Twenty three students set off early on Friday to travel to London for the annual House of Lords Chamber debate. Boroughmuir represented Scotland’s schools in this years’ debate The debate motion was “How do we increase diversity in Parliament?” Arriving at King’s Cross off the 7.30 from Waverley, we got to the Houses of Parliament just in time to get final briefings and coaching on debating style, voice projection in the chamber. The debate was chaired by the Lord Speaker, one Baroness D’Souza, and lasted for almost two hours hearing a range of opinion from schools in London, Belfast and Manchester and Humanist, faith groups, post-faith groups and from the girl-guiding organisation. Described by the Lord Speaker as “one of the best chamber debates there had been”, it was viewed by all from Boroughmuir as a highly valuable experience. Only Storm Des spoiled things somewhat when the power lines on the East Coast were blown down and our arrival home was delayed by a couple of hours. Well done to everyone and remember, Boroughmuir Debating Club is there for you to benefit from the skill of speech and argument. All welcome!

You can view the video of the debate using this link here.

S6/7 pupils from Bruntsfield, South Morningside and Buckstone primary schools visited the Computing Science department to participate in the Global initiative ‘Hour Of Code’.

TEDx Bruntsfield is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. With a star lineup sharing experiences across a spectrum of topics it promises to be an amazing event.

Tickets are limited to 100.

And as a bonus, we are running an IGNITE lightning set of talks immediately after, which is run exclusively by the senior pupils at Boroughmuir.

TEDx Bruntsfield is now open for tickets!  Open link for more information.

What a dreich and dreary day it turned out to be at a wind swept and damp Hillend. For a few hours beforehand the howling gales could have put a stop to the morning’s race events !!! But lady luck was with us, and our three teams stormed the Boyd Anderson Race this year with 1st place to the Girl’s team, 1st place to the Boy’s team and 1st place to the fabulous Trophy Team.
A lot of happy racers indeed, and a well deserved mention to man of the ski match, Sam , who did two fabulous runs. He was storming he was 😊

Well done to all the racers, they thoroughly deserved it.

Thanks
Cheryl

Congratulations to a team of our S5/S6 pupils who yesterday won the East of Scotland heat in the BASE (Business, Accounting and Skills Education) competition.

Consisting of 49 UK heats and one National Final, BASE allows students of all abilities to; find out more about careers in accountancy, finance and business, compete in an exciting business challenge and network with professionals at a dedicated employer exhibition.

From the students point of view –

We sent a team of five of our S5/6, students to attend a heat at the Pollock Halls at Edinburgh University on 1 December 2015. It should have been six but we only had five as one team member was ill on the day so we had to work a bit harder than everyone else. We were able to put our Business Management and lots of other classroom learning into practice by acting as a team of ICAEW Chartered Accountants for the day. Supported by a professional mentor from the Royal Bank of Scotland, we were presented with a variety of business issues.

We had to provide innovative recommendations for the business. We had to analyse a huge amount of information and statistics on a business that had been offered a new contract. We had to arrive at a recommendation on whether to accept this new contract or not.

The judges said they were impressed with our team work, analytical skills, delegation and our natural style of delivery in front of a very large audience of accountants, schools and teachers. We were all a bit nervous but managed to do our best.

After presenting our advice to a panel of highly respected judges (and much to our delight) we were told we were the team with the best overall performance. There were lots of other good Edinburgh, Aberdeen and east coast schools competing. George Watsons were runners up. But we were crowned regional winners, given a trophy, and photos were taken. We are delighted to say that we have secured a place to compete against all 49 winning teams at the UK National Final in Birmingham in June. This could mean an overnight stay in a hotel and a winners ball.. And who could say no to that? We’ll keep you posted on how we do!

 On Tuesday 24^th November 2015 Historic Scotland in conjunction with the Scottish Government bestowed a commemorative plaque to the Scottish poet Sorley MacLean to recognise the national and international importance of his work and life.

Sorley MacLean taught at Boroughmuir from 1939 – 1940. He then enlisted to the army but was injured in 1942 and returned to teach at Boroughmuir from 1943 – 1956.

He was promoted to Principal Teacher of English in 1947.

He left Boroughmuir in 1956 to become Head Teacher at Plockton High school, a post which he held until his retirement in 1972.

Sorley died in 1996 aged 86.

We held a wonderful  ceremony at the front door of the school for the unveiling of the plaque by 2 of our pupils, Iona  and Amy.

Members of Sorley’s family, members of the Sorley MacLean trust, Gaelic Scholars as well as friends, local councillors, FPs, members of the parent council, PTA and our own pupil council were all in attendance.

Pupils from the Advanced Higher Drama class read extracts from Sorley’s poem ‘Hallaig’,(in English!) and 2 of our pipers, Callum Downie and Lewis McLellan assisted in the ceremony by playing some rousing tunes!

The plaque is available for all to see just to the left of the front door of the school.

Well done to the school swimming team of 2015 –Sophie, Jess, Stuart, Anna, Jenny, Rebecca, Alexandra, Mia, Isabella and Ellen. The swimmers competed against the very best swimmers from all schools in Edinburgh and did the school and themselves proud with a fantastic medal haul and relay result!   (Apologies if any results missed as some of the results have not uploaded yet on the swimming website and it was a very busy day with a  lot of swimmers!)

Well done to everyone and special mention to medal winners – 9 individual medals and 4 Relay team medals from a team of 10 !

Ellen winning Silver in 100 Backstroke for 12-13years and Bronze in 12-13 200 Backstroke

Jenny  winning Bronze in 200 Breastroke 12-13 years and 4^th place in 100 Breastroke 12-13 yrs.

Mia  gaining 4^th in 200 IM 14-15 yrs. Relay Silver

Sophie  winning Gold in 200 Freestyle and Bronze in 100 Breastroke  14- 15 years , Relay Silver

Jess  winning Bronze in 100 Butterfly and Bronze in 200 Butterfly , Relay Silver

Anna  coming 5^th in 200 backstroke 14-15 years ,Relay Silver

Stuart   winning Silver in 200 Backstroke and Bronze in 100 Backstroke in 16-18 yrs.

Alexandra coming  4^th in 100 Freetsyle and 5^th in 200 Backstroke in 12-13 yrs.

And special congratulations to the fantastic 14-15 years Girls relay team- Jess , Mia , Anna  and Sophie  winning a Silver medal in the Relay competition beating Watsons and St George’s and narrowly missing Gold to Mary Erskine by 3 seconds!  Jess  had a great 1^st leg with team fighting for medal place throughout with a great finish leg by Sophie coming in Silver position !  Well done to the whole team .

The 12-13 relay Girls team- Alexandra, Jenny, Ellen and    Isabella also swim exceptionally well coming in  5^th place

The team were a credit to the school

F. Damen

Congratulations to Jess  and Alisa who took part in the first round of the Donald Dewar Memorial Debating tournament on Thursday 19^th November at Clifton Hall School. The girls gave a very strong performance and were successful in winning the debate against Clifton Hall. They will now progress to the second round of the tournament which will be held in the New Year.