Miss Owens, our librarian, was over the moon earlier this week when she awarded Isla her first Read Woke South Ayrshire badge.  Isla has achieved this badge by reading four books on the South Ayrshire Read Woke list, she also read across multiple platforms, utilising the South Ayrshire eBook app Libby in the process. .  All 17 books can be discovered here www.readwokesouthayrshire.co.uk.  They have been chosen by library staff across the authority for their representation of minority characters, dealing with a social injustice, and raising awareness of various social issues. 

Pupils will receive a badge as a reward for reading and reviewing any four books and then another badge when they read eight books.  Isla is the very first person at Marr to receive her badge, even beating Miss Owens who has only read 3 books!!  Isla said that her favourite book so far was Boy Everywhere by A.M Dassu, who just happened to respond via twitter.  

We are excited to launch a new page on the school site.  

Marr Hockey

On this page you can find minutes from the Marr Hockey Support Group which is ran by parents and supports all out hockey players and teams. There will also be any important announcements as well as all the good news stories about our hockey teams. Please do check it out. 
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We are delighted to announce that our S6 School Captains and Vice-Captains for session 2019-20 are:
 
Captains:             Olivia Burnham  and  Calum Inglis
 
Vice-Captains:   Rosie Tudor  and  Logan Cotter
 
In total 12 candidates were interviewed from the initial 24 applicants, which shows that there is significant leadership potential within our new S6.  Sincere thanks to interview panel members Mrs Duncan, Ms Law, Mr Simpson and Mrs Young.  Our house captains will be announced in due course.

Last week one of our pupils Callum played in the Sportability Boccia Competition at the Inverclyde centre for Sports in Largs.  Whilst there he met two former pupils of Marr who are now players for the national team BocciaUK, Jamie and Scott McGowan. Callum played 4 games and won them all, coming home with a medal and an invitation to the 2018 West of Scotland Schools Boccia Competition.

Today, 25th Sept, Callum attended that competition at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow and come back with a silver medal in his category, physical disability A2.  A huge well done to Callum from all at Marr for taking part and bringing back the medals.

On Friday 22nd June, four of our pupils attend the Grand Final of Linguachef 2018 and came home as the winners! The team consisted of four excellent chefs and were in competition against the following national finalists : Paisley Grammar, Larbert High school and St Machar Academy.
They presented  and cooked their Albondigas recipe to William McCurrach OBE, Curriculum Head at City of Glasgow College, Zoltan Szabo, twice Scottish chef of the year award and executive Head Chef of Blythswood Square and Fhiona Mackay ,Director of SCILT and CISS.
Here is the judging criteria:

• Effective communication (fluency, accuracy, clarity, pronunciation in the target language, Spanish in their case)
• Creativity within the recipe
• Attractive presentation of recipe
• Appropriate and accurate culinary vocabulary  

They worked as a team in the professional kitchen and produced an absolute stunning dish, with amazing flavour! They were able to discuss the wide range of vocabulary they had acquired in the process of creating this recipe and the cooking skills they had gained.
Fantastic performance and a huge well done to all involved!

S3 Physics students took part in the Ashfield Music Festival in May, rounding off their learning experience after a successful year in Physics.

Ashfield Music Festival is one day off-timetable activity – hosted in our Learning Plaza - in which learners develop skills in enterprise and learn how physics applies in the context of setting up a music festival by taking on one of six roles: project manager, health and safety advisor, construction manager, electrical engineer, sound engineer or lighting engineer. 

They are supported by real-life scientists – referred to as “experts” – and must use a mixture of physics-based knowledge, creativity and skills associated with enterprise in order to win the contract to build the main stage.
We were lucky to have the support of six great STEM Ambassadors from Glaxo-Smith-Kline, the University of Glasgow, Kvaerner- and it was a delight to welcome back Chloe Elliot, a former student and final years Honours student at Heriot-Watt University.

In the morning, the students worked together to organise the music festival, with each of them needing the support of each other to complete their tasks.  They were supported by the Experts throughout this considerable challenge.  In the afternoon, the Experts became Judges, and the teams had to pitch to the panel in a bid to win the contract to host their festival.

This was the youngest year group that Dr Spencer had run the event with, but they rose to the challenge and produced excellent work and very impressive presentations.

In the end, Team CC Ltd with their Rock Valley festival impressed the judges the most, and were presented with their winners’ certificates and prizes at the end of the day.  Congratulations to Jamie, Lawson, Joshua, Josh, Harry and Calum.

The students said that really enjoyed the day and while they found it very challenging, they were proud to rise to the challenge and succeed.  They liked being off-timetable for the day to work on an extended task, and it made them aware of the role that physics plays in organising a music festival!  The STEM Ambassadors said that they really enjoyed the event and felt that the students got a lot out of the day.  They said they were impressed with the pupils – they were well-behaved, very engaged and a credit to Marr College. Below is the winning poster to advertise the winning music festival.