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On Saturday 25th February, the Marr Sports Leaders were successful in securing £1000 to run their own community project at the ‘Troon Locality Decides’ Participatory Budget Event. Three members of the class, Euan Rhodes, Eilidh McDonald and Brooke Buchanan presented their Marr Summer Sports Camp project idea to a packed Walker Hall. Strictly limited to a two-minute slot (enforced by the 30-seconds-to-go buzzer), they produced an informative and dynamic performance, delivered with confidence and eloquence. The investors, local community and fellow presenters all responded with praise, encouragement and excitement for the project. The Marr Summer Sports Camp will offer all prospective Marr students from P6&7 the opportunity of a 4-day sports camp (10am-2pm) with the main aim of supporting a smooth transition into S1 at Marr College. A Marr College summer camp for students, led by students. Now they have secured the funding, major planning is underway…so….please watch this space for more information to follow on what will be a very exciting project. Congratulations to the Sports Leaders. Our pupils progress throughout the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme was recently recognised by South Ayrshire Council. All pupils who were collected an award this year, whether it was bronze, silver of gold, were invited to a reception held at the Princes Royal Suite, Ayr racecourse on 22nd February. Our very own Jennifer McArthur gave an inspiring speech about her experiences over the past few years, completing all the challenges the DofE Award threw at her. As you can see from the images we have a high number of pupils participating in the award here at Marr College. The Troon Times ran an article on this event, which you can read here. We have a group of senior students who are hoping to win big with their rocket design. They are taking part in The Great STEM UK Youth Rocketry Challenge 2017.
Details of their progress can be found on their blog. We wish them the very best for success at Prestwick Internation Airport in March and hope their rocket flies and lands the egg safely. Marr College had 3 representatives at the Scottish Schools Indoor Athletics Championships on the 1st and 2nd February at the Emirates Arena.
Jaime Hood, 4W, reached the final of the Over 16 Girls 300m finishing in 4th place. On route to the final Jaime won her heat and semi-final. Daniel Martin, 5W1, reached the semi-final of the Over 16 Boys 400m and Matilda Press 3F reached the semi-final of the Under 16 Girls 200m. Well done to all our athletes who competed. We are very proud of our rising football star, Innes Cameron (S5). The 16 year old striker has been playing youth football with Kilmarnock under 17’s and at the start of December 2016 he got the call every young footballer dreams of: Kille gaffer, Lee Clark, asked him to step up and train with the Kilmarnock FC first team. He was then chosen to be a part of the first team squad, as a substitute, throughout December 2016. He was a substitute for games against Dundee, Aberdeen, Hearts and Patrick Thistle, and then during the game against St Johnstone he got his first big break. It was during a substitute change in the 70th minute of the premiership game, that he was told to leave the bench and get on the field. He partnered former internationalist Kris Boyd up front against St Johnstone at Killie’s home ground Rugby Park. What an achievement! When asked how it felt he said “It was a surreal and amazing experience”. Well done again Innes. We are all very proud of you here at Marr. S1 and S2 students have made fantastic progress with their interdisciplinary projects this term.
The theme has been all about rollercoasters and theme parks and they have been learning about the science of rollercoasters and how this affects their design – including vital safety considerations. Key group activities in the project so far have involved:
Their knowledge and skills have been challenged considerably in the design and construction of model paper rollercoasters, with marbles acting as the car – with some fantastic outcomes thanks to teamwork which have more than exceeded the teachers’ initial expectations. @MarrPhysics tweeted “Amazing paper rollercoasters - what a fantastic construction job! Their operation is even more impressive than their appearance :-) #STEM” – this has been shared, liked and retweeted by schools across the country, the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre and Douglas Hutchison, South Ayrshire’s Director of Education. The models have also been showcased to senior students S4-S6 who were very impressed and also jealous – “They’re great. Why didn’t we get to do this in S2?” Next term, the students will be busy coding simulators and heart rate monitors using the Scratch programming language, and preparing a marketing campaign for their rollercoaster to win the contract to build it in a theme park. Community Litter Pick on Friday 16th December
On Friday afternoon, the S3 Marr College John Muir Award pupils, alongside staff Mrs L Cleland (Principal Teacher of RMPS) and Mrs J Cooper (Principal Teacher Guidance) participated in the first community litter pick. They were helped by Fiona Kennedy, Morag Mathieson, Harry Richards and Val Hughes who are all members of the volunteer group Friends of Fullarton. The litter pick was organised as a joint venture to raise awareness of the Clean Up Scotland campaign and also to tackle problematic areas of litter in the areas around the school. In the afternoon, more than 20 bags of rubbish were collected from the area of Wallacefield Road, Brown Avenue, Logan Drive and the path leading from the school into these streets. Pupils worked extremely well to complete this to a very high standard and it was nice to receive some positive comments from members of the public about our first community event. Well done to everyone who volunteered! Dr Spencer's Higher class were treated to a Christmas Lecture on Tuesday 20th December from James, a P6 pupil from Struthers Primary School.
James had built a gravity simulator using tarpaulin to demonstrate how large masses like the Sun warp space, and showed how this warping causes the planets to orbit around the larger mass. The Sun was a bowling ball and the planets were marbles! The Higher students were blown away by how advanced James's knowledge of gravity was, and also in how confident he was in his delivery of his fantastic demonstration. We look forward to welcoming James when he begins his transition to Marr next session, and we will be fueling his enthusiasm and curiosity in Physics in our fantastic new labs in our new building when he gets here. The Royal Institute's Christmas Lectures will be broadcast on BBC Four at 8pm on 26, 27 and 28 December – let's see if they are as good as the Marr College Christmas Lecture. At the recent Scottish National Short Course Swimming Championship a pupil at Marr, Lucy Grieve, broke the national 50 metre butterfly record for her age. She swam a time of 28.92 seconds taking an impressive 0.4 of a second off the previous record.
Lucy also beat her own West District 100 metre butterfly record taking 2 seconds off her previous record! Well done Lucy! Institute of Chartered Accounting for England and Wales (ICAEW) BASE Challenge
Last week 6 of our S5 and S6 students competed in the ICAEW Business, Accounting and Skills Education (BASE) Challenge. They travelled from Troon to Celtic Park to take part in the Glasgow Heat. This involved working on a complex business scenario based on a digital media company – the group had to complete a SWOT analysis for the business and analyse their financial information in order to make informed proposals to the Board. There was also an ethical dilemma for them to consider. The group then presented their findings and proposals to the panel of judges, competitors and other industry experts in the room. Although the group did not win the heat, they were commended by judges for the structure of their presentation and the way they had delegated tasks. They worked closely with an industry expert from Glasgow University who praised the group for their teamwork, time management skills and for playing to their strengths. Students also attended a networking session and employer exhibition giving them the chance to ask questions about different entry routes into the accounting profession (graduate schemes, school leaver programmes, apprenticeships, university/paid work placement hybrid schemes etc.) and the different types of jobs it could direct you in to. Companies represented included: EY, KPMG, PWC, Deloitte, Sky, Morgan Stanley, ICAEW, University of Glasgow, RSM, Mary’s Meals and Fraud Consultants. Well done to the group who got a lot from the event: Sandy Morgan, Craig Allen, Leah Cree, Kimberly Morrison, Chloe Spence and Erin Barbour. |
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