Albyn School

Pupils in Albyn’s Lower School have conducted an experiment in hatching new born chicks. You can keep up with their progress on our live webcam:

http://livingeggs.albynschool.co.uk:8081

The Senior girls have played their last Senior league Netball match of the season last night.  Captained by Claire Munro they finished on 29-14  beating  St Margaret’s.

Well done!

The Upper 1 girls hockey team played extremely well at the weekend in the final of the hockey tournament on Saturday. The team won 5-1 RGC B team, 2-lost 1 against RGC. Won 1-0 against Aberdeen Grammar School, won 1-0 against St Margaret’s and 4-3 against Lathallan in the semifinals.

The Albyn School school swimming gala will be taking place on Friday 9 March. Pupils will be bussed to Hazlehead at 1.15pm and back to school for 3.45pm. The heats will be announced next Friday.

Upper 4-6 pupils must sign up for their events. This is much anticipated clan event in the school calender and one of the main clan competitions. We hope to see you all there!

Giacomo Melis, Postgraduate student at Aberdeen University will give a few weeks lessons as an introduction to Philosophy to Upper 4 pupils and pupils in Upper 5 and 6 who have shown interest next week. This is funded by the Royal Institute of Philosophy. “The aim of funding this scheme is to give pupils a sense of what pursuing philosophy at University involved, while stimulating them to think critically and cooperatively about some puzzles that contemporary philosophers engage in.”, says Federico Luzzi, Outreach and Knowledge Transfer Officer, Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen. Mrs Findlay, Head of RMPS is delighted to be able to offer this opportunity to Upper 5 and 6 pupils, many of whom have already completed a Critical Thinking or Metaphysics unit from the Higher Philosophy Course. For the first time Upper 4 pupils will be having a taste of what Philosophy really involves from a practitioner.

The Upper 3 girls won against Duncanrig Secondary School and are now through to the semi finals of the competition! They will play either Lomond School or St Andrews next.

Well done!

Today 2 of our Upper 3 pupils, Sam Johnston and Fintan McKenna took part in the final of the Europe Direct Debating Competition. Both pupils spoke fantastically well in the semi-final, but narrowly missed out on winning the Final.

Mrs Walker, the head of the debating society at Albyn said: “The boys are a real credit to Albyn and were complimented by all the judges who were all high profile members of the European Commission, MEPs and Representatives of the European Union”.

Welldone Sam and Fintan!

Nearly all the pupils who reach the Upper Sixth continue onto university when they leave Albyn School. The transition to university is helped by the study of subjects to Advanced Higher Level. However, to add breadth to the curriculum and to encourage greater independence of learning, the School is exploring the feasibility of Upper Sixth pupils studying for an optional Open University module alongside their Advanced Higher programme. This would be wholly voluntary and subject to demand. The teaching programme is prepared by the Open University itself and delivered mostly through on-line resources. Most modules are assessed by coursework assignments and our Head of Sixth (Susan Prentice) will monitor pupils’ progress. Further details of the Young Applicants in Schools’ Scheme (YASS) are currently being shared with the Upper Fifth. Over 60 short courses are open to U6 pupils including:

 An introduction to law in contemporary Scotland
 Digital photography: reating & sharing better images
 Molecules, medicines and drugs
 Sustainable Scotland

In August 2012, in light of the growth of Spanish as a world language and the increasing number of pupils who are joining Albyn having previously studied the subject, the School will be expanding the teaching of Spanish next year. Spanish is currently offered at an after School club for L6 and L7 pupils, a lunchtime club in the Upper School and as a Higher for U6 pupils. In L3 to L5, pupils will be taught one lesson of Spanish per week as part of their curriculum while continuing with the study of French.

The Spanish club that operates after School will continue to be a voluntary language club with a structured curriculum. U3 pupils will be able to study Intermediate 2 Spanish next year as one of their option subjects as described in their choices booklet. The Upper Sixth will still be able to study Higher Spanish.

The School has a specialist teacher (Maria Rodriguez) to teach Spanish. In future years the subject may be developed further according to demand for the subject and the need to balance the teaching of modern languages with other demands on the curriculum.

The second hand unifrom sale will be held on Saturday 17 March at 10am-11.30am. The payment of goods must be by cash or cheque. All items of clothing & sports equipment will be available.