St John’s RC Academy- Newsletter

Contents...

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Welcome from the Headteacher

Primary News:

Mini Play Rangers

Euroquiz

Celebrating Diversity

Tobacco Workshop

Robertson Construction visit

Secondary News:

Balfour Beatty visit

Pila ski trip

Maths success

School show

Sports

Eco-schools

Notes from the Headteacher...Dear Parents, Carers and friends of St John’s RC Academy

Welcome once again to our newsletter!

Inside you’ll find news of many of the learning opportunities our childrenand young people have been participating in over the past few months.This term there have been many highlights: the success of our primarygymnasts, the Easter Fayre, the P3 Toast Café, the S3 YPI final, the S6Actfast event, and the recent assembly celebrating receiving our Eco-Schools Green Flag. Our all-through eco-assembly marked the 2000th GreenFlag to be given in Scotland, and this is a world first. Joining our pupils,staff and parents, was the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, thehead of Keep Scotland Beautiful (who run Eco-Schools), and the head oftheir international body, the Foundation for Environmental Education whotravelled from Copenhagen for our assembly! Nursery and P1 pupils sang tous and our older children explained the journey of our school toward ourachievement. I must say I was very proud of them all.

At this time of year, Education Scotland releases data which gives parentsstatistical information about our school. You can find the data about StJohn’s RC Academy at:

https://education.gov.scot/parentzone/find-a-school/perth-and-kinross/5350239

As part of the National Improvement Framework, we have been looking forareas in the life of the school where there are gaps between those who livein the most deprived and least deprived areas. While our pupils almostalways outperform our comparator schools, there are neverthelesssignificant gaps here. This includes participation in lunchtime or after-schoolclubs, excursions, achievement across all years, staying on rates, and thequality of destinations after school. Living in areas of multiple deprivationshould not determine how successful a child is at school or in life. Thismeans that we will be continuing to target some of the children and youngpeople for additional help and support so that they can get more out ofschool, be more successful in school, and become more successful whenthey leave us. We have some additional resources allocated to us for this –you can find out more about this in the headteacher’s blog page on theschool website.

As I write, there is work going on outside the school to improve access toour car park. I appreciate dropping pupils off safely at our school can bedifficult, but I ask that you never enter the turning circle (unless fordisabled access) as this is causing congestion for others and is a realdanger to our children. I also ask primary parents to stand well backfrom the gate so that children can safely exit the playground. Finally,can parents please be mindful of our school policy on mobile phones.Primary pupils should not have mobile phones in school. We relaunchedour secondary policy at the start of the year and there was a massiveimprovement initially, but this is becoming an issue again. I ask you tospeak to your child and emphasise that mobile phones should not be usedin class unless with the express permission of the teacher.

We continue to work hardraising money for the ‘Penniesfor the Playgrounds’ fund wherewe aim to improve our primaryplayground and the one in theRecuperare Clinic in Bucharest.We appreciate all your supportin the Tesco and Crowdfundercampaigns. We have beensuccessful in raising some fundsvia grant applications, so wehope to start work on our ownprimary playground soon!

I wish you and your family ablessed Easter season, and Ilook forward to welcoming yourchildren back on Wednesday, 19April 2017.

With every good wish,

SP Hagney Headteacher

Primary 6 have been working withLee Sheehan, Play DevelopmentWorker, this term to developplay opportunities in theplayground. Both classes sharedour opinions about theplayground and discussed howwe would like it to improve. Weunderstand that it is importantfor children to play and havedifferent play options. A small group of pupils have also been takingpart in training to become mini play rangers. We have been playinglots of different games, such as gaga ball, poison ball, flying haggis andsuperhero tig. During the training we have been practising ourcommunication skills. Next term we are going to be responsible fortaking the equipment out into the playground and teaching the newgames to older and younger children in the school at lunchtimes. Weare trying to make playtime more interesting and fun for everyone!

Mini Play Rangers

This term some pupils inprimary 6 have been preparingfor the Perth and Kinross heatof the Euroquiz run by theScottish European EducationalTrust (SEET). Euroquiz is anopportunity for pupils to learnabout Europe and practisetheir foreign language skills,while developing teamwork and problem solvingskills. Pupils enjoyed learning from each other and playing games to helpus practise for the quiz during our lunchtime club. They also enjoyedgetting to take part in the quiz and worked well as a team. It was funand exciting! The team were great ambassadors for the school and theirbehaviour, attitude and hard work was praised by teachers from otherschools. Well done to Owen, Luke, Niamh, Varshini, Stas and Darvin!

Primary 6 Euroquiz

We have been learning about promoting peace and justice and the positiveimpact of diversity. I strongly believe that racism has a big impact onpeople’s life and it’s only happening because people judge others anddisrespect them because of their skin colour, nationality, culture andreligion. You may get bullied because of this, but you have to stand up foryourself and you have to tell an adult or your parents if you are gettingracist abuse.

Most people agree that racism isa big issue. On Monday 13thFebruary, we were learningabout Global Goals. We werelearning about Global Goal 16,which is about bringing peaceand justice to the world. A mancalled Nelson Mandela tried to stop racial segregation bypromoting justice and peace, because people judged others by their skincolour. In those times, people were restricted in things they could use, forexample- they weren’t allowed to use the same public swimming pool andcafeteria as white people.

I stand by my inspirational celebrity’s opinion about racism. His name isDaniel Sturridge. He said ‘regardless of your skin colour, you cannot justifyracism because it can happen for different reasons and you might not knowwhat’s going on in other people’s life’s and that’s why it’s important thatyou don’t abuse anyone in any shape or form’. I agree that everyonedeserves the same level of respect.

On Tuesday 21st February people came into our School from “Show Racismthe Red Card”. The workshop was all about stereotyping. Two travellerswere talking to us about the impact of racism on them. They shared storieson getting bullied in Primary and Secondary school, so it made me see howimportant it is not judging people by how they look.

Surely you would agree that our school promotes diversity by welcomingpeople from different nationalities. Everyone is different and we can learnabout their religion and culture. Having people from different countriesmakes learning fun and enjoyable. We can ‘Seek the Good’ by ‘ShowingRacism The Red Card’.

by Michal Wojda

Celebrating Diversity

My opinion on smoking before attending the tobacco workshop was not agood one, but now I know more about the consequences smoking can haveon your health, the way you look, how it affects young people andaddiction. On Tuesday the 28th of February I participated in a 'Drama andMovement Tobacco' workshop which was run by the ‘Shaper Caper’presenters. In a very fun way, we were first met by the Shaper Caperpresenters. We were then asked about what we already knew aboutsmoking before they presented to us a little show to introduce factsabout smoking.

One of the things we looked at was how smoking can affect yourappearance. It is proven that a person who has been smoking for a longperiod of time may seem older than their actual age, because of facialwrinkles they may have around their eyes and mouth. Would you reallywant to look older than your age? It is reported that prolonged smokingcauses the fingers and fingernails which hold the cigarette to turn yellowalong with yellowing of the teeth and bad breath. The skin of a smokercan also be affected. Smoking also causes you to smell and a have a hairytongue if you are not cleansing it after smoking. Surely, you would agreethe way all these things affect your appearance is not pleasant.

Another area we focused on was young people and smoking. Did you knowflavours such as cocoa powder and vanilla essence are put into cigarettesto try and make young people addicted? This is a reason why around 36children in Scotland start smoking every day. Friends are also a biginfluence because young people want to be part of a certain group whichthey feel is cool. I feel only a misguided person would feel smokingbenefits them.

P7 Tobacco Workshop

Rights Respecting School news...

It is a fact that there are 4,800 chemicals in just onecigarette. One of them is called nicotine which is anextremely addictive drug and is why many smokers find itso difficult to quit. Substances contained within nicotineincrease the heart rate and raise the blood pressure and causehealth risks such as heart disease.

I strongly believe I have learned many things from the experience of theworkshop. I now know the impact of smoking and am now able to pass onthe correct information to others about smoking. I hope you now can alsopass this information on too.

By Tiabah Anwar P7R

How do you build a home in a day?

This was the question posed to St John'sP7's when they visited the local RobertsonConstruction site on Gowans Terrace.Over a few weeks in groups of fifteen allof primary seven are being introduced towhat work is like in the constructionindustry. It is the innovative method ofhouse construction that allows rapid completion andinvolves prebuilt sections of roof, flooring ,walls and a pile of giantbeanbags ! (more information at http://www.robertson.co.uk/news/building-home-day) The pupils were equipped with suitable personal protectionequipment and given a tour of the whole site with an explanation of theextent of the project and the contribution to the community. These were

introductory visits and will be repeatedlater in the year as the work isprogressing. It is planned that ourcooperation with Robertson will involveothers across the school with an interestin construction including work experienceplacements in secondary.

Robertson Construction site visit

A View into the Perth Transport Future.Two civil engineers from Balfour Beatty recentlyvisited St Johns to share their career experiencein the context of current work on phase one ofthe Perth Transport Futures project. Both Lewisand Miller have recently graduated and are intheir first positions within the company. They ledboth of our primary six classes in an activity toidentify the ways in which civil engineering hasan impact on everyone's lives. An introductionto the current Perth project included some of the healthand safety issues in any workplace and especially in construction.

The sessions forthree S3 classesincluded more directpractical careeradvice andinformation on thedaily routine of a civilengineer. This wasparticular useful atthis stage whenthinking of the future and the implications of subject choices . Theexposure to the working experience of two successful engineers who arenot too distant in age was, for several, thought provoking and will leadto further investigation. We hope to have further input into the schoolfrom Balfour Beatty as this project develops over the next year.

Balfour Beatty civil engineering visit

Following another hugely successful skitrip at the end of January of this year,preparations are already under way forthe next ski trip to Pila, in Italy. Thetrip is open to current S1 pupils, and itwill take place during term 3. Thedates have still to be finalised.

There will be an Information Eveningfor pupils and parents in earlySeptember. Details of thisinformation evening will be issuedin August.

There may still be a few spaces left onthe trip. Any interested pupils shouldsee Mr Barker.

Further information about the schoolski trip can be found at:www.italyskitrip.wordpress.com.

Pila ski trip

On Thursday 2nd February, ten S4 pupils participated in the UKMTIntermediate Maths Challenge. The pupils who participated worked hardfor an hour on some really brain-straining maths questions. The resultswere once again outstanding as below :

� Szymon Klus - Gold and Best in Year� Col Young - Gold� Lauren Corcoran - Silver, Sunny D’Cruze - Silver� Matthew Oates- Bronze, Ellen Clark - Bronze� Rhona Gardner - participant, Zuzanna Lipiec - participant,

Abbigail Bednarek - participant, James Bonar - participantThis is a national UK competition, and Szymon and Col have qualified forthe next round the Pink Kangaroo Challenge on March 16th. We arewaiting for the results of this, in the meantime well done to allparticipants who should be really proud of themselves.

In other maths news, the monthly puzzle is attracting a substantialnumber of entrants. It is a great way to get your brain active and toimprove your maths skills and knowledge.

Well done to the following winners :� December - Andrew Harrow� January - Grant Murray� February - Calum Doig.

Maths News...

The secondary school are putting on a production of Grease in June.The dates are 13, 14 and 15 June in the Assembly Hall at 7pm.Rehearsals are in full swing and pupils from all year groups are takingpart. It's set to be a fabulous production with lots of singing, dancingand laughs. Tickets will be on sale nearer the time from receptionpriced at £6.50 for adults and £3.50 for concessions.

GREASE

School Sport Awards EveningOur second School Sport Awards Evening will take place on Thursday 8June, 7pm. This year we will recognise the achievements of our primary(P5-P7) and secondary pupils (S1-S6).

Awards will be given in the following categories:

� Personal sporting achievements at Regional, National andInternational level� School team and individual sporting achievements� Volunteering within school and the local sporting community� Endeavour and commitment at extra-curricular clubs

As much as staff try to keep track of the achievements pupils haveoutside of school, it is not always that easy!We would therefore appreciate it if you would keep us informed of anysporting achievements and/or volunteering commitments your child hashad since August last year so that they can be considered for an Award.

Please contact Joy Cameron, Active Schools Coordinator directly(JCameron@liveactive.co.uk/07920 270430) before Monday 1 May.

Sports News...

The primary basketball clubenjoyed a couple of masterclasses this term from JohnAnton, Tayside and Fife BasketballDevelopment Officer.

Basketball club

Friday 17th March 2017 was a very special day for our school as aspecial ceremony was held. It was on this day that we werepresented with our Green Flag by Depute First Minister JohnSwinney Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. This markedthe significant achievement of St John’s Academy being the 2000thSchool in Scotland to be awarded a Green Flag celebrating andrecognising our contribution to the Eco Schools program forenvironmental awareness. This scheme engages millions ofstudents across 64 countries to improve their skills, their schoolenvironment and to drive change. Mr. Daniel Schaffer, ChiefExecutive of the Foundation for Environmental Education, travelledin from his office in Denmark as Scotland is the first country todemonstrate such a commitment to environmental issues.

Mr Bruce Robertson, Charity Trustee of Keep Scotland Beautiful,commented on the commitment demonstrated by staff and pupilsin achieving a Green Flag. This milestone in our own eco Journeyacknowledges all our work as although our focus has been on litterand waste minimisation we have also embraced other themes:Fairtrade, environmental and global education, social Justice as arights respecting school, Pennies for a Romanian playground,SCIAF, Catholic education week and other projects linked tosustainability and development inspired by our Christian faith andcommitment to the gospel as a Catholic school.

The journey that has led to this award has involved all members ofour school community from nursery, primary and secondary pupils,our dedicated staff and parents and a host of other campus users.A short video can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epuuM7p_fcU&feature=youtu.be&mc_cid=5dc634cdec&mc_eid=e24e96b194

Eco-School News...