Scots Books

For a whole month this term, some of the best work S2 classes across the schooldid with Matthew Fitt in Scots Hoose and Scots Language week was on display in theNICC library. The Scots books were proudly displayed and pupils and staff alikevisited to see our fine young people's examples of Scots writing! Some highlightsincluded an epic tale of a wee Irn Bru "can who couldnae" and the adventures ofTommy the Tartan Turtle! Well done to all involved, and thanks to PKC Libraries forbeing so supportive of our young people's work.

World Book Day, 7th March, saw S1 and S2pupils taking part in our 'Book Cafe'. Pupilschatted about their interesting reads and manypupils exchanged reading recommendations. InEnglish, classes took part in Book Quizzes andcompleted Book Reviews; these will bedisplayed to inspire further reading choices.

World Book Day

The Media class and Mrs Reilly celebrated the success of a long year's work onassignments with a cinematic project viewing followed by the 2019 St John'sAcademy Media class Oscars!

Well done to all pupils forsubmitting completedassignments on time. Some ofour winners are pictured here- a special well done to Davidfor winning Best Picture!

Media class Oscars

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The English Department and the Library collaborated for the Perth and Kinross Inter-Schools Literature Quiz. The quiz was a great success, with schools from all across theregion attending at St. John’s Academy. Well done to our pupils who participated andrepresented St. John’s Academy on the day: Finlay Wiggan, Eloise Greer, Zach MacLeod,Joshua Collinson, Gabrielle Cameron, Kofi Sewornu, Rebecca McAninch, Emelia Czop.

Inter-schools Quiz

S3 History pupils enjoyed a visit from BlackWatch Museum volunteer Jim in December.Pupils learned about the role of our localregiment in the Great War and were able tohandle the medals of soldiers who had bravelyfought in the war. The lesson enhancedknowledge gained from lessons on Casualtiesand Commemoration and November'sCentenary of World War One.

In addition to the medals, pupils engagedwith letters which had been sent fromsoldiers to home, which showed evidenceof censorship and asked thoughtfulquestions to deepen their understandingof the real impact of war on soldiers’lives.

The visit provided further opportunity touse analytical skills that S3 pupils havebeen building over the course of the year.

Black Watch Visit

Well done to pupils across the department for thework they put in not only every day but inpreparation for the Prelims, held in January. We hopeyou feel your efforts were reflected in your result.The hard work is not over yet, however, and we lookforward now to the SQA exams in April and May.

If you would benefit from extra supported study,please let your teacher know.

Prelims and SQA Exams

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SQA exam diet 2019

Thank you to all the pupils who helped out atthe Day for Change Fair in February as part ofeither Rights Respecting School, Fairtrade,One World or the Language Ambassadors andto all who attended. We all learned moreabout how we can improve our world bytaking part in a range of activities whichrequired problem-solving skills, teamwork andcreativity.

If the fair inspired you to join one of thesegroups, please keep an eye out on thebulletin for information about future meetingsand ask in school for more information.

Day for Change Fair

The Dynamic Youth Award group out exploringthe fascinating local history and culture, herethey are huddled around the fire, heating hotchocolate and reciting the poem legend of theMary Grey and Bessie Bell (two Bonnie lassesCast away to a Bower among the wild forestsof Dalcrue, were they met a rather unfortunatefate, one of love and death).

The group made best use of the forsest, to help learn in a calm and inspireing wilderness,showing how a writing task can be done outdoors.

Dynamic Youth Group

Originating in Canada, YPI is now an international programme and is delivered insecondary school across Scotland. The programme is principally funded and managedin Scotland by The Wood Foundation and St John’s Academy has been delivering theprogramme to S3 pupils for a number of years.

What is YPI?

The Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) is an active citizenship programme thatraises awareness amongst young people about philanthropy and their local community.Each participating school, each year is responsible for directing a £3000 YPI Grant to alocal charity through a unique programme of team work, research and competition. YPIScotland is all about creativity and passion, leaving the four walls of the classroombehind, and supporting the issues young people care most about. This session, as inpast sessions, our S3 pupils have met with a number of volunteers, staff members andcharity representatives to research and gather information about their chosencharities. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the charity personnelthat worked with our pupils for the time and commitment they have shown to themand our school community.

Once the information was gathered the pupils then presented their findings in a seriesof class and whole-school semi-finals, the standard of preparation for andpresentation at these events was incredibly high and culminated in the following fivegroups being selected to present at our grand final on Friday, 1 February, 2019:

� RNLI: Kacper Block, Keiron McKay, Adrian Pucia and Krystian Sot� Mindspace: Oliwia Rzeszutek, Brodie Shepherd, Maria Piaszczynska� CEDAR: Shannon Elder, Oliwia Deja and Abbey Swan� SANDS: Tegan Murdoch and Hannah Fernandez�  Mindspace: Christie Anderson, Bree Dorrian and Kaitlyn Styles

Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI)

The finalist teams made their presentations in front of their S2 and S3 peers,charity representatives, Perth and Kinross Council representatives, parentsand carers. The judging panel was made up of Eleanor Paul, QualityImprovement Officer (Secondary), Dr Robert Staines, Depute Headteacher,Canon Steven, St John the Baptist's, Perth, Andy New, Aviva Scrum Master andRoisin Murphy, Head Girl. They were supported by Susan Beattie, YPI RegionalFacilitator - Edinburgh, Perth & Kinross and Dundee. They had the difficult jobof judging the pupil presentations – which was not an easy task in light of theoutstanding work they produced.

After much deliberation, it was decided that the overall event winners wereShannon Elder, Oliwia Deja and Abbey Swan who represented CEDAR.Congratulations to them and to all the participants.

Zero Waste Perth

Senior Design & Manufacture pupils visitedZero Waste Perth’s Walk-In shop in the StJohn’s Shopping Centre. The Walk-In shop’saim is to raise awareness of the the need forreducing waste in the local community.

The pupils were challenged to incorporateplastic components made by reprocessingplastic milk bottles and bottle tops. The rawmaterials were collected from within theschool, surrounding community and from localbusinesses, including Aviva Insurance andBannatyne Health Club. The shredded bottleswere then heat pressed into sheets and blockswhich were cut, turned and formed.

Zero Waste Perth Coordinator, Fiona McBain,said: “This is a fantastic example of recyclingin action and we are so impressed with whatthe pupils have created. The projectdemonstrates it is possible to turn ordinary,everyday waste into something functional andbeautiful. We are delighted to be able todisplay their work in the Zero Waste Walk-Inand we hope it will inspire the public torecognise the value in recycling.”

We would also like to thank Mr O’Brien for hiscontinuing support of the department’srecycyling efforts!

Reprocess

Repress

Reuse

The Shop is open from noon-4pm, Wednesdays-Saturdays, until the end of April.

This term has been busy for uslinguists as we continue tocelebrate languages across thewhole school. We started offJanuary with a visit from Patrick,our Erasmus visitor from Austria,who was interested to see howwe are learning languages at allstages in the school. Our PrimaryLanguage Ambassadors gave hima comprehensive tour of theschool while Patrick shared factsabout Austria with pupils in boththe primary and secondary.

Modern Language News...

Burn’s Day

We celebrated Burn’s Day across the school with pupilslearning about Scots language. Nursery and P1 recited‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ in Scots and had aceilidh. P4 had a traditional Burns’ Supper. P5 had a visitfrom Scots author Matthew Fitt. P7 created Scotspoems and some Scottish tartan designs.

For World Book Day in March, wecombined our knowledge of manylanguages within the school bylistening to and reading texts indifferent languages. We enjoyedhearing many languages such asAfrikaans, Romanian, Polish, toname a few. Pupils translatedtitles from French into English bytwo famous authors; J K Rowlingand D Walliams and created theirown book cover writing the titlein a language other than English.

World Book Day

Our pen pal project with OurLady’s is going fromstrength to strength! Pupilsin P6 and 7 designed andlabelled their ideal schooluniform and gym kit whichthey have since exchangedwith their pen pals.

Pen Pals

We participated in Scotland LanguagesWeek in February by celebrating andpromoting the diversity of languagesspoken in St John’s Academy. We filmeda short video of pupils saying ‘hello’ intheir native language, which can be foundon our twitter page - @sja_languages.Our Language Ambassadors also sharedtheir languages with P3 and P5 by readingstories in different languages to them.We worked closely with the EALdepartment who kindly contributed to ourideas and added to our collection ofbooks written in different languages.

Scotland Languages Week

In February, our primary and secondaryLanguage Ambassadors also participat-ed in Rights Respecting School days,where they worked together to sharethe benefits of learning languages.

Language Ambassadors

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In February to mark the Chinese New Year, weinvited Rong Rong from the Kinross ConfuciusHub to talk to our primary 7 pupils and our S3Modern Languages for Life and Work class, aboutChinese traditions and the Mandarin language.We enjoyed participating in many activities,playing a traditional Chinese game, dancing andmaking our own Chinese lanterns. We certainlyenjoyed learning some Mandarin too!

Chinese New Year

Finally, many pupils enjoyedparticipating in a class debate:Language vs. chocolate. Asyou can probably imagine, thepupils were rather pro-chocolate at the start but bythe end of discussions, mostpupils appreciated thesignificance of havingknowledge of anotherlanguage. They demonstratedtheir understanding byproducing posters.

Language vs Chocolate