The Glasgow Academy The Glasgow The Glasgow Academy 2009-2010 Chronicle 2009-2010 The Glasgow Academy is an educational charity registered in Scotland. Charity Number SCO 15638. The Glasgow Academy 2009-2010 Autumn 2010 Number 330 Editor: Tom Carlin with Alan Whyte, Alison Campbell and Clare Blair From the Rector It has been a year of remarkable achievements. As the all-round school, we aim to give our pupils the adaptability, confidence and resilience to live happy and fulfilled lives, becoming masters not just of many fields like Renaissance man, but of fields not yet even invented. The finest talents we can develop are the capacities to think on your feet, handle whatever suddenly comes your way, and work with others for the wider good. So we are proud that our pupils have achieved what no others have done. In the Scottish Parliament we won the Law Society of Scotland Donald Dewar Memorial Debating Competition for the second year running. We are the first school to win the competition twice. 128 schools took part and the judges were unanimous in their decision. Oscar Lee and Seamus McGuigan - plus Sam Reilly who won the prize for the best floor speech of the night - bagged every prize going. At the English Speaking Union, St Andrew’s Day Debate, also in the Scottish Parliament, Lauren Hudson won the quaich for best individual secondary school speaker. When you’ve played in the Bandstand in Central Park, New York, in sub-zero February temperatures, performed in the chapel at Ground Zero, and sung with the remarkable delayed echo and swirling acoustics in St John the Divine, the world’s largest gothic cathedral, your music - and your confidence - have been taken to new levels. 83 children were fortunate indeed in that experience, and did us proud. We salute our 12 Internationalists across 8 sports, our rowers’ medals in the National Championships of Great Britain, our cricketers’ success for Scotland, our tennis players’ fifth consecutive victory in the High School of Glasgow Girls’ tennis tournament, and the nine athletics records this year. Our Young Enterprise Company won two awards - Best Overall Company and Best Company Report - at The Glasgow Area Board’s Awards. We are also the first Scottish independent school to be awarded Fairtrade School status. Our enterprising staff are models for our children: we are one of only two UK schools to win EU funding for nanotechnology work. No wonder the Times Educational Supplement ran a page on our Chemistry. And no wonder our Chemistry team were UK finalists in the Royal Society of Chemistry Inter-Schools Quiz - the fourth time in 7 years. At the Scottish Council for Development and Industry Young Engineers and Science Clubs Event, our S1s beat other schools’ S6 pupils to win the Technology Challenge. Six pupils won Oxbridge offers - and all got the grades to get in. In national exams, 30 industrious S5 pupils achieved 5 or more A grades. Alice Ahn represented the UK in China at the China Girls Mathematical Olympiad and we again reached the national finals of the UK Mathematics Trust Team Mathematical Challenge. None of those who were moved by the quality of our Les Miserables could doubt what music and drama are doing in developing our children’s confidence and skills as modern Renaissance men and women. The joint Classics and Drama production of Medea on the Prep School roof terrace was a model of innovation, imagination and intensity. Onwards and upwards! Chronicle 1 Excellence Meet our Internationalists U18 Rowing U16 Tetrathlon U17 Cricket U18 Rowing Ronan Murphy Hamish Rankin Clemmie Mitchell Ross Urquhart U15 Cricket U17 Athletics U15 Cricket (Captain) U16 Hockey Haris Chaudhry Max Aitchison Lyle Hill Karin Belch U15 Squash U18 Rugby U18 Rowing U15 Cross-country James Wilson Jamie Swanson Emily Colley Catriona Graves Cricketing Stars Lyle Hill, S3 and Haris Chaudhry, S4: '...two young Scots pace bowlers...leap to the top with remarkable figures. Both were aged just 14 and come from Glasgow Academy.' (Wisden 2010) 'Scotland's young cricketers are sweeping all before them. Scotland's U15s have now won the last three European championships on the trot. But none as comprehensively or impressively as this year's boys, inspirationally led by Lyle Hill.' (Cricket Scotland website) Lyle Hill Photo Copyright ICC/CricketEurope Wetbobs Rowers Ronan Murphy and Ross Urquhart won bronze medals in the National Championships of Great Britain and went on to represent Scotland at the Home International, setting a season's best time at the event. 2 Chronicle Excellence Algebra for the UK Best CCF at Annual Camp Selected as one of the UK team We won the shields for both of 4, Alice Ahn (S5) represented best Senior Cadets and for Best the UK in the China Girls Contingent. As part of that we Mathematical Olympiad. The came in first place for First Aid. competition included four hours We were also presented with the a day of aerobics, and Alice Past Commandant's Cromach and her team won the aerobics/ as we had done so well. dance competition. Scottish Debating English Speaking Union, Champions - again St Andrew's Day Debate Oscar Lee (S6) and Seamus Lauren Hudson won the quaich for best individual McGuigan (S5) won the Law secondary school speaker, in the Scottish Society of Scotland Donald Dewar Parliament. Memorial Debating tournament, the final of which was held in the debating chamber of the Scottish Best Young Enterprise Company Parliament. Winning Best Overall Company and Best Company Report at the Glasgow Area Board's Awards, Alasdair Dickson was also presented with his Distinction for coming 2nd out of 146 candidates across Scotland in the examination run by the University of Strathclyde Business School. Top in Technology Challenge Our S1s beat other schools' S6 pupils to win the Technology Challenge at the Scottish Council for Development and Industry Young Engineers and Science Clubs Event. They were then invited to attend Science and the Parliament, held at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, where they presented their work. The Science Behind Health Chemistry Club were also invited to attend Science and the Parliament, held at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, by SCDI (Scottish Council for Development and Industry) after winning their Secondary School Young Engineers and Science Clubs Scotland Showcase. This involved recreating our winning display and talking to the attendees about what happens at the Glasgow Academy's Chemistry Club. Chronicle 3 Charities and Community Involvement On 12 January 2010, an At Atholl several events, vocabulary drive and a star earthquake measuring a including sponsored walks in counting competition raised massive 7.0 magnitude caused the local area, raised £1278 £401 for Mary’s Meals. £2064 major damage to the island for the Children’s Hospice was raised for Children 1st of Haiti. An estimated three Association of Scotland, by Kilts for Kids Day and million people were affected CHAS. Operation Christmas our hugely popular jumble by the quake and in a fabulous Child was supported with 50 sale. Activities in aid of the response from both the Senior shoe boxes being filled with British Heart Foundation’s and Prep Schools, we were gifts for children. The Malawi ‘Red for Heart’ week raised able to donate £6,128 to the Appeal at the local church was £1058. Collections at the relief appeal. In addition, supported by selling a ‘Handy Prep Christmas Show and the Dairsie’s ‘Burns and Tartan Hints’ book on Grandparents’ P1 Nativity Play raised £1302 Day’ raised £285 for Mary’s Day and laying a trail of 20p for the Yorkhill Children’s Meals’ work on the island. coins. In total £343 was Foundation. collected. On World Book The Dog’s Trust was supported Day children dressed up as In the Senior School, to the tune of £850 at Dairsie a character from a book; £66 members of Fraser House, through collections at the was raised for Tradecraft and a few friends, took part in Christmas Nativity Play, World Exchange. £70 was raised for the Glasgow Sport Relief fun Book Day and Dairsie Daft Sport Relief by pupils walking run, running around 190 miles Day. Children in Need received or running one mile round the between them. The team had a cheque for £2231 thanks school playground. For those a fundraising goal of £2000, to the P3 Young Enterprise who don’t know Atholl, that’s but, if we include Dairsie and ‘Jog in the Park’ event. Book ten times round! Atholl’s efforts, the total raised Aid International and Ronald was £4142. The ‘M Factor’ McDonald House were also Everyone at Kelvinbridge was show, organised by Morrison supported. just as active. A sponsored House, raised £480; the money 4 Chronicle goes towards sponsoring a Since September, Dr Sowden has been collecting old and no longer six-year-old child in Ethiopia used sets of textbooks and novels, which have been shipped to through World Vision. Lekoa Shandu High School, South Africa. Thirty-one 30 kg boxes of books are currently on their way to this school and, also, Sasol’s The Fashion Show, organised Science Education Centre for underprivileged children. Many by the PTA, with models from events have taken place throughout the year, contributions from all over the school, raised which have paid the £770 shipping charge. £1000, the Senior School Slave Auction raised a laugh and Our Young Enterprise team – Accessories Accentuated – who won £1071, and the 24 Hour Sports the Best Overall Company in the Glasgow area, donated £150 to event raised more than ever both Glasgow City Mission and Stop Child Labour.