S1 Christmas Card Design 2012

All S1 pupils created a Christmas Card in Art & Design before three finalists were chosen from each class. This excellent selection was then passed to the Senior Leadership Team who chose three winners.

This year’s lucky winners were Murray Fisher, Craig Haggart and Asha Mullen. Over 100 of the winners’ cards were sent by Mrs MacKinnon all over Edinburgh and beyond. All finalists’ designs will be on display in the foyer over the festive period. “Happy Christmas!” from Art & Design and all of our talented S1 artists!

How Could Our School Be Made Even More Eco-Friendly?

At the Eco Committee at Currie Community High School, we were recently given a massive grant of £3,500 by Parents in Partnership to spend however we thought best to help make our school more eco-friendly. Rather than coming up with ideas by ourselves, we ran a scheme within the school where we asked pupils and teachers to make suggestions as to how they thought the money would best be spent. At a recent eco meeting, we discussed all the responses we received and decided which suggestions were most appropriate, taking into consideration our overall budget and what could realistically be achieved. We had some excellent responses, and have decided to use many of them. Some such ideas included:

• Large stickers encouraging people to dispose of their litter properly, designed by pupils to be stuck onto school litter bins, as suggested by Gemma King (S6) with the S2 JASS Litter Group.
• Native wildflowers planted in Roley’s Wood to create a wetland area to encourage local wildlife, an idea brought forward by EDGE Explorer Scouts.
• Two or three A0-size posters depicting eco-themed artwork to be professionally printed onto boards and presented as a permanent display in the school foyer, a suggestion made by Mrs Steel and her Art and Design pupils.
• A simple automatic watering system to be installed in the school greenhouse so that plants don’t die over the holidays. This would mean we could grow more fruit, vegetables and other plants in the greenhouse, an idea of Rachel Avery, Environment Project Worker.

There were many other interesting suggestions made, too numerous to mention in this article. After deciding which ideas we’re going to go for, we still have around £400 available to spend on eco-related projects. If anyone within the school has any further suggestions on how they would like to see the remaining budget spent, they shouldn’t hesitate to approach anyone from the Eco Committee to share their ideas – they will be considered in a future meeting. We are particularly keen to hear about projects related to our 3 main Eco-School topics for action: Litter, Food & the Environment and Global Citizenship.

If anyone is interested in finding out more about what the Eco Committee has been up to in the school, there are full details available on our regularly updated blog, at www.currieco.blogspot.com.


Hanne-Lisbeth Paterson, Eco Committee member, S5.

Guys and Dolls

This year, Currie Community High School presented “Guys and Dolls”! The show was performed by our pupils in the School Hall on Monday, 10, Tuesday, 11 and Wednesday, 12 December 2012. Guys and Dolls is set in New York in the 1950s and centres around four main characters – Sky Masterson, Sarah Brown, Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide. From Gamblers, to the Mission Band, the characters come from all walks of life – the high jinks they led us through was highly entertaining!

Our team had worked on putting this show together since October and it truly was a Whole School Enterprise. S1 – S6 pupils were seen on the stage and the design teams and technical crew benefited from the experience of senior students as well as those in S1 and S2 coming up through the ranks. Technologies, Expressive Arts, Social Subjects, Health and Wellbeing were just some of the School Faculties involved in the preparation of this show for your enjoyment. #Mulveysays – Hope you enjoyed the Show!

Fair Trade Group

This term the Fair Trade group has been very active in promoting Fair Trade snacks in school at our popular tuckshop on Fridays at break. Pupils are encouraged to actively choose to buy Fair Trade to support small producers in the developing world but it’s not just altruism, the products really do taste extra special!

The group has also been serving Fair Trade tea, coffee and snacks at various community events and are willing to do this for community groups and so promote Fair Trade in the wider community .

This term the funds that we raise will be put towards the fees for the four pupils that the school sponsors at Chogoria High School, our partner school in Kenya.

S2 Modern Studies Quiz

A group of CCHS pupils recently participated in the annual S2 Modern Studies quiz at Boroughmuir High School. Well done to Annie Nicol, Ruth Waring, Olivia McBride, Eilidh Grubb and Morven McIntyre who performed brilliantly and were narrowly pipped to the winning trophy by a strong Gillespie’s team. The team had to answer questions ranging from global terrorism to chart music! They were excellent ambassadors for the school and the Social Subjects Faculty.

Pupil-run anti-litter campaign for next term

Currie High has entered a City of Edinburgh Council anti-litter initiative for High Schools. The project will start with assemblies about litter and its impact by the environmental organisation Changeworks. Two S2 English classes will have the opportunity to work with a professional media company to ‘story board’ a litter campaign video and develop a whole-school campaign targeting littering. A group of pupils with the best storyboard will work with the media company to actually create their film idea.

The Eco-Committee has developed a survey on litter for pupils that will be used before and after the campaign to see how effective it has been in changing behaviour. If Currie High’s film and other campaign materials are judged to be the best of all the High Schools involved, they will be used by the Council for a city-wide campaign. Watch this space ………..

S3 Theatre in Education Project

A few weeks ago Mrs Mulvey set the S3 Drama class the challenge of producing a piece that would educate the pupils of Juniper Green Primary about Bullying.

We had to think carefully about each element of the drama so that we could send a clear message to the audience. Despite our careful preparations, we were still very nervous when it came to the big day. Performing to an audience of strangers was not quite the same as performing in the safety of the drama studio, but still a very exciting experience from which we all benefited.

Our initial fears soon faded and the performance went smoothly. The audience seem to have enjoyed it too which was a great relief. Performing to a live audience was very interesting, but a lot easier than I imagined. I thought that having all eyes on me would be scary but, in fact, I almost forgot they were there. They were so quiet and focused, which was another good sign.

At the end of the performance the audience asked us questions, some of which we answered in character. Although not all of the questions asked were relevant, a lot of them were very well thought out. The audience seemed to have learned a lot from the production, which was the perfect end to the whole experience. We have definitely benefited from it as we now know that performing isn’t so scary after all!

Katie Brown 3H3

Edinburgh’s Children & Families Achievement Awards

Woodlands and Currie Community High Schools were nominated in the C&F Achievement Awards for 2012 and as such pupils and staff from both schools were in attendance at the event. This was held at the Assembly Rooms on Wednesday, 21 November and organisations from all over Edinburgh discovered if their initiative was the one to win this year. Congratulations go to all pupils and staff from both schools on this prestigious nomination, based on all the excellent work carried out to improve relationships between the two schools, which is continuing via the S6 Pupils at CCHS and both Pupil Councils this session. Unfortunately, the joint project did not win in the “Partnership Working” category but CCHS pupils’ and staff’s contribution to the Woodlands fashion show – hosted at CCHS earlier in the year with CCHS pupils as models and helpers – did help the Woodlands pupils and staff win in the “Developing Initiative” category. Well done indeed to Woodlands on this fantastic achievement!

Anne Frank Exhibition and Holocaust Memorial Day

Currie is hosting the travelling exhibition, ‘Anne Frank; A History for Today’, from January 14-25 2013. This exhibition tells the story of Anne Frank, from her birth in 1929 through to her death in Bergen—Belsen in 1945. The broader history of the Holocaust is interwoven through the exhibition, giving the audience a context in which to place the events in Anne’s life. The experiences of various communities during the Nazi era - persecution, the loss of democracy, violence, prejudice, fear and isolation - provide a powerful backdrop for addressing important and relevant contemporary issues in Scotland and the wider world today. A group of 16 S2 pupils will be trained as exhibition guides.

The exhibition coincides with Holocaust Memorial Day which is on 27 January 2013. The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day is ‘Building Bridges - Communities Together’. We are constructing a ‘bridge’ in the school which will serve as the entrance to the Anne Frank Exhibition. Pupils, staff and members of the community are invited to write on a ‘brick’ their wishes for our community. These ‘bricks’ will comprise the ‘bridge’.

Musics Grade Exam success

Congratulations on the following pupils for their fantastic successes in their music grade exams.


Andie Caldwell – violin, grade 3
Lauren Davies – violin, grade 4
Isla Dracup – violin, grade 2
Tanya Fakhoury, piano, grade 2
Cameron Finlayson, violin, grade 3
Eileen Hulse, violin, grade 6
Katherine MacFarlane, violin, grade 5
Sam McGaff, violin, grade 3
Jenny Park, cello, grade 2
Eilidh Saville, cello, grade 2
Euan Stewar,. cello, grade 4