Category Archives: Secondary

Enterprising work going on in our various secondary schools.

News, Ross High

NASA Astronaut Visit – Ross High School

 

 Ross High School, along with Musselburgh Grammar School, was lucky enough to be nominated as a participating school in a series of Astronaut visits which took place across Scotland on Wednesday 19th September. 

This was part of the 20th Association of Space Explorers (ASE) Planetary Congress which was held in Scotland and involved over 90 astronauts visiting Scottish secondary schools.  Ross High was visited by Jeff Hoffman and David Leestma, both having been in space on a number of occasions.

The visit involved all S3, S5 and S6 pupils.  The astronauts took two sessions in the Assembly Hall – one for S3 and the other for S5/6.  These sessions involved a presentation by both gentlemen on their backgrounds and how they became NASA astronauts.  Both sessions ended with a question and answer session.  Pupils asked some very interesting questions including the much anticipated “How do you go to the toilet?” and “Have you ever seen an alien?”. 

In addition the Higher Physics class attended a session with Jeff and David.  With 20 pupils, this was much more informal and enabled the pupils to ask some very personal questions with regard to the experiences of our two visitors when they landed on the space station and also what happened to them when they landed back on Earth.

 The pupils involved really enjoyed the visit and many members of staff spoke about it for days afterwards.  It was almost overwhelming to actually speak to two men who had been in space!  

Mrs R Shuttleworth

PT Curriculum  (Work & Enterprise)

Ross High School  

Events, Secondary

Make It In Scotland 2007

Make it in Scotland is an opportunity offered by Careers Scotland for S2s to find out more about the Manufacturing Sector in Scotland and especially about the importance to that sector of pupils with science, maths and technology qualifications, before making their Subject Choices. As Careers Scotland wish to change to a new format, all Education Authorities in South East Scotland area were asked to nominate 1 school in their area to take part in a pilot of the new materials. The new materials were constructed as a new Career Box lesson S2, lesson 7, parts A and B, and may now be accessed by all schools. In February the lesson was delivered to the pilot classes by teachers and the Enterprise in Education Advisers.

 

In East Lothian the pilot school was North Berwick High and the winning team from this school attended the South East of Scotland Final at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh on March 28th. Here the team took part in several activities: building and directing a robot, creating and marketing a new product, finding out about careers in Manufacturing and giving a presentation of their findings about the Manufacturing Sector in Scotland. The North Berwick team used Rolls Royce as their case study, gave an excellent presentation and had an interesting and enjoyable day.

 

All teachers who took part in the pilot project were asked for feedback and their comments will be taken into account when the Make it in Scotland lesson and challenge are finalised. It is hoped to offer the opportunity to take part in Make it in Scotland to all S2 classes in the South East of Scotland in the period January to March 2008.

 

If you wish further information about Make it in Scotland please contact Dorothy Stewart, Enterprise in Education Adviser, Careers Scotland Centre, Musselburgh

E: dorothy.stewart@careers-scotland.org.uk

T: 0131 653 1032 (direct)/0131 665 3120 (centre)

News, Ross High, Secondary

HMIe Visit

1 Comment

It has been a very exciting day here at Ross High with a visit from Brian Stewart of HMIe.  Brian was in school to look at Enterprise approaches across the school.  He was involved in observing in classes, meeting with pupils and meeting with members of staff.

 

Brian was very impressed with what he saw at Ross High today and highlighted a number of things that I wanted to share with you all.  He was very impressed with the progress we were making with embedding enterprise within the curriculum and mentioned that we were a lot further down this road than many other schools.  Brian thought the good practice lunch was brilliant and is keen to share this activity with his colleagues.  He said the students were very positive about learning and teaching and that it was clear that enterprising approaches were taking place across the curriculum.  Pupils were also positive about the projects they had undertaken, especially the LEAPs Art project and Determined to Broadcast.  Brian was very interested in the S5/6 PSE programme, so much so that he wants to visit again!

 

Brian was also very impressed with the lessons that he observed and described them using the following words: really good, absolutely super, state of the art, slick, quality lesson.

 

We are all now really pleased with the feedback from this visit and will continue our efforts to embed enterprise through our learning and teaching approaches.

Rhona Shuttleworth Acting DHT Ross High School