines to learn. Thanks to all the

hard work and effort from a large number of staff as the commitment to

all the rehearsal as well as the three nights of performances is a big

ask.

The drama team will miss the input from Mr Sutherland who has played

numerous characters in our school shows and Ms Birkett who has

arranged front of house for many years. Both are retiring in summer

and we wish them the very best

Peterhead Academy participated in the Aberdeenshire Wellbeing

Festival running from 8 May - 14 May 2017 which supported Mental

Health Awareness week. The aim of this event was to raise

awareness of mental health and wellbeing across the school,

reduce stigma, prevent poor mental health, and support recovery.

Over 600 pupils from S1 – S3 watched presentations from Childline

and Police Scotland. Jamie Murray from Childline delivered an

extremely informative and engaging presentation on reducing

stigma around mental health and the support and advice Childine

can offer. PC Taylor then delivered an excellent presentation that

addressed a number of issues around the impact that social media

can have on mental health.

Working with the Active Schools co-coordinator and Peterhead

Academy staff, a range of lunchtime activities were held throughout

the week with over 200 pupils taking part. Pupils and staff

participated in a range of activities including art therapy, a healthy

eating café, yoga, pilates, netball, football, basketball, barre au sol,

chi-ball, clay sessions and karate. The school library also had a

dedicated mental health display and reading materials, which will be

available throughout May.

Staff and pupils have spoken very highly about the impact of this

event, and the school is hoping that it could lead to some more

long-term initiatives being implemented to support pupil and staff

well-being.

Children’s University:

Ice Skating:

Children’s University is an organisation designed

to encourage young people into university at the

end of their school career. Pupils gain credit for

attending learning activities beyond the

classroom. Involvement in clubs such as sport,

music, drama, dance, cadets, scouts etc can all

be recognised and hours awarded. At the end of

the session, a ceremony at Aberdeen University

takes place where pupils don their robes and

take part in a full graduation experience.

Well done to our first 8 graduates from the

Academy and 2 from St Fergus. We hope that

there will be many more from Peterhead in future

years.

Every Saturday morning, Tyler Ross gets up at

4.30am to take part in a synchronised ice-skating

team called Azura.

Synchronised ice-skating is when a group of people

work in harmony, in hold or out of hold; Tyler’s team

has 16 members in it. When taking part in

competitions, they skate to music and have to perform

certain compulsory elements. In January 2017, Tyler’s

Team were entered into the British synchronised ice-

skating championships in Nottingham and the Team

were placed 3rd out of 11 teams. Azura also entered a

competition in Dumfries, called Trophy D’ecosse in

February of this year. This competition was an

International one so teams from other countries took

part. Azura, came 3rd and were Scottish Champions.

A huge well done to Tyler and her team.

Prince’s Trust Achieve:

Health and Well Being Young Leaders:

We have a group of S1 pupils who are taking

part in our Prince’s Trust Achieve pilot and they

were lucky enough to meet Prince Charles

himself. They were seen on the STV news and

were a credit to the school. He was very

interested to gain the views of our youngsters

about this new course.

Prince Charles’ helicopter was also seen

hovering above the playing fields as he watched

some of our Sports’ Day as well as meeting

some of our older pupils at the Maritime

Academy.

It was good to be able to show Prince Charles

the good work being done by our pupils in a

variety of contexts.

Congratulations to the Health and

Wellbeing Young Leaders who gave an

excellent presentation at the Council

Chambers, Woodhill House on Wednesday

14 June 2017. Participation in the

programme aims to increase the

opportunity for young people to develop

leadership skills whilst making a positive

contribution to health improvement within

their school and community. The group

selects a number of related topics to focus

on at the start of the year; and arranges

events, activities and talks around these.

This year’s group focused on mental health

and wellbeing, GIRFEC and LGBTI.

Greenpower Challenge:

Enterprising Maths:

Over the course of the academic year, the

Junior Young Engineers worked on the

BlueToon Bullet, our F24 electric race

car. They trialled new gears and honed the car

for the two heat endurance race which was

held at Grampian Transport Museum on the

16th July. The team worked tirelessly to get

the car through the rigorous checks and fix

some technical problems to get the car out on

the track. This meant they missed the warm-up

session but the drivers made the main briefing

and completed well in the first heat. The

weather began to change and it looked like

rain for heat two and thankfully a fresh set of

batteries and new drivers showed the car was

fast and able to last the distance much better

than in heat one. After a few dicey laps there

was a minor crash, leaving our car with a

damaged nose but it was deemed safe to

continue. Overall we finished mid-field but in

our category, we were awarded runners-up

and took home silverware for second

place. We were praised for how well turned

out the team were and the Greenpower

organisers were impressed by the team’s

independence and problem-solving abilities.

On 16th June, four pupils, Amy, Iona, Sean and Alix took part in the Enterprising Maths

competition which was held at the Thistle Hotel in Aberdeen. There were several schools

participating from both Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City. Before the competition, pupils

had to come up with ideas to create a poster based around the theme of the event -

Maths and Music.

Flagship Partnership:

Our pupils focussed on the historical link between the

two subjects - focussing on Pythagoras and his

involvement in musical study.

The rest of the day was made up of various rounds

involving problem solving, puzzles, team work and

individual work, culminating in the maths relay at the

end. All pupils fully participated in all rounds of the

competition and took a very respectable 6th place out of

the schools in Aberdeenshire.

Numeracy Workout

Numeracyworkout.co.uk is a website the pupils can work

on to improve and maintain their basic numeracy

skills. This is available for all pupils to use.

The login details are as follows:

Username: Peterhead

Password: amount14

Although we have worked closely with Score in

the past, we signed a partnership agreement

making them our official flagship partners in

business.

Initial projects will look at how they can help us

make Maths more relevant to pupils, looking at

how they can enhance the curriculum within our

business faculty as well as continue with providing

a number of work experience placements for our

youngsters. Mr Turnbull, our Principal Teacher

for Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce will

work closely with Score to develop projects

further. We look forward to working more closely

with this successful business.

Girls into Energy:

Sponsored Walk:

Musical Talent:

Our new S3 Girls into Energy course visited NESCol last week as part of their

induction to the course. During their visit they had to compete in a quiz

against 8 other schools. Well done to Morven Gray and Jean Wilson who

gained two of the top 5 places. An excellent start to their course.

On May 26th, 450 pupils took part in a Sponsored Walk

from Peterhead to Longside and back. It was a hot day

and the pupils did exceptionally well. Thanks must go to

the Parent Council who supplied a barbeque for

participants when they got back to school as well as some

of our musicians who laid on entertainment. An

impressive £5642.95 was raised for school funds which

will go towards funding a celebration event which is aimed

to raise further funding for bus trips and wider curricular

events.

It also raised the profile of Health and Well Being across

the school and we are looking to make this an annual

event.

We have a talented guitarist in school who took part

in the Project Band showcase gig at the Lemontree

on 26/5/17 held by Aberdeenshire Performing Arts.

The course offered the chance to fine tune song

writing, sound recording, marketing and meeting

like minded individuals.

Hal has successfully gained a place in the next

course and has committed to the next 3 terms.

We look forward to tracking his progress – well

done!

Rock Challenge:

Young Scot Ambassador:

Sports Day:

Our Rock Challenge team of 2017

head of to Grimsby on the last day of

term. We wish them every success in

the Northern finals. Miss Greig will be

keeping everyone informed on our

Facebook page so look out for their

progress.

Well done to Chelsea Duncan who will be a

Young Scot Ambassador for Year of the

Young People 2018. She is heading off to

Glasgow later in July for her first training.

We will be tracking her progress throughout

next session.

A huge well done to all the participants, pupils pushed

themselves to their limit and represented their house

excellently. Records were smashed and we were all set

up for the relay finals until the heavens opened and we

had to postpone. However every cloud has a silver lining

and this gave us the opportunity to invite the whole

school to enjoy the relay and cheer on their

athletes. Congratulations to all medal winners and an

extra special mention to our overall Junior winners; Ross

Cow and Kyla Mundie and our Senior winners; Elvis

Sinuks and Dominika Surma.

There was also a hard fought staff relay race which

added to the entertainment for the afternoon. Well done

to all that took part.

Pupil Participation Forum:

Choices for Life Celebration:

On Thursday 22nd June, Melissa and Maren represented

Peterhead Academy at the Pupil Participation Forum end of

year event. They spent the day at Knockburn Loch and enjoyed

paddleboarding, rock climbing, zorbs and a bike track.

Throughout the year, the Pupil Participation Forum have been

involved in organising events such as the Youth Volunteer

Awards and in creating resources to support schools together

with all the other schools in Aberdeenshire. This was an

excellent way to celebrate the end of a very success year, as

well as welcoming new members to the group for next session.

Well done!

Pupils across the cluster came together

to receive their certificates for their

participation in the Choices for Life

project. Over 200 pupils have now

benefitted from this and it will continue in

the coming years. Local Councillors as

well as the Director of Education were in

attendance to see our young people

receive their awards. Well done to all

participants.

Information:

Service bus 825 is being terminated:

As an alternative, Burnhaven pupils can access the Mainstream School Contract which operates from

Boddam to Peterhead Academy via South Road. This is operated by Watermill Coaches (NS477E-20) and

is now registered for additional use by fare-payers. There will be additional walking distances involved

to/from South Road.

Regarding Meethill, there are alternative fare-paying journeys serving Meethill (Service 82), operated by

Stagecoach on a commercial basis, albeit at less convenient times and involving additional walking

distances. These are as follows:

(i) 07:44 hours from Berryden Road to Chapel Street via School Road, Skerry Drive, Baylands

Crescent and Clerkhill Road

(ii) 15:11 hours and 16:11 hours from Community Hospital to Berryden Road via Clerkhill Road,

Baylands Crescent, Skerry Drive and School Road

If pupils reside within 3 miles of Peterhead Academy and a safe walking route is available, the responsibility

for their safety in travelling to/from the school rests with the parent/carer.

Uniform:

Please ensure that pupils have correct uniform for returning in August. Shoes must be black and leggings

and denim are not considered suitable. Pupils must wear a black skirt or trousers. S1 to 3 pupils can wear

a white or black polo shirt but S4-6 must wear a shirt and tie. Consultation took place over uniform 4 years

ago and this is what was agreed. Please ensure that your child stick to uniform as it helps to maintain a

pride in the school as well as give pupils a sense of identity.

Communication Channels:

We would like our primary forms of communication to be via email and text messaging rather than issuing

letters. You will receive a letter after the holidays asking you to confirm an up to date email address,

please ensure that this is completed and returned to the Academy as soon as possible.

With effect from 24 April you can download the Xpressions app and we can keep you up to date with all

the news from the school via this app. This will save on paper and postage so that we can spend on

resources that will enhance the learning and teaching experience of your child.

Head Boy/Girl

Our senior pupil leaders this coming session are:

Head Boy: Jordan Kearney

Head Girl: Brittany Buchan

Deputy Head Boy: Scott Massie

Deputy Head Girl: Kellie-Ann Napier

Pupil Participation Leaders are Melissa Buchan and Andrew Stephen

Well done to them and to all of our prefects who help in so many ways across the school.

Don’t forget that August 21st is an In Service day for staff and so pupils return to school on Tuesday 22nd

August.

Dates for your Diary:

Tuesday 22nd August: Pupils start new session

Friday 1st September: Deadline for pupils course changes

Tuesday 5th September: Parent Council AGM

Wednesday 6th September: Higher Geography Field Trip

Thursday 14th September: N5 Geography Field Trip 1

Thursday 21st and Tuesday 22nd September: S1 MidYIS assessments

Friday 15th September: N5 Geography Field Trip 2

Monday 2nd October: S2,4,5 and 6 Interim reports

Wednesday 11th October: S1 Parents’ Evening

Friday 13th October: Last day of term

Further information can be accessed: www.peterheadacademy.aberdeenshire.sch.uk

For updated news stories, please check our school Facebook page.

On behalf of all Peterhead Academy staff, we wish you an enjoyable summer break.

Yours faithfully

Shona Sellers Head Teacher