Brought to you by PressgangEditor: Leona Anderson

It was with mixed feelings and emotions that we officially closed the current Ellon Academy site. On the one hand the history, routines and traditions will be missed whilst on the other hand there is huge excitement about moving to new ‘fit for purpose’ school, community and leisure facilities. I closed the school to pupils on the last day of term with the ringing of the traditional hand bell. This ‘new tradition’ will continue with the ringing of the hand bell to welcome pupils to the new community campus on Thursday 20 th August! It has been a very busy year and I suspect the start of session will be even busier! With this in mind, staff and pupils should take a well deserved break over the summer holidays and I look forward to welcoming everyone in August.Tim McKay, Rector

As the time of moving to the new school draw ever nearer, the frantic process of sorting and packing continues. Staff have been diligently working to make sure everything that is needed is boxed, labelled and ready to move. Our hardworking group of school prefects have given up the first couple of days of their holidays to assist teachers in any way they can, and have been a credit to themselves and the school.

Ellon Academy Open Evenings (3rd August – 7th August):Ellon Academy staff will host a series of presentations and open evening (6.30pm – 8.00pm) tours of the school, community and leisure facilities for pupils and their parents/carers. Further details will be intimated by the school by text to parent/carer groups.

•S1 (new S2) Pupils and Parents/Carers – Monday 3rd August•S2 (new S3) Pupils and Parents/Carers – Tuesday 4th August•S3 (new S4) Pupils and Parents/Carers – Wednesday 5th August•S4 (new S5) Pupils and Parents/Carers – Thursday 6th August•S5/P7 (new S6 and new S1) Pupils and Parents/Carers – Friday 7th August

The Ellon Academy Community Campus tours will begin at 9.30am on Saturday 15 th August. The last tour will commence at 3.00pm. All tours will be identical. We look forward to welcoming you to our fantastic new facility.

From the desk of Mr Bain

This has been a fantastic term, and it is my absolute pleasure to bring you some excellent highlights from this summer term. As you will no doubt be aware, these last few weeks have been the final ones to be spent in the Schoolhill campus.

I must take this opportunity to thank each and every contributor to the school newsletter over the year – it has certainly been a learning curve for me, and I am excited now for what we can achieve with these brilliant and enthusiastic young people on board.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer holidays, and look forward to bringing you new news and information from our shiny new school in the Autumn edition.

The team for this edition has been led once again by Leona Anderson of S5. The other members of the team are: Caitlin Walburn (4K2) Erin Langan (3F1), Jen Coxon (3F1), Lauren Thomson (1K2) and Dara Pettigrew (2M1).

Fond Farewell

What can you say about the prospect of retiring after 33 years in teaching? “Phew!” comes to mind. Although to a young person’s eye, this must seem like an eternity, looking back, the time has sped past. As they say, time flies when you are busy and enjoying yourself and yes, I have been very busy in my teaching career and I have enjoyed the experience.  When I came to Ellon Academy 22 years ago, it was one of the largest secondary schools in Scotland and in my opinion had one of the ugliest buildings around – yes, the “new” building. Now, the school population is about the right size and you are lucky to be moving to a lovely new campus. I applied for a PT History post at Ellon all those years ago because of its good reputation – and that came from reliable inside information from my brother and sister-in-law who both taught here. I still believe that the school is one of the best in the north of Scotland and, of course, I had no hesitation in bringing my own daughter out-of-zone to be educated here 14 years ago.  What makes a good school? I have no doubt that having a state-of-the art building and great resources will help inspire pupils to do better and go further. But much more important than the building is the quality and expertise of the teachers. From an insider, take it from me that you have some great and highly-motivated teachers who have your best interests at heart. Make the most of your time at the school. In no time at all, you too will be looking back at the end of sixth year saying “Phew, where did the time go?” 

Mr Morrison, PT Humanities

Mr Bain

New Executive Team

Following speeches to the whole of S6, pupil and staff elections and a gruelling interview with a panel of 5, our new Executive Team has been set up as follows:

Max Poole Head Boy Jenny Hendry Head GirlAndrew Ritchie Depute Head BoyCharlie Wilson   Depute Head BoySteven Fyfe Depute Head BoyJenny Tones Depute Head GirlLois Nicol Depute Head GirlRachel Clark Depute Head Girl

Good luck in your new roles as we move to the new school. We know you will be great!

S6 “Be All You Can Be” day

Once again S6 had a very positive start to their final year in school through the “Be All You Can Be” programme. Local world champion, disabled athlete Kenny Herriot delivered an inspirational motivational talk to encourage pupils to achieve their potential.

Next, local Sooyang Doo expert Ashleigh Beaton and the RAF Outreach Team delivered active sessions to foster teamwork and communication skills. Then, our staff delivered sessions on opportunities S6 can take part in here in school, such as committees and community service.It is essential pupils leave school with an enhanced curriculum vita (CV) that show excellent wider achievements as well as excellent qualifications.The Head Boy and Head Girl speeches and elections also took place.

A great day had by all S5 and S6s, a great start to a new and monumental year for all! By Mrs Hall

S5 Business Challenge Day

On 5th June, the whole of S5 worked at the University of Aberdeen’s Duncan Rice library with over 20 employers, university staff and our teachers on the Business Challenge programme. All our pupils were treated as university students for the day and they were able to use the University Of Aberdeen’s facilities to see what life on a university campus is like. What a fantastic venue!

The main task of the day was to design a business idea, presentation, pitch and plan for a new school business. All the adults present were very impressed with the high quality results our pupils achieved. Indeed, the feedback on the day was extremely positive from all involved, and 103 out of 143 pupils who returned evaluation sheets said they want to go on to university when they leave school. We hope that starting S5 in the destination most will be on leaving school, will motivate our S5 pupils to achieve their potential.

Beautiful Ballet

To start off our announcements of pupil successes, Sinclair house S3 pupil Aisling O’Sullivan was competing in the Genee Challenge Award for Ballet in London recently. After a wonderful performance, she came an amazing 1st in the UK in Grade 6,7,8, - her category.

I’m sure you’ll agree that this is a truly brilliant achievement from an immensely talented young Ellon Academy girl. Everyone here wishes you the biggest congratulations, and much more success in the future.

Community Elections 2015

Recently, Ellon Academy pupils voted at school for fellow students standing for election as part of this year’s Community Council Pilot Project.

The successful candidates, Kain Mcleod (Ellon Community Council) and Emma Sleith (Foveran Community Council) will be co-opted onto their respective community councils as full members for a one-year term.

The turnout for the Ellon Community Council election was 69% (338 votes cast) and the turnout for Foveran Community Council was 62% (78 votes cast).

Daniel Leask has also co-opted onto Foveran Community Council.Elections coordinator at Aberdeenshire Council, Allan Bell, said: “This was a great exercise that was very well run by the pupils and teachers at Ellon Academy. There were excellent turnouts and some very impressive candidates who will no doubt make effective community councillors.”

Principal teacher, Donald Morrison, said: “I’m very pleased with the level of engagement of pupils in voting for representatives onto the Ellon and Foveran Community Councils. All the candidates should be proud of their hard work and willingness to get involved in local decision making.”

Congratulations to the successfully elected candidates, and all the best wishes for your upcoming adventure.

Mr Byrne and his team of vote counters making sure everything is in order.

Spectacular Sailing!

Earlier in the year, we brought you fantastic news of Megan Hewison’s success in the Sea Cadet National Combined Regatta at the Excel Centre in London. Well, she’s done it again. Megan has been asked to represent the Aberdeen Schools Rowing Association both at the Scottish Rowing Championships and the British Rowing Championships, which take place later in the year.

Megan began rowing with the Peterhead Sea Cadets, and has had much success; she won the district rowing competition in the Under 18s single female Yole category – a wonderful achievement for a girl of 13! More recently, she was again a winner at the Northern Area regatta, comprising of Scotland and Northern England, and will go forth to represent the Northern Area at the UK wide National regatta in September, back at Excel.

Again, a huge congratulations to Megan for her continued successes. She is clearly a hugely talented girl!

Megan continues to experience much success in her sailing.

Awesome Athletics

Huge congratulations to James McIntosh and Kate MacKay who represented Ellon Academy at the Scottish Schools Athletics Championships in Grangemouth, at the weekend. Both were young for their age groups and performed extremely well. Particular well done to Kate who was placed 5th in the high jump and 7th in the 300m hurdles!

Maths Masters

Ellon Academy's team of Enterprising Mathematicians came a close 2nd to Fraserburgh Academy at the North-East Regional Competition and have subsequently qualified for the Scottish Competition in Glasgow next session!Thanks to Mrs P MacDonald for organising and a very well done to the 4 pupils involved: Eilidh Pirie 3S1, Ross Kennard 3M1, Cameron Grant 4K2 & Niamh Barclay 4C1

Great Golfing Another fantastic McDonald House Pupil Achievement!S3 pupil Jamie Seatter has been placed second in the recent Ellon Golf Club Championship. He also won the Junior Golf Masters competition. He has dropped his handicap score from 26 to 6.5 in less than a year and he has been named as Scotland’s most improved male golfer in 2014 by the Scottish Golf Union. This is a fantastic achievement – well done Jamie!

Friday 12th June saw the annual Ellon Academy Prize Giving take place. This was a monumental occasion as it was the final event to be hosted in the old Ellon Academy Assembly Hall before moving to our brand school. There were two ceremonies, a junior school event from 10:30 and the seniors’ event in the afternoon. Both were well attended by parents and invited guests who joined together to celebrate the wonderful achievements of the pupils from our school.

Miss Anderson was master of ceremonies for both ceremonies, and there was a guest speaker, David Evans, a former head-boy at Ellon Academy and local politician. The Platform Party of Mr McKay, the school Deputes and the guest speaker, was seated behind the extensive array of prizes to be awarded to pupils whose effort and talents have helped them excel during the last school year.

The Rector’s Address, delivered by Mr McKay offered an overview at the current campus before our monumental journey to the new school, recognising the success of the school in the new National exam, as well as the achievement of the Gold School Sport Award, by Sport Scotland.

Both ceremonies were well attended by parents and invited guests, who all remarked on the success of the event.

Congratulations to all prizewinning pupils and best of luck for the future. Also, many thanks to all staff who were involved in the painstaking process of ensuring everything was ready for the day.

Left: The Platform party take their

seats. Right: Former

Head Boy, David Evans, delivers his

speech.Below: Mr Corser and Mrs Duthie

awarding prizes.

Grampian Children’s Book Awards

On Wednesday the 20th of May, three teachers and nineteen pupils took a trip to the Grampian

Children’s Book Award Ceremony held at the Aberdeen University Arts Lecture Theatre. In the

English classes we got to read the six novels from the shortlist during class time and at the

end of the books we all had to vote for which book was the best. All of our class were offered

the chance to go to the book award, but not everyone chose to go.

On the Wednesday, we left our classes 10 minutes earlier than usual to have our lunch in the

library. At 12:10 we all got a mini bus and set off to Aberdeen University.

Outside the lecture hall, there were stalls where you could buy the shortlisted books, a

postcard or a bookmark. We all sat in the lecture hall and waited for the ceremony to start.

Kathy Macphail introduced us and told us a little bit about the award ceremony background.

She spoke to us about what books we were able to read and why we even have the ceremony

in the first place.

The first author that spoke was Kevin Brooks. He is the author for the book “The Ultimate

Truth”. He talked to us about how he started writing and who influenced him to start. He said

he writes what comes to him naturally and he likes to make people think. He has been seen as

a very controversial author. He likes being an author because he gets to go out and meet the

people that like him for his books. He says, “A book hasn’t become a story until someone has

read it”.

The eager Ellon pupils arrived Aberdeen University

The second author we got to

listen to was William

Sutcliffe who wrote “The

Wall”. Unfortunately William

wasn’t able to make the

awards, so he made a video

of himself talking to us about

his book and it got projected

onto a big screen for us to

listen to. He said that his

books are focused on young

people, but adults are

always welcome to read

them. Next, Dave Cousins,

who wrote “Charlie Merrick’s

Misfits”, told us that the

book is about friendship, and

him and his

friends. Dave spoke about how he and his friends don’t remember the football side of things;

they remember the friendship they all had and the memories they had. They didn’t see

football as the most important thing in the world; they jut saw it as an opportunity to hang out.

Tom Hoyle spoke to us next in the form of a letter. He is anonymous. Tom Hoyle is his fake

name or it could be his real name; nobody knows. Everything about him is a mystery. He

spoke about how he could be our head teacher; maybe a family friend; maybe even our next

door neighbor; nobody knows and he likes to keep it that way. He wanted every chapter in his

book to be as dramatic and exciting as an action film and to finish off his letter, he said he was

in his bedroom writing in central London, but is that the truth? We will never know.

Next to talk to us was James Dawson. He wrote “Say Her Name”. He told us he was fascinated

by scary novels, the type of books that have you at the edge of your seat. He likes stories that

you would hear as a child telling your friends at a camp fire. This inspired him to write “Say

Her Name”, based on the legend, bloody Mary. He likes the idea of people sharing different

ghost stories, so he decided to put it in a book.

Next was Anne fine, who is the author of “Blood Family”. She wasn’t able to make the book

awards either so she sent a tweet to Kathy about it. She started writing when she was in a

snow storm, and carried on ever since. She says if you can’t find the book you want on your

shelf, write it yourself.

Erin, Peter and Jen meeting the winning author, James Dawson

After all the authors spoke, we got

to ask them questions about

themselves and their books, how

they started writing etc. Then they

revealed the winner of the book

awards which was “Say Her Name”.

James Dawson gave a little speech

about how he is very happy with his

award and that he is releasing a new

book soon called “Under My Skin”.

After his speech, we all got to go up

and get selfies and signature from

everybody. After that we headed on

the bus and went back home.

Overall the awards were very

interesting and we both hope we

can go again some day because it

was nice to meet some of the

authors and learn how they

achieved everything.

By Erin Langan and Jen Coxon

The prestigious Ellon Academy Evening of Entertainment returns on the 25th of September 2015, from 7pm-1am.

To celebrate the opening of our fantastic new school, we are excited to be hosting our biggest event to date. Tickets are available for £30 per person, or group bookings of 10 guests for £300. The event is open to adults of 18 or older. Smaller groups are welcome for mixed tables.

It is always a hugely successful fundraising event in aid of school funds, and will include lots of fundraising opportunities, including an auction.

For more information or to book a place at this even, please contact Helen O’Brien at Ellon Academy.

Included in the price:•A glass of champagne and canapés on arrival.•A delicious meal followed by dessert, tea, coffee and fudge.•FABULOUS entertainment•A fully licensed bar•Waiter/table service.

The fabulous and glamorous Evening of Entertainment is returning bigger and better than ever!

Rocksmith

For the Rocksmith package, six pupils worked together to create brand new music. At 'The Foyer' in Aberdeen, the pupils recorded their songs in a real sound studio. Then their work was mixed by sound engineers and they will all receive a CD of their work. A fantastic opportunity and all the pupils who took part had a great time!

Mr Richardson, package leader

Ka-Pow Comics

Pupils who chose this package got the change to read and explore the world of comic books and graphic novels, discussing their favourites and sharing their stories with others before embarking on a two day creative binge. At the end, everyone had a comic of their own creation, a wider experience of the range of comics out there, and a brand new collection of friends.

Thanks to all who attended this package and made it such a success!

Mr Bain

Animal Antics

On the 27th of May, the first and second year pupils enjoyed the three days of activities in Wider Achievements Programme (WAP). A handful of first and second years chose the package of Animal Antics, where they took part in animal based activities.

On the first day, the pupils took a short bus ride down the coast to the town of Macduff to the Macduff Aquarium, where they saw hundreds of sea creatures native to the Scottish coast and then they went down to the beach to look at the odd creatures that lived in the rock pools.

The second day., they went to the Blair Drummond Safari Park in Stirling. The bus ride was slow and they began to get restless, but it was well worth the wait. They saw animals from the African savannah, the Asian Steppe and the South American Andes. The best part of Blair Drummond though had to be the sea lion show with sea lions performing amazing tricks.

The final day pupils stayed in school to do fun activities. First of all, they learned how to make bird feeders. Second, they made clothes out of recycled items. Then they watched an animal film and ate popcorn. Last thing they did was a SSPCA Policewoman came in and told us about her job.

Thanks to all the teachers who helped and organised this great package!. Animal Antic was a great experience and I hope others will enjoy it next year!

Crafty Capers

On the week beginning Monday 25th May, WAP, a fun three days’ worth of activities took place. There were many great packages from sporting to drama, nature and hiking. The one that stood out for me was Crafty Capers. This course was perfect for keen crafters or just those willing to give it a go.

The three days, 27th- 29th, consisted of lots of fun things top make and do including…

A day out at Ellon library where we met with a few crafting ladies who showed us how to make gift boxes, friendship bracelets and an iris folding card. Iris folding cards are made by layering sheets of coloured paper over a cut out template. Later on we decorated cupcakes. They turned out really nice apart from the split butter icing!

The next day, we made paper roses from old books. They were quite hard to do, but once we got the hang of it, they turned out fine. During the week, we also made journals using photos, pieces of music or old ribbon.

The Crafty Capers WAP package was extremely fun and all at a very good price. Big thanks to the teachers and librarians who organised it all.

Sports Day

As the sun beat down on the Deer Park, on Tuesday 9 th June, Ellon Academy Sports Day got under way. Dedicated young athletes nervously pawed at the start lines, waiting to find out if this was their moment of glory. A blast from the air-horn, and they were off.

The whole school gathered around to enjoy the spectacular sporting event, cheering on all those who took to the track. For those who were watching, a whole array of activities were laid on, including a football cage, make-up tent and even a Marine training course!

The overall house standings are as follows: Forbes (527), Keith (517), Cheyne (494), McDonald (481) and Sinclair (347).

Congratulations to all the winners (a full list of winners can be found in the PE corridor) and thank you all for taking part and making it such a brilliant “last” sports day at the current campus.

Ellon Academy wins Gold

As recognition of the incredible hard work and talent at Ellon, Sports Scotland have bestowed Ellon Academy with the Gold School Sport Award.

The School Sport Award is a national initiative that is designed to encourage schools to continuously improve the quality and quantity of physical education and school sport opportunities. They also encourage the sporting links between schools and the communities around them.

To achieve a bronze or silver Sports Scotland School Sport Award, schools self assess their current practice. However, to gain gold status an extensive external assessment is also carried out by an independent panel of experts.

This means that Ellon Academy is one of only three schools in all of Aberdeen City and Shire councils to have achieved Gold. Congratulations to all members of Ellon Academy Sports Association, as this fantastic achievement is down solely to you. Your commitment and enthusiasm for sport has brought Ellon Academy this award.

The proud PE Department look on as the winners are presented.

On your marks… Racers on the home straight

On 9th June, a wide range of local employers, Ellon Community Learning and Development Team and Ellon Active Sports supported our alternative activities on our annual Sports day. These work alongside our traditional Sports Day events to provide activities for all pupils to take part in such as cage football, golf, an obstacle course, the challenging Army and Royal Marines activities and fun challenges such as space hoppers and Giant Jenga: – truly something for everyone!

Refreshments were run by the Ellon Academy Business Education Faculty and club, Ellon Baptist Church, the Technical faculty and World challenge.

Great fun was had – thank you to all who made this day such a success!

Ellon Academy’s Amazing New Mini Bus

Arrived Today!

A huge thank you to all Ellon Academy pupils, staff and business links that made our minibus possible!