Tag: Craigroyston Community High School

Poverty and inequality – the fight goes on

conference1Writer and commentator Owen Jones was the keynote speaker at the recent Anti-Poverty Conference held at Craigroyston Community High School.

Introduced by MSP Kezia Dugdale as ‘someone who tells it as it is’, Owen Jones didn’t disappoint. His hard-hitting speech covered the Thatcher years, the demonization of benefits claimants and some of the myths surrounding poverty. He also addressed the oft-repeated notion that ‘we’re all in this together’:

“It’s just nonsense – it’s still boom time for the people at the top. Look at the Sunday Times Rich List – the wealth of those at the top went up by nearly a fifth last year. There are tax cuts for the rich from this government of millionaires. But for the rest, living standards are declining at their fastest rate since my gran was born in the early 1920s. A Save the Children study has found that more and more parents are having to decide between heating their homes and eating, and many are skipping meals to allow their children to eat. School meals are being cut, breakfast clubs being closed. We’re the seventh richest country on Earth but we can no longer afford to feed our poorest children? It’s a disgraceful onslaught on people who are being made to pay for a crisis that was not of their making, that had nothing to do with them whatsoever. That’s the reality of Cameron’s Britain – a shame on this government and on this country”.

He concluded: “We won’t get change through the generosity and goodwill of the people at the top – the way we get change is by forcing our demands on those at the top, force them to listen. We must rally round a coherent alternative that gives people hope – we’ve got to give a voice to those who will otherwise be airbrushed out of existence. If we can do that we can not only take on this government and austerity, we can also lay the foundations of a new Britain, a new Scotland. We stand together, we fight together and we will win this together.”

Around seventy people attended the conference, which was organised by North Edinburgh Fights Back, STUC and Edinburgh Trades Union Council. The event offered a good mixture of speakers, workshops and information stalls and while numbers were down on the first year – mainly due to a similar event being held in the city centre – organisers were satisfied with the day’s programme.

North Edinburgh Fights Back’s Barbara Robertson said: “Thanks to everyone for attending and helping to make the second Anti-Poverty conference so successful. It is so worthwhile to get together in this fight against poverty and inequality”.

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Try fitness for free

Personal trainers Claire Adams and James Hepburn are running weekly Energize fitness sessions at Craigroyston High School and are now offering local people the opportunity to try a session for free.
Claire explained:
We are holding a FREE taster evening on 30 January from 7-8.30pm.
“We implement a weekly class at Craigroyston High School on Wednesday evenings at 7pm. Participants arrive 20 mins prior to the class commencing and they are weighed, this includes Weight, Body fat and hydration levels. On a weekly basis  they receive nutritional information on a vast array of topics to help aid with diet and nutrition. Furthermore they have a 60 minute exercise class which is tailored to all levels of fitness and abilities.
“We believe we are offering a very valuable business in the local community to help educate on the importance of regular exercise and healthy eating and we offer participants ongoing support.”
A free fitness session – what have you got to lose, but weight?

Pass marks for city schools

A report to the city council’s Education, Children and Families Committee sets out how Edinburgh Schools have been performing in the last year – and the report shows that, in the majority of indicators, city schools are performing above the national average.

Changes of note include improvements for some of the lowest achieving pupils, who have made considerable improvement over the last three years to within one per cent of the national performance level. Overall evaluation of improvements in early years level have been classified as ‘very good’ and there has been an improvement in Maths and English by the end of S4 which now sits above the national average.  This clearly demonstrates the impact a renewed focus on employability skills is having.

Across the board there has been significant improvement in PE by the end of S4 which can be linked to Health and Wellbeing education under the Curriculum for Excellence and the 2 hours of quality PE prescribed by it.  In Higher exams, there has been very good performance across the city in English, Mathematics, French, Physics, Computing and German.

High Schools that achieved very good examination results include The Royal High School, Boroughmuir HS, Currie HS, Firrhill HS, James Gillespie’s HS and St Thomas of Aquin’s, with significant improvements having been made at Craigroyston HS and Wester Hailes Education Centre.

Councillor Paul Godzik, Education, Children and Families Convener said, “I would like to congratulate schools for their continued improvement, the report shows how much is being achieved across the city. It’s clear from this report that some schools are making significant improvements and I would like to congratulate them for that.  We will be looking to all our schools and continuing to work closely with them to ensure the upward trend continues.”

ROYAL HIGH very good results
ROYAL HIGH very good results

Top speakers lined up for Craigroyston conference

There are still places available at Saturday’s Anti-Poverty conference at Craigroyston Community High School, and organisers are dleighted with the varied programme of speakers and workshops lined up for the event.
North Edinburgh Fights Back’s Willie Black (pictured above) is one of the conference organisers, and he’s looking forward to a day of debate and discussion with some great speakers lined up.
” We’re delighted that Owen Jones, author of ‘Chavs: The demonisation of the  Working Class’, has agreed to speak at the conference – he recently appeared on BBC’s ‘Question Time and his attendance at Craigroyston is a real coup for us.
“Kezia Dugdale MSP will be speaking about her motion to parliament on pay day loans. It’s coming up for Christmas when money is even more tight, so this will be a topical contribution!”
Food is another topical issue in North Edinburgh – dare I say a ‘hot potato’?
Willie went on: “Mike Small from Fife Diet will be telling the conference about community  gardening, food co-ops and allotments in Fife – how they got started and are now such an influential movement. He will be giving us some ideas to possibly take  forward an ‘Edinburgh Diet’.
“This is especially important as our local Co-op – near the  school where we are holding the conference – is about to be closed. It is the only  place to buy fresh fruit and veg for miles. North Edinburgh Fights Back held a well supported petition and campaign stall outside the Co-op in Pennywell Road today (Wednesday) and people coming out of the shop and passing were shocked that the only large store within walking distance is to be closed. Many petition sheets were filled, and we will be raising this at the conference on Saturday.”
“Andy Wightman, author of ‘Who Owns Scotland’ and ‘The Poor have no  Lawyers’ and who appeared as the expert on land ownership in the documentary  ‘You’ve Been Trumped’ will be speaking to the conference about land ownership  and the rights to common land that are being legislated against by the  government. This legislation could result in local communities having the right to use land for their own use and plans. Locally selling the available land on the foreshore with planning permission to an off shore property company for just over 2 million instead of its original price of 40 million pounds will mean even less democratic control over what is built in our local area. we are not the only community facing this question of how land is bought and sold over our heads.”
Another ‘hot’ topic is fuel prices and fuel poverty. The conference has got this covered too:
“The Edinburgh Tenants’ Federation will be holding a workshop on  fuel  poverty and housing. They are having a ‘Warm-In’ at the east end  of Princes Street at 5pm this Thursday (29 November) to highlight the  horrendous effect that the rise in fuel prices will have on those who are  already struggling to pay their bills and eat (and buy Christmas presents). Latest figures for fuel poverty are to announced tomorrow and the action is part of many protests across Britain.”
So a lot of issues, and a lot to debate – the conference takes place at Craigroyston Community High School this Saturday from 10am – 4pm. See flyer below for details of how to register:

Read all about it – top author praises Craigie ‘illustrauthors’!

A group of Craigroyston Community High School students have been working with top author John Fardell over the autumn term. With John’s guidance the S2’s have produced their own story books, and the Edinburgh-based writer was full of praise for the students’ efforts when he attended his final session last week. 

John spent his last session with the class looking at the students’ books – and he was delighted with what he read. He told students: “There is an incredible variety here – there are some amazing ideas and wonderful stories. I really do hope that you will keep writing.”

John was initially invited to Craigroyston by the school librarian Desmond Spiers, who explained: “The group of 16 pupils have literacy problems and during S1 they were targeted for extra support using a Literacy Programme called ‘SRA’, which is a reading support programme. Rather than having the work done with the pupils as a ‘stand-alone’ programme we wanted to embed and extend their work and progress with something outside the normal remit of the curriculum.

In 2006 and 2007 we had a very successful project with the author Keith Gray working in school for a year as our ‘Writer in Residence’ and we decided we would like to do something similar with this group of pupils when they entered S2 in August – this time we would have a writer in for a term. John Fardell was recommended to us by colleagues in other schools – he is both a writer and illustrator, having published a range of picture books and fiction books for older children and he has also contributed regularly to the adult comic Viz.”

Desmond continued: “John worked with the pupils for five sessions over the Autumn Term, talking to the pupils about how he gets his ideas for stories, how he goes about constructing a plot and then writing a story. He’s explained how pictures tell a story, along with lots of hints and tips for the pupils. He has also brought in and shown the pupils examples of work in progress from the first rough ideas and drafts to the finished book.

“John’s visits have been funded by the ‘Live Literature’ programme at Scottish Book Trust, who pay half of the costs with the school paying the remainder. This project has also been encouraged and supported by Education Advisors in Support for Learning, English and Literacy.”

In between John’s visits the pupils worked in class writing their own short stories which were then bound into books, and their creations were presented to the author at John’s final session on 8 November.

Every single book received positive comments and there was helpful feedback for each writer – among the comments:

‘Nice simple uncomplicated style’ 

‘Great use of white space – makes the pictures stand out’ 

‘Great work – go for what you find interesting’ 

‘Very striking – fine story and excellent design’ 

‘Wild, psychedelic colours and a really, really good fantasy story’

‘Lovely ideas on themes of friendship – wonderful illustrations’

 ‘Great first sentence for a story and mixes text and pictures really well’

 ‘Very original, with some fantastic cartoon baddies. A good fun, exciting story’

 ‘Nicely laid out – excellent mix of excitement and humour’ 

‘Very dark, bleak opening but you can start a story like that. Great atmosphere’ 

‘Nice use of wild lettering and curly writing, sort of Pop Art collage. Unique style’

‘Really good use of illustration, unique and personal’

‘Nice style with fluffy thought bubbles – I really like the diary format’

‘A collection of poetry with a contents page – some lovely contrasts here’.

In short, John was impressed!

Summing up, he told the students: “It’s great that these 17 books are all so wonderfully different. They are all very individual and that makes them unique and exciting books. I know you have all worked really, really hard and you should be very proud of what you have achieved. Keep your drawer full of rough ideas – you have shown a real talent, fantastic”.

John clearly possesses an infectious enthusiasm for books and 13-year-old Keiran Blackie was particularly inspired by working with the author. “John was brilliant to work with – he gave us lots of helpful tips and ideas and he was also very funny sometimes! My book is called The Best Accident and the idea for it came while I was watching the Paralympics on television. It took me around seven weeks from start to finish – I enjoyed writing it and I do like the way it looks now it’s finished. I’ve tried to write before but this is the first time I’ve really succeeded, and it has given me confidence – I think I will hopefully do another one.”

Teachers Margaret Beveridge and Eric Freund did the majority of the classwork with the pupils, and both were full of praise for John. They said: “He helped reinforce lessons already undertaken with the students, fired their imagination and left a body of work that we can build upon and extend over the coming months. We hope we can repeat this excellent project again next year.”

Swim and you’re winning at Craigroyston!

Young people from Muirhouse Youth Development Group and Craigroyston Community High School will be making a mighty splash when they take part in a 24 hour sponsored swim next week.

The 24 hour Swimathon – which starts at 9am next Thursday (1 November)  – has been organised to raise funds to support CCHS’s extra-curricular and outdoor activities programme, including Duke of Edinburgh expeditions and residential fields trips. These excursions will be staffed by a qualified team of youth workers from MYDG and MYadventure (MYDG’s social enterprise arm), who are experienced in supporting the needs of young people and regularly deliver high quality and professional level training and activities.

The money raised during the swimathon will be spilt – 50% will go to school funds to support and subsidise trips, excursions and outdoor activities while the remainder will go to MYDG to support the core programme, which includes lunchtime activities and youth hubs.

The November event has largely been organised by a group of Craigroyston sixth year pupils who are also active participants at MYDG.

During the duration of the Swimathon Craigroyston’s swimming pool will not be unoccupied for a full 24 hours – staff, pupils and volunteers have all be drafted in and recruited to either swim or be a lifeguard!

The Swimathon begins at 9am on Thursday and will run (swim?) until 9am on Friday!

MYadventure and CCHS invite you to pledge a donation towards their worthwhile cause: you can sponsor by visiting http://www.justgiving.com/24hourswimathon

or by texting CCHS 67 to 70070 with the amount you wish to donate, e.g to donate £10 text CCHS 67 £10 to 70070

Seconds out – campaigners gear up for round two of community conference

Community campaigners have announced that the second Anti-Poverty Conference will be held in Craigroyston Community High School on 1 December. It’s hoped that the latest event will build on the achievements of last year’s conference, and will target the Scottish Parliament this time round.

North Edinburgh Fights Back’s Willie Black (pictured above) explained: “Last autumn over 140 community and anti-poverty campaigners met in Edinburgh to discuss and act in a unified way demanding action against poverty. One of the conference’s aims was to build an anti-poverty Charter and to this end the Charter was presented to the City of Edinburgh Council and was adopted by them. The second Anti-Poverty Conference will broaden our demands towards the Scottish Parliament. Those who live in poverty and are fighting back against this poverty need a voice more than ever.”

The conference is being run in conjunction with the Scottish Trade Union Congress, the Edinburgh TUC, North Edinburgh Fights Back and a host of other anti-poverty campaigners across Scotland. Among the keynote speakers invited to address the conference are Owen Jones, the Poverty Alliance, Child Poverty Action Group, North Edinburgh Women’s International Group, the Fuel Poverty Action Group and leading Trade unionists.

Speakers will be followed by workshops and a Question Time session. Details have still to be confirmed, so keep an eye on the NEN blog for updated information – a draft programme is attached, but this is for guidance only and is subject to change:

 

 

Let’s hear it for … local apples!

Pilton Community Health Project’s Food for Thought Forum will be celebrating the humble apple at a free event at Craigroyston Community High School later this month.

The Food for Thought Forum invite you to ‘A celebration of local apples (and pumpkins!)’ on Friday 19 October from 10am – midday at Craigroyston Community High School, Pennywell Road

Everyone’s invited to:

  • Bring and share your apple recipes
  • Bring a clean empty jar and fill it with fresh apple jelly
  • Children’s apple activities!
  • Tasters
  • Cooking demonstrations (including pumpkin soup)
  • Information about food activities and groups in the area

Who’s got the best apple recipe in North Edinburgh?

Cook your favourite apple dish, bring it along and enter the great apple competition! Everyone gets to be a judge and there will be a brilliant prize for the winner!

For more information call Anita on 551 1671.