St. John Ogilvie High School is a 6-year comprehensive dedicated to the academic and spiritual development of all our pupils. We remember at all times that our pupils have wide -ranging interests and abilities and we believe that by valuing and celebrating the achievements of all pupils they will grow in confidence and so value the contribution they can make both to the life of the school and to their community.
St. John Ogilvie High School and St Andrew's Hospice
St. John Ogilvie High School has been in partnership with St. Andrew's Hospice for the past 6 years and continues to raise money by a number of fund raising events such as the 6k run at Strathclyde Park and climbing Ben Nevis. Please visit the St. Andrew's Hospice website and find out more about this amazing oganization.
Some of our Senior students handing over a cheque for £5300 to Lucy Mitchell from St. Andrews Hospice Schools Liaison Team. The money was raised on this occasion from the Ben Nevis Challenge in June when 63 staff and students from St. John Ogilvie scaled The Ben in support of their Business Partner, St. Andrews. Lucy thanked the School for its outstanding support of St. Andrews and gave the senior students an insight into the work of the organisation and urged then to continue with their wonderful support both through events such as the forthcoming 6K at Strathclyde Park on the 21st September and as Official Ambassadors for the Hospice.
In the pic are left to right are the Charity Champions for this event in terms of the money raised, handing over the cheque to Lucy Mitchell.
Rachel Cavanagh, James Stark, Aidan Hunter, Shannon Balfour, Michael Duffy, Sophie Buchanan and Mrs Nicole Whyte from the teaching Staff
The National Parent Forum of Scotland has been working with Skills Development Scotland as part of the programme of work underway in Developing the Young Workforce.
We are pleased to have produced some tailored information for parents, as part of our successful "in a nutshell" series, which covers the new Careers Education Standard launched at SLF 2015. This new nutshell will supply parents with basic information about the initial role of this programme in schools and signpost them to where they can get some more information if they need it.
This nutshell has been produced in hard copy with one for each child in primary, secondary and ASN schools and deliveries will start w/c 11-1-16. We would be very grateful if you could ask your schools to make sure it reaches parents through "pupil post" but also to publicise the nutshell link to our website through all the channels they use to communicate with them. We would also hope that it could be used at parent events, subject choice evenings etc.
Tony Gilhooly, Active Schools Co-ordinator – St John Ogilvie Learning Community
My aim as an Active Schools Co-ordinator is to provide more and higher quality opportunities for children and young people to participate in sport. I do this by:
working with colleagues in schools to provide more and higher quality opportunities to participate in sport within schools.
recruiting and supporting volunteers to deliver activity sessions in schools.
motivating and inspiring young people to participate in sport.
Please see below for some useful link on Active Schools and our related programmes:
Pupils at St. John Ogilvie High School recently received a community grant from Action Earth to make improvements to the school grounds and local area.
St. John Ogilvie pupils and staff were joined by parents, local volunteers from the Friends of Udston and Glenlee Woods, fire fighters from Fire Scotland's Hamilton HQ and primary seven pupils from St. Blane's Primary school. The volunteers and pupils had a great time planting trees, shrubs and bulbs that should provide the school grounds with year round colour and will hopefully attract biodiversity into the area. Pupils from the S2 interdisciplinary projects will have the opportunity to continue this project in the coming months.
We are delighted to have received such a positive report from Her majesty’s Inspectorate for Education. The inspection involves the school being scrutinised in relation to 5 key areas of its work and it is given a rating for each of these areas. The 6 possible ratings are Excellent, Very Good, Good, Satisfactory, Weak or Unsatisfactory and the inspection team then identifies the Key Strengths of the school and finally identifies Areas for Development. As you now know, the inspectors have placed us in the Very Good category for all 5 areas of the inspection. Effectively, what that means is that it is recognised that there are Major Strengths in all areas of our work which cover.
S2 IDL pupils were recently visited by Julie Richmond, South Lanarkshire Councils carbon reduction officer. Julie explained to pupils the Councils policy on carbon reduction including the use of environmentally friendly electric cars. Pupils were offered a demonstration of the car and commented how quiet the car was! Our pupils also continued to maintain our school grounds by planting more shrubs, herbs and bulbs. Our ‘bee and butterfly’ gardens that were planted in June are flourishing. Pupils have been monitoring these areas report frequent visits by bees and some very beautiful butterflies!
On Thursday 1st September, following nominations from fellow students and Staff, 27 S6 students presented themselves for competitive interview for the positions of head Boy and Girl and Deputes in the Leadership Team. After a morning of excellent presentations from all the students, the Panel appointed the following students:
Head Girl Paula Queen
Depute Head Girls Lauryn Alexander and Erin Connor
Head Boy Joseph Duffy
Depute Head Boys Matthew Tierney and Callum Balfour
Leadership Team picture the students are Left to Right: Matthew Tierney, Erin Connor, Joseph Duffy, Paula Queen, Callum Balfour, and Lauryn Alexander.
Below is the extended leadership Team for 2016/17
Spanish Word Wizard Champions
Congratulations to Jenah Ross (S2), Lauren Walker (S1) and Rachel Murray (S1) who represented St John Ogilvie High School at the final of the 'Word Wizard' Spanish final at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre on 24th May.
The girls made it through to the national final after battling it out against hundreds of young language learners from all across Scotland at the semi-final earlier this year.
Rights Made Real
Following a very demanding scrutiny of all the work students and staff have been doing this year under the Making Rights Real agenda, we are proud to announce St John Ogilvie High School has been awarded SLC Rights Made Real accreditation
Congratulations to all the students (almost 40) who presented evidence to the panel this week to showcase the impact of Rights Based Learning across the school. The panel were hugely impressed with the sheer range of activities our young people have been involved in as they learned about their rights, They commented on the many excellent examples of students participation, for example, in the Pupils’ Audit and Space Unlimted projects. The Junior Leadership Team who led the afternoon showcase, were delighted to receive the award on their watch.
School Charter of Rights
Charity Football Match
On the 10th April 2016 at 9am, a group of friends and a member of staff will kick off a 12 hour football match for St Andrews Hospice. The event will be held at Hamilton Palace Grounds and you are welcome to come down and support the players. This idea came from John Paul Doyle in S5 (pictured front row middle).
John Paul would like to thank the school and everyone involved on the Organisation of the event.
South Lanarkshire Council has recently submitted the Follow Through Report for the 2013 Inspection. Following the highly successful report in April 2013, the Authority letter below confirms that the school has made very positive progress in the two areas in which we were asked “to continue” to develop. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all Staff for their work in ensuring that the school continues to go from strength to strength throughout what has been a very challenging time for Scottish teachers. My thanks also for the continued unswerving support and trust of the parent body.
Villarreal - United in Hope
This is Mr McLaughlin explaining the background to the collection that is taking place in the school every day this week. The title above is the English translation of the initiative which hopes to make around 150,000 euros for children who suffer from cancer.
First Direct Bank
First Direct Bank has once again supported the work of the school by awarding us a grant for £5,284 to support the Health and Well Being projects across the school. More specifically the money will fund at least 2 disabled sports wheelchairs as well a range of important and much-needed sporting equipment .
In the picture Linda McInulty, Operations Manager for First Direct and Leanne Kerr, Recruitment Consultant are seen handing over the cheque to David Robertson from the School Fundraising Committee. Also pictured are Sports ambassadors, Ryan Ferrey, Stephen Gemmell and Sophie Young and Kyle McAteer from the Under 16 Football Squad as well as Daniel Amato and Emma Rooney who are delighted with the news that the school will now be providing sports wheelchairs for disabled athletes.
Holocaust Memorial Day 2015
St. John Ogilvie hosted the 2015 SLC Holocaust Memorial Event on Tuesday 20th January. In one of the presentations the reflections of 18 SLC S6 students on their visit to Auchwitz-Birkenau were shown in 3 parts. Links to the 3 testimony discussions below.
