Cathy astonished the girls by telling them she has published over 30 books so far and has many more in the pipeline. Cathy told the girls that they all have potential to write, “Nobody has your imagination — you are all unique and you all have something to write about!” she advised the pupils. “The first story I ever got published was one I wrote when I was only 17 – but it took me a long time to have the confidence to send it off to publishers”.

Cathy engaged pupils in a game to show how great their imaginations are. She started a short, spooky story and pupils came up with alternative endings, each one more frightening than the last!

As the girls took advantage of a Question and Answer session, it was clear just how popular Cathy’s books were with Craigholme pupils. Lots of girls took the chance to snap up her latest novel, Out of the Depths and left the library reading it already! Thanks to Cathy’s inspiring session with pupils, the girls have started writing their own spooky stories and are planning on entering a writing competition. 

The pupils were staying with Craigholme families for the duration of their stay in Scotland, and it was a great opportunity for our girls to meet pupils from South America.

The Argentinian Choir took to the stage in a joint concert with the Craigholme Choirs at Sherbrooke St Gilbert’s Church, and parents and pupils alike were overwhelmed with the variety of music performed that evening.

Not letting jet lag get in their way, St Andrew’s School Choir were ready to perform again the following day in a special lunchtime concert for pupils in the school. It was truly inspiring to watch the whole community come together to support our visitors, with pupils, staff, parents and former pupils coming to watch the performance.

As our Argentinian guests leave to go on to Liverpool, Oxford and the Vatican City, we hope we will stay in touch and meet again in the future.

A gallery of pictures is available on Parent Area.

St Andrew's School Choir and Craigholme Junior Choirs

During their classes in the Senior School, J7 have been investigating what ingredients to use to make both tasty and healthy biscuits for their classmates, with Mrs Taylor’s guidance. The tasting judges were Mrs Stobo, Mrs Smart and Mrs Caplan, and they had a tough choice to make!

The judges were amazed at the variety of biscuits on offer, from Beth Moffat’s ‘The Only Way is Essence’ creation to Merryn Hill’s ‘Milky Dream’ and Elle Bryce’s ‘Sweet Dreams’ — there was something for everyone’s tastes.

However, there could only be one winner and the judges opted for Kimberly Murray’s ‘Munchies Crunchies’. These will be on sale to Craigholme pupils in The Hub, congratulations Kimberly!

Our Chinese theme began at assembly where Mrs Stobo held a Skype call with a former Craigholme family, the Wallaces, who now live in Shanghai. The Wallace girls told everyone at assembly how school life was different in Shanghai – from the structure of the school day, to the food they eat for lunch.

Pupils from J6, J7 and S1 also took part in a Chinese Cultural Day. This event was made up of a series of  workshops that centred around an aspect of Chinese culture. The workshops included Mandarin, traditional music, Tai Chi, Chinese calligraphy, authentic Chinese food and tea tasting, and making Chinese lanterns.

The Cultural Day was a huge success, with over 100 pupils and parents joining in the workshops. Mr Donnelly, Head of Music, co-ordinated the event. “Being part of a diverse and exciting community as Craigholme is, it is important pupils understand as many aspects of a variety of cultures as possible. We teach the girls to be tolerant, inclusive and respectful and there is no better way to do that than to have an authentic taste of the culture they are learning about. China is especially close to our hearts as our Senior Choir toured China last year, and we also have links with Fengtang School in Beijing.”

A gallery of photographs from the Chinese Cultural Day is available on Parent Area.

On Thursday the 19th of January 2012, J7 interviewed Mr and Mrs Williams at a special news conference in the J7 news room to find out all about their jobs as Editor and Copy Sub-Editor of the Scottish Daily Mail.

Alice Williams, the chairperson of the conference, introduced J7 to Mr and Mrs Williams, and the conference began by Mr Williams explaining what his average day was like as Editor. Usually, in the morning, Mr Williams would decide which news stories to put into that day’s newspaper. There would be a conference at lunchtime, and then the journalists would start working on their articles at about 4pm. Mr Williams finishes work at 8:30pm, and the newspaper is usually finished by 11pm.

Mrs Williams, however, has a very different job. She checks the articles for spelling and punctuation mistakes and writes the captions and headlines.  She enjoys her job but commented that “being a reporter is much more exciting”.

Mr Williams said that the most challenging thing he has ever done in the newspaper business is a 32 page supplement when Princess Dianna died. He had to have it finished in 8 hours and had to work 12–15 hour days for a whole week!

Mr and Mrs Williams have met quite a few famous people in their jobs, including the Queen, various Prime Ministers, Alex Salmond and Rod Stewart.

Chris Williams enjoys being the Editor. He usually has 40 letters to read every day, 50 phone calls and 100 emails. Mrs Williams enjoys being the copy sub editor but says, “It is like doing a crossword — you have to make sure that everything fits into spaces; there can’t be a missing space!”

Mr and Mrs Williams both really enjoy their jobs, and they like the satisfaction they get when an article or a newspaper is completed. J7 really enjoyed learning about the jobs of an Editor and a Copy Sub-Editor.

The Murdoch Room was packed with pupils wanting to hear how Susan took her business idea from her kitchen to the aisles of Waitrose in less than 18 months. Susan described how she took her first business steps when she was made redundant after many years working in the banking industry. She decided to see if she could sell her homemade chilli condiment at a Farmer’s Market in Silverburn. “I sold out of everything in less than 3 hours,” recalls Susan, “I knew then there must be something special about my product!”

 
After becoming part of Scotland Food and Drink, Susan made an application to attend a ‘Meet the Buyer’ event with Waitrose. “It was so nerve-wracking, I felt like I was on Dragon’s Den!” says Susan. This was a pivotal meeting for Susan as Waitrose were so impressed with Simply Add Chilli that they agreed to stock it in all their Scottish stores. The chilli condiment has attracted such high sales in its first three months on the shelves, that Waitrose are now looking to stock it in all its UK stores.

Susan truly is an inspiration as she not only produces her food product by hand — using locally sourced ingredients at all times — she also designs the labels, creates recipes, updates her website and markets her product throughout Scotland. Her next steps are to look into outsourcing production to cope with higher volume sales and to begin exporting Simply Add Chilli to the USA. 

Looking back over how far she has come in the past 18 months, Susan is extremely proud of her unique, high quality product, Simply Add Chilli, and has no desire to return to the banking industry. “It is amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it — anything is possible!”

Anyone passing St Andrew’s Drive on Friday would have seen some strange sights; duvets being dragged out of cars, S6 pupils clutching teddy bears, and lots and lots of onesies. It could only mean one thing – another Craigholme Charity Day, of course!

The theme for the second Charity Day of the school year was Lazy Day, and pupils (and staff!) looked out their cosiest, most relaxing clothes and pyjamas to dress up for the day. Pupils were raising money for our charity of the year, Cash for Kids, and there were plenty of fun, money-raising activities during the day.

S6 pupils entertained the school with a lunchtime quiz, featuring two teams of Craigholme teachers, eager to show off their general knowledge. Thanks to a couple of Music-themed quiz rounds, the Red team, had the edge with Mr Donnelly leading his team to victory.

In total, pupils raised over £700 for Cash for Kids and the Charities Committee thank everyone who participated in the Lazy Day. But for today, it’s back to school uniform!

This year we want Team Craigholme to be bigger (and faster) than ever so it is essential that all participants come along to the Running Club on Tuesdays after school, where Miss Mathieson will be working on stamina training and building up to the 10k distance.

You can now register online for the race. When registering, you need to use the following details to be part of Team Craigholme:

Team name: Craigholme School
Team number: 11

Also, note we are registered as a ‘Community Team’.  If you have any questions, please contact Miss Mathieson. We will see you at the next Running Club session.

Hannah worked in Kern Matriculation School in Madurai, which is located in the south of India. “The school was an independent school, like Craigholme”, Hannah told the school at assembly, “although it wasn’t a girls’ school. I worked in classes from Kindergarten to Standard IX (S4). The school was very American – all the textbooks were American and the children sometimes spoke with an American accent!”

For Hannah, the highlight of her experience was learning about Indian culture. ”I always knew it would be different from home, but it was amazing to find out more about the way the culture works. When I was there, I went with my host family to an engagement party, and I learnt so much about the custom of arranged marriages. Also, it was interesting to see the differences between men and women – I didn’t speak often to the father of my host family, as it would not have been appropriate in Indian culture.”

Hannah was also struck by the level of poverty in Madurai. “There would often be a wealthy home built, then right next to it, a shack with piles of rubbish on the street. Things we take for granted were unbelievable luxuries in Madurai – for example, even affluent families with large houses would not have a shower.”

The whole trip was one which Hannah loved and she hopes it will be useful experience later in life. She is planning on studying Biology at university, then completing a teaching degree so she can use the skills she gained on her volunteer project in the future.

The girls said farewell to the whole school with a presentation at the last assembly of term, where they summarised all they had learnt and loved about Scotland.

Shimene spoke about how excited she had been to come to Scotland: ‘I jumped at the chance of participating in this exchange programme and I have loved my time here. My highlight was visiting the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and seeing all the amazing portraits and paintings. We also went to a couple of ceilidhs — we’ve never been to anything like that before, they were great, but exhausting!’

Jamie hopes to stay in touch with everyone she has met in Glasgow. She said ‘I’ll miss the families and friends we’ve met here. Everyone has been so welcoming; it’s going to be sad to leave them.’

Fintona Girls’ School in Melbourne have exchange programmes to various places, including Indonesia, Japan, Canada and France. Jamie and Shimene opted for the Scottish exchange, and they couldn’t be happier with their choice, with Jamie adding ‘I hope to come back here soon! It’s so great being here – I can’t believe it snowed!’ 

Sianna Campbell and Laura Robbie will be going to Melbourne in July to complete their part in the exchange. We hope Jamie and Shimene have loved their time at Craigholme and will stay in touch.

Shimene and Jamie on Houses Day