Deputy First Minister officially opened two of our new state of the art schools in Arbroath
The Deputy First Minster officially opened Ladyloan Primary School and Muirfield Primary School in January. The schools were the 99th and 100th new schools to be built as part of the Scotland's £1.8 billion Schools for the Future Programme.
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Think Before You Type Parliamentary Reception
Young people from our #AngusThink Youth Advisory group held a parliamentary reception in January to raise awareness about the work of our Angus Think before You Type campaign – a joint campaign with us, respectme and NSPCC to address the issue of online bullying.
The young people chaired and led the reception and did an excellent job of letting everyone there know what they’ve been doing over the last 18 months. They worked very hard designing the campaign, coming up with what activities to share and then delivering it in their schools and to their peers.
NSPCC Scotland and respectme gathered the learning from the campaign and feedback from the young people involved to create a ‘Think Before You Type’ toolkit for school staff and local authorities across Scotland.
You can find out more about the campaign on our website.
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Abbey View Campus
Our new Abbey View Campus opened in February. Unique to Angus, Abbey View is a shared site accommodating Hayshead Primary School and St Thomas RC Primary School. The staff and children are loving their new accommodation.
The new extended playground for both schools has recently been completed and the children now have a fantastic outside area.
Angus schools produce protective equipment
In April, after hearing of the difficulties faced by many workers across the country in accessing visors, staff from our eight secondary schools decided to take matters into their own hands and started producing these for workers across Tayside.
The response from staff and teachers across Angus was amazing and with volunteers from our Arkwright Scholars, Young STEM Leaders and F1 in Schools teams, they completed many orders for Community Assessment Hubs with NHS Tayside, a laboratory for the University of Dundee, local nursing homes and medical practices.
Childcare Hubs
From March to August we ran 11 childcare hubs to make sure key workers had access to childcare so they could carry out their essential roles during Covid-19.
Our staff, childminders and private providers did an amazing job making sure we were able to provide childcare for key workers.
Here's a short video showing just some of the things that happened at the hubs.
Brechin High School increasing skills for the construction industry
Brechin High School (BHS) worked with local businesses, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and Dundee and Angus College to address the skills gap in recruits entering the construction industry. This began with the delivery of the Foundation Apprenticeship in Civil Engineering being delivered on site. Partners then looked at developing approaches suitable for the S3 and S4 curriculum. A project-based course was developed by staff from BHS and Dundee and Angus College.
The course incorporates engagement with employers at key stages of the project and emphasises metaskills alongside technical skills. Evaluations by SDS highlighted increased engagement in learning and a recognition by young people of the relevance of learning across all other subjects in school.
This new course, initiated in Brechin, is now being delivered in many other schools and colleges across Scotland.
Arbroath High School wins the First Minister’s Reading Challenge
Arbroath High School registered to take part in the First Minister’s Reading Challenge to raise awareness of the importance of reading across the school community.
Despite the challenges presented by Covid-19, Arbroath High School was determined not to lose momentum and maintained a focus on whole reading activities. As their young people moved to ‘virtual learning’ the school made every pupil part of an online ‘library team’ providing daily contact with the librarian and access to a multitude of online resources including discussion groups, the ability to ‘post’ about what they were currently reading and exercises in spotting ‘fake news’. Parents were encouraged to follow the school twitter feed in order to access resource links. Young people participated in Twitter ‘read-a-longs’ and a national ‘literacy under lockdown’ survey.
This commitment to reading resulted in Arbroath High School winning the national Reading Inspiration Challenge:
“Arbroath have made great progress with promoting reading for pleasure this year. They made sure that the whole school community felt involved and included, with impressive events involving departments across the school, a weekly reading group for pupils with additional support needs and a new Manga club.”
Monifieth High School awarded STEM award
Monifieth High School were awarded with a full STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Nation Award from Education Scotland in November.
Education Scotland’s STEM Nation Award celebrates, promotes and builds effective practice in STEM education. MHS were praised for their work on changing perception and supporting pupils to acknowledge that STEM is for all, as well as their collaborative approach, working with parents to support young people, resulting in an increase uptake in STEM qualifications.
We are also delighted with the recent announcement by Seagreen Wind Energy of a £73,000 education programme which will give over 3,000 children in Dundee and Angus the opportunity to learn about STEM.
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