Fashion Show

The Art and Design department have organised a fashion show which will take place on Wednesday 19th of June 2013. The show will be held in M & Co, Alloway Street in Ayr. This will commence at 6.30pm and finish at approximately 9.00pm. Tickets are priced at £3.00 and can be purchased from the school reception. Alternatively they can be bought on the evening of the fashion show in M&Co. Tickets are selling fast please purchase tickets soon to avoid disappointment.

Models rehearsing for the Fashion Show.

Global market

On Friday 31 May, S1 pupils will be visiting the Global Market in Kilmarnock with the Social Subjects and Modern Languages departments. Pupils will have the opportunity to taste foods from around the world, buy crafts and practise their French and Italian speaking skills!

Belgium trip

The S2/3 France and Belgium trip sets off on Monday 3rd June. The group will travel overnight to Dover and sail to Calais the following morning where they will visit a hypermarket. The bus will then travel on to Belgium where pupils and staff will spend two days visiting war memorial sites such as Ypres, Flanders Field museum and trenches which have been preserved from the First World War. After leaving Belgium the group move on to Paris where they will sail down the river Seine and spend the following day in Disneyland Paris before returning home.

Graphic Design “have a go” project

The Visual Arts department at Ayr College is offering an interactive day of graphic design and digital art as part of the World Skills ‘Have a Go’ project. A group of S3 Art and Design students will be taking part in a Graphic design day at Ayr College on Thursday 30 May. The day will be broken into two sessions, morning and afternoon, starting with a basic photography project and leading to an afternoon of experimentation in the latest Mac based creative digital manipulation techniques. The emphasis will be on a ‘fun’ and ‘creative‘ day using digital tools to produce striking and effective graphic designs that the pupils will be able to take home. The students are really looking forward to this.

Food Hygiene Certificate

A group of S3 pupils completed the “Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland Elementary Food Hygiene Certificate” course as part of their Intermediate 1 Hospitality Mrs Cumming in Home Economics. Well done to all students who completed the course.

Campus police officer

We are now delighted to have a campus police officer! PC John Hurren started with us after the Easter holiday.

Mr MacKenzie said of the appointment: “We are delighted to welcome PC Hurren to our staff. We have wanted a campus police officer for a long time and we were doubly delighted to find it was to be PC Hurren – one of the officers who has worked closely with the school, delivering assembly messages about subjects like Internet Safety and Knife Crime. The CPO will have a number of roles and he has his own ideas about ways to engage with our young people as the school develops its understanding of citizenship, rights and responsibilities and respect for our community. PC Hurren is also arranging regular visits to our associated primary schools. Campus cops have been established and successful partners of some Scottish schools for several years and we are really grateful to Police Scotland and our Council for bringing this post to Dalmellington”.

PC Hurren was warmly welcomed by pupils at year group assemblies on Friday 3 May. He said he was looking forward to working with them in classes and around the school and community.

In response to his appointment PC Hurran said: “I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to work with Doon Academy and the young people within the surrounding areas. I have spent a number of years serving the local community within the Doon Valley Community Policing Team which I have enjoyed immensely. In my new role I look forward to building positive relationships with all partner agencies and enhancing the opportunities available to the young people of the area. I bring with me not only experience as a member of Police Scotland but also experience from previous civilian and military employment; I hope I can use this previous experience to positively impact on the development of our young people”.

P.C. Hurran with some S1 pupils.

YipWorld Accolades

A number of students were recently rewarded at the annual YipWorld ‘Accolades’ ceremony at The Dumfries Arms Hotel in Cumnock. The pupil’s efforts were recognised for their participation in the Pulse recording studio programme (S1&2), Inspiring Scotland Programme (S3) and Employability Awards Scheme (S5).

A big thank you goes to Lynne and Laurence at YipWorld for their continued commitment to our pupils.

The pupils involved were: S1 & 2 pupils – Sophie White, Olivia McCutcheon, Stephanie Hamilton, Blair Buchanan, Josh Gibson, Liam Elder and Campbell Baird. S3 pupils – Samantha Halbert, Amy Johnstone, Paul Latto and Robbie Jones S5 pupils – Craig McInnes, Jim Wark and Zoe Gibson.

White Ribbon Campaign

The first of a series of ‘White Ribbon’ assemblies took place in the library recently during Masterclass time. Senior pupils were exposed to the realism of violence against women within society.

The presentation was conducted by Mr Kelly and excellently supported by Nathan Gilmore in S6 who attended an all-male seminar in March 2012 led by activist Professor Michael Kaufmann founder of the campaign.

Our new campus police office PC Hurran also provided an in depth analysis of police interventions in a domestic violence case. The presentation will now be rolled out across the rest of the school. Pictures will follow.

Mock Interview Programme

Preparations are already on-going for this year’s S4 mock interview programme. As part of the employability PSE provision, S4 pupils will learn about the application and interview process and have an opportunity to sample a ‘real life’ interview situation. As usual we will be working in partnership with Auchinleck and Cumnock Academies and Ayrshire Chambers. The programme will also supplement the annual work experience opportunity. The mock interviews will take place at the Aviator Suite Prestwick Airport on 1st October 2013.

SLC videos

S4-6 students from the Supported Learning Centre have been studying Media Studies Access 3 all year and as part of this they have been making their own movies from a given brief. The movies were filmed using stop-motion animation. The class made everything on their own from writing the story, making their own clay models, designing sets, filming and editing.

The ballad of big cat and poppa dog 

   

Alien V Dinosaur.

Barcelona Trip 2014

The June 2014 trip to Barcelona is currently being organised. During the trip students will experience the Spanish culture as well as visiting the Gaudi sights, Neu Camp, Las Ramblas, a water park and the Grand Prix circuit.
This trip is open to all pupils.

 If you are interested in going please see Miss Fuller for more information.

Catwalk Class

Miss Gibson in the PE department will be working with our fashion show models during Masterclass on Wednesday the 22nd of May. During the class she will be helping students with their walk and poses for the fashion show which will take place on Wednesday the 19th of June at 6.30pm in M&Co in Ayr. Tickets can be purchased from the school reception and are priced at £3.00.

Masterclass Open Afternoon

The Parental Involvement working group have decided to hold a Masterclass Open Day. This will be held on the afternoon of Wednesday 8th of May.

The aim is to allow parents to interact with staff and pupils in a more informal manner compared to parents’ evenings. Parents will be able to drop in and out of master classes to experience the excellent variety of activities we offer our pupils. Some pupils will be on hand to escort parents around the school.

Please contact Mr Richardson for more information.

Fashion Show

Students who are modelling for the school’s fashion show are getting the opportunity to go and see Ayr College’s annual Fashion Show dress rehearsal on the afternoon of the 12th of June. This will be a fantastic experience and it will help students with their catwalk moves and it will also give them first-hand experience of a real fashion show.

Young Enterprise Ayrshire Finals

On Thursday 25 April, 4 senior pupils attended the Young Enterprise Ayrshire Area Finals at The Park Hotel, Kilmarnock. Halle Fitzsimmons, Kirsty McCormick, Dylan Thirtle and Mark McLean accompanied Mrs Allen and Mr Mackenzie to the event run by the Young Enterprise Ayrshire Area Board. The night was a great success and everyone enjoyed the opportunity of seeing 9 schools from Ayrshire competing in the Company Programme finals. This programme will run in Doon Academy from next year and the 4 budding entrepreneurs were inspired by the talent from Ayrshire, in particular, the winning team from Belmont Academy.
 

Sporting Stars

Ryan McCreath in S2 and Rory Parker in S3 have both been selected to play for the Ayrshire U-14 Cricket Team. Ryan presently plays for Prestwick CC.

Mark McAllister in S1 is currently the European Under 18s Pool champion.
Congratulations and well done!

Visitor from NASA

Nagin Cox is a NASA scientist who worked on the Mars Rover expeditions. She addressed the audience of P7 pupils from Bellsbank, Littlemill, Dalmellington and Patna primary schools, and pupils from the Doon Academy’s Astronomy Master Class. The P7 pupils have been attending the academy as part of their transition project which is focused on astronomy and the local Dark Skies Observatory.

Nagin Cox described how she progressed from the US Navy to working on robots with the space agency, NASA. Her photographs of the Mars Rover expeditions captured the excitement of the NASA scientists and engineers as their years of planning culminated in the successful landing on Mars.
 The pictures transmitted by the wheeled robot showed the incredible details of the Mars landscape and evidence of the relatively recent existence of streams of clean water.

 Pupils were able to ask questions of Nagin about her career, space exploration and the prospects of life in distant planets. A show of hands at the end indicated that pupils are interested in following careers in Science and Engineering and one pupil asked about the challenges of working in the multi-national, multi-lingual team at the NASA control centre.

 Mr MacKenzie, head teacher, said the talk had been inspiring. Astronomy and curricular subjects such as the Sciences, Technologies, Maths, Languages and Social Subjects will offer even greater great opportunities for pupils to follow in Nagin Cox’s footsteps in the coming decades.

Blackpool Trip

The annual trip to Blackpool will take place on Tuesday the 18th of June. If you have not already done so then please pay the remainder of your balance and return your form to Mrs Paterson. Without this you will not be allowed to take part in the trip.

Primary CPD

Primary staff from Patna, St Xaviers, Damellington and Bellsbank took part in a textile painting course which was organised and delivered by Miss Fuller in the Art and Design department. Staff were able to experiment will fabric paint and come up with a unique t-shirt design based on the Scottish Dark Skies Observatory. Miss Fuller was delighted with the turnout of staff and the quality of work produced. Primary staff will now deliver this unit of work to their pupils.

The work produced will then be modelled at the primary 7 “Celebration of Success” day at Doon Academy in June.

Student Teachers

Both pupils and staff are delighted to have our two student teachers back for their final 5 week placement; Rowena Murdoch student teacher of Art and Design and Rebecca Gibson student teacher of PE. We wish them both an enjoyable placement.