News

Recently some of our pupils have been out in the wilds of the Borders undertaking their practice Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions.  They have been very lucky with the weather with mostly sunny and dry (if not warm!) days.  Long distances and heavy rucksacs were borne with a good deal of stoicism though the finishing points of their expeditions where reached somewhat grateful...

Jupiter Artland has been on our horizon for some time and we were very pleased to have one of their staff come into school to examine with our pupils the concepts behind sculptural art forms.  This was then followed by a school visit to Jupiter Artland where, in conjunction with Jupiter Artland’s staff, pupils explored the thoughts, ideas and meanings behind many of the sculptu...

On Thursday 8th February the whole school went on a trip to the Five Sisters Zoo in West Lothian. The zoo was an ideal location to build on the pupils’ experiences of biodiversity and adaptation, which is part of all the Biology courses they are studying. The pupils and staff really enjoyed this trip.  There were opportunities to walk around and see all the interesting anima...

On Wednesday 31st January Zoolab visited the school for an animal handling session.  The Ranger, Ross, brought in a variety of interesting and exotic animals for pupils to handle and discuss.  Amongst the animals were: an Albino Corn Snake, Bearded Dragon, Giant African Snail, a Chilean Rose hair Tarantula and a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach.  The pupils were given the opportuni...

We are now half way through our Drake music workshop and those pupils taking part have had a fantastic opportunity to try a variety of instruments with an experienced musician on hand. Pupils are currently working on compiling their own song and have chosen to include drums, guitar and a keyboard in their composition.  We have a further five weeks to go and we hope to showcase ...

This week saw the culmination of this year's collaboration with The Lyceum, when invited guests joined us for our sharing event.  Guests were encouraged to walk through the “bizarre bazaar” pupils had created, which was intended to be a feast for the senses.  They could read and listen to the stories and scripts pupils had developed, inspired by the tales of The Arabian Nights....

An intrepid group of our pupils and staff set out after school one day this week to discover the joys of ice skating.  A blustery and damp Edinburgh winters' evening was not enough to put them off and much hilarity ensued as they set out onto the ice.   Undignified falls seems to be part of the skating experience for those new to it however, falls there may have been, but no su...

This week we were very lucky to have a school visit to The Lyceum's Scenic, Prop & Costume Workshop.  It was a great opportunity for our pupils to see the sort of work that goes on in the background in preparing for a Lyceum production.  The visit complements Project Genie, running in association with The Lyceum, were our pupils are exploring the many aspects critical to a ...

On Tuesday 28 November, 15 pupils and staff attended a performance of The Lyceum’s winter production of The Arabian Nights.  This fantastic opportunity to go to the theatre is part of our collaboration with The Lyceum. It was really interesting for those of us who are participating in Project Genie to see how a professional company would bring the stories which we are now fa...

Four of our pupils have recently started an Engineering course at Edinburgh College.  Their course focuses on three National 5 units and are a practical introduction to machine shop skills including operating lathes and milling machines.  The course is hands-on and very quickly our pupils were using the machines to cut and face aluminium and mild steel to tolerances of 0.1mm.  ...