Teacher takes top prize

Congratulations to Ms Heather Leonard, who was chosen as Orkney's top probationer teacher in the school session 2015/16. Ms Leonard attended a national GTCS event with probationers from all of the Scottish Local Authorities at Strathclyde University earlier this week, where she gave a presentation about her experience working as a newly qualified teacher in Orkney. Miss Heather Bichan, who has been Acting PT in the English Department, said that Ms Leonard has been an exceptionally good probationer teacher, and that young people in her classes have really enjoyed having her as their teacher. We'd like to say thank you to Ms Leonard, and to wish her all the very best as she takes up her first full-time permanent post in Angus after the summer break.

The most important change of them all

Today Mr Don Hawkins joins us as our new Head Teacher. We wish him well in his time at KGS.

Staff changes (cot'd)

Congratulations to Lindsay Thompson, who has been appointed as a permanent Teacher of English.

Staff changes (but sort of not)

Congratulations to Colin Nisbet and Raksha Woods, who were appointed as permanent Principal Teachers of Guidance. Both will continue their Acting posts, with Raksha taking on full responsibility for the new Copinsay House, including those pupils who were formerly in Dingieshowe as well as her own Scapa pupils.

Art win for Ahmi

Congratulations to S1 pupil Ahmi Santiago, who has taken 1st place in the S1-3 category of the Tesco Bank Art Competition for Schools, which is run by National Galleries Scotland. This is a major achievement for Ahmi as this is a national competition which had 7400 entries this year.  All eight judges were very impressed with her drawing.

Ahmi has been invited, along with her family, to attend the awards ceremony at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh on 12th June, where she will be presented with her prize of art materials by multi-award winning author and illustrator Nick Sharratt, who has worked on over 250 books including most of Jacqueline Wilson's books. Nick was one of the judges and will be photographed alongside all the competition winners.

Her winning work, on the theme of 'Light and Darkness', will go on display in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh from 8 June-27 October, then Borders General Hospital and finally at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness until May 2017.  If you are in Edinburgh or Inverness during these times, please go and view the exhibitions.  A selection of the winning works will feature on postcards and a calendar later this year.

Well done also to all those S1 pupils who worked hard to create entries for this competition.

With Fin Siderfin's success in February, KGS pupils have now won two national competitions in one session, a fantastic achievement.

Staff changes

Congratulations to Nichola Watson, Stuart Woodrow and Magnus Garson, who were appointed as the new Principal Teachers of Art, Design & Technology and PE respectively.

Best wishes also to DHT Mark Colston, who has left to take up the post of Principal of the British International College of Cairo.

More pics here

New House names and colours revealed

The new house names and colours were revealed today at a ceremony to mark the end of the old houses. The results of the Guidance restructuring are:

Berstane and Newark will become FARA
Inganess and Waulkmill will become EYNHALLOW
Dingieshowe and Scapa will become COPINSAY

The ceremony was attended by all pupils, many wearing the colours of their old house, making for a very colourful gathering. The posters made up of squares decorated by every pupil were paraded from the Art Department down the main stairs to the ground floor. They were then laid down to symbolise the end of the old houses. The House Captains all gave speeches recognising the achievements of their house and thanking their Guidance teachers.

Dr Hall then began the process of revealing the new names and colours. Using the actual sorting hat brought to Orkney by J K Rowling, slips and balls were drawn and the names emerged on screen. The names were as voted for by KGS pupils and staff and the colours come from the Orkney flag.

Orkanna are going to Glasgow

Both KGS Young Enterprise groups, Orkanna and Norden, did a fantastic job of presenting their products at the Orkney awards on Tuesday.     
 
Congratulations to Orkanna, who were the Orkney Area overall winners and will now go on to represent KGS at the Scottish finals in Glasgow.  Their mobile app has really caught the attention of the Orkney business community and the tourism sector.  Well done!    
      
Special thanks goes to Lynne Allan, who was the business adviser, and all the help and support given by the Business Studies staff.

House posters taking shape

For the celebration of the old KGS houses on April 22nd, we are going to produce large posters in the house colours. Each pupil will be given a 10cm square piece of paper in their house colour. They can then personalise this - by writing a message, using magazine cuttings, using textured fibre etc. This way every pupil will contribute to the posters, and they can be as creative as they want to. The more variety in the squares, the better.

Once pupils have completed the squares, they will be arranged and stuck on a large piece of paper with darker shades towards the top and lighter shades towards the bottom - to represent a sunset.

Then, at our celebration on Friday 22nd, the finished posters will be brought in a procession down from the Art Department, round the mezzanine, and down to the bottom of the stairs, where they will be ceremonially laid down - to mark the end of our old houses.

Photos: Della Laurenson

Head Teacher appointed

After a successful interview on Friday, Mr Don Hawkins was offered and has accepted the  Head Teacher post. He will start here on 30 May. We look forward to welcoming him to the school.

Youth Philanthropic Initiative launched

Today we launched our YPI (Youth Philanthropic Initiative).  The Wood group give £3000 per year to a school to donate to a local charity.  The students research a charity and at a grand final in May they pitch for their chosen charity to be given that £3000.  All S3 will be participating in this and it will be run by the Guidance department with the help of the RMPS and English Department. 

House names -  Isles win by narrow margin

Uninhabited isles 566
Norse names 562
Wildlife 121

The votes from Friday's ballot have been counted, and the theme going forward for the new KGS House names will be Uninhabited Isles.

A total of 1249 votes were counted.  Of these, 121 were for Orkney Wildlife, 562 were for Norse names, and 566 were for Uninhabited Isles.

Pupils and staff will carry out the final vote for the names on Friday 11 March.

First place for Fin

Congratulations are in order for S6 Higher Photography pupil Fin Siderfin, whose photograph, 'Golden Solitude', came first in the 'My Place' Photography Competition run by the Scottish Civic Trust. Fin has been invited to collect his award at a presentation at the Lighthouse in Glasgow in March.

Renewable energy consultant's talk 'an eye opener'

Mr. Ogbhemhe's S5 RMPS class are currently studying renewable energy on Orkney and around the world, which meant that they had the pleasure of having Peter Long, a consultant of Renewable Energy for Aquatera in Stromness, coming to speak to them in class, allowing them and myself to begin to understand the workings of renewable energy and how it can benefit us on Orkney. The class have been doing in-depth studies on global and local issues as their unit.

This company works across the world and uses Orkney as their hub for renewable energies. Peter started his presentation by saying that Orkney was one of the most important places in the world for renewable energy and that Orkney had one of the very first wind turbines in the world on Burgar Hill, the LS-1, which was demolished in 2001. Orkney is divided into nine separate zones. These zones are turned off systematically so at least two turbines off at one time, allowing for the remaining turbines to produce enough energy for Orkney.

Orkney receives around 10% of Europe's wave energy, which allows for us to be prosperous with our energy and produce up to twice the amount of energy needed to power homes around the islands. Mr. Long also discussed the islands' energy bills and how renewable energy could benefit us over the next decade. Although he did mention that with our current forms of energy and electricity use our energy bills could increase, which would not benefit Orcadians as we currently have one of the highest fuel poverty rates in the UK.

This led his talk to electric cars and how useful they could be if we all used them. He said that cars like the Nissan LEAF and the Tesla could suit the driving patterns of many Orcadians as one charge would last for a few days and that the Nissan, in the event of a power cut, if linked up to your house, could easily power your house and all that was inside for nearly 10 hours! From this alone could we be seeing more electric cars on Orkney over the next few years? We as a small percentage of the world should aim to be using 100% renewable energies by 2020. Peter said that the future for our energy is bright in every sense of the word. At the end Peter invited the class to ask questions and Mr Ogbhemhe was quick to ask whether pursuing renewable energy is best for our economy. Mr. Long answered by saying "A certain level of curtailment" is needed to control and operate the turbines and that "only the big turbines can be controlled" as the smaller ones cannot be switched off, which means that when "our power grid is full" larger ones are switched off.

This is something that should be changed across the world and means that we need to be changing our ways quickly. This talk was certainly an eye opener for me and surely for the class as well. Peter's talk allowed them to gain an understanding of the UK's energy needs.

It was a pleasure to have Peter in KGS last week and we hope that we can continue to have more talks like this held in school in the near future.

Kaila Shepherd, S6

DHT appointed

Congratulations to Dr Simon Hall, who will take up a temporary post as 0.5 Depute Head Teacher.

Lunchtime music recital

Former pupil Jessica Burton performed a 15 minute set on the clarsach in the Drama Studio yesterday. She has prepared these pieces for the BBC Young Traditional Musician competition in three weeks' time.  We wish her every success.