The school is off and running with the new term. On Tuesday morning, a group of 11 S2 pupils accompanied by the school Librarian, Mr Plain, attended an event at the Book Festival in Edinburgh. This was the ‘Best and Worse Times’ with Elizabeth Laird and Jason Wallace in the Scottish Power Studio. The authors discussed how their life experiences influenced their writing; both authors have lived outside the UK (Mr Wallace in Zimbabwe and Ms Laird in Iraq; Ethiopia; Turkey and Lebanon). Pupils had the chance to meet the authors by getting books signed at the end of the session as well as discovering the other tents available at the festival and Ruairidh Bruce managed to stump the authors by asking them to name their favourite book by other authors. Many thanks to Mr Plain who organised the trip (and reported that the pupils were a credit to the school).

Also on a literary note, congratulations to S2 pupil, Alexa Hay. Her poem, ‘Fire’, has been selected as a winning entry in the Tyne and Esk Writers and East Lothian and Midlothian Libraries, ‘Young Writer of the Year 2011’ competition. Alexa, family members and Mr Swinney (Head of English) will be attending the award ceremony on 26 September. Well done Alexa!

At lunchtimes from Monday to Thursday, S1 pupils were invited to participate in ‘Eco-week’. This was designed to encourage pupils to join the weekly Eco-club held every Tuesday in the Biology Department.  The activities included making jewellery from old magazines, making pen holders from fizzy drink cans, decorating plant pots and taking cuttings, (I am now the proud owner of a very fine pen holder).

Today we have the open afternoon for ‘Tots and Teens’ – a new idea in Community Playgroups. This is a very exciting initiative that will involve S3 pupils working with the playgroup that will be housed in the Crèche Room in Knox. Further details will follow, but in the meantime, best wishes to all involved for a successful launch and many years of happy learning and playing.

Best wishes.

J B Craig