Category: Pupil Achievements

24th November 202025th November 2020

Light the North

In 2021, Light the North will shine a light across the north-east, Moray, Orkney and Shetland with over 45 lighthouses designed and created by some of the most talented artists across the UK and beyond continuing the region’s cultural revolution. https://www.lightthenorth.co.uk/

“CLAN has been a lifeline for people affected by cancer by giving telephone support, counselling sessions and introducing online services since the outbreak. CLAN continues to be a shining light of hope, reassurance and support for people affected by cancer.”

“We want to thank everyone for their support of the lighthouse trail, and we can’t wait to shine a light on the north-east and Northern Isles with our sculptures next year!”

The Little Lights Education Programme

Working with local schools

The Little Lights Education programme links to the Curriculum for Excellence with all participating schools being provided with a creative learning resource pack for teachers. The pack contains a programme of study designed to complement teaching of numerous subjects including; the history and development of lighthouses; a link to the sea e.g renewables and wider energy sector, maritime; cell biology and personal resilience; physical health and emotional wellbeing.

The trail

“The Education Programme will culminate in a trail of 0.8 meter tall lighthouses, designed and decorated by schools, being displayed at indoor locations throughout the city. With the support of the business community, the Little Lights Education Programme will enable 50 schools to immerse themselves in learning about the symbol of our city across a variety of subjects.” https://www.lightthenorth.co.uk/education-programme/

In order to take part in this exciting Little Lights Education Programme, we at Aberdeen Grammar have been fortunate enough to have been chosen and partnered with Mearns & Gill, “the longest-standing creative marketing agency in Scotland”. Without their sponsorship and support this would not have been possible. https://www.mearns-gill.com/

“Cancer has sadly touched the lives of both students and teachers in our school and we feel this is a poignant opportunity to raise awareness of the effects that cancer can have on families and communities, particularly in the North East. The Art Department along with the Guidance Department would like to help support this good cause by creating a little lighthouse which highlights/underpins the importance of strong emotional support during difficult times. To promote engagement and contributions on a broader scale, we would additionally like students in our S2 classes, to create mini individual lighthouses to exhibit and promote positive emotional well-being.” Aberdeen Grammar School Art Department

Our School Proposal

Our CLAN little lighthouse has been a collaboration from all of the S2 Art & Design pupils; who have been exploring found objects from our local coastline. Through careful observation, they have created and selected their strongest individual pieces, that in combination, will adorn our little lighthouse along with messages of hope.

In addition to decorating our very own little lighthouse (provided by CLAN) S2 students have created individual tiny lighthouses inspired by different landscape artists, featuring different landscapes from our local area. They have aimed to capture their emotions through their use of colour and mark making. Some tiny lighthouses portray solace and hope, whilst some also reflect life’s turbulent times.

With seashore inspired drawings, local Scottish landscape inspired painting sculptures and messages of hope, all of our S2 students are creating works that support the importance of this educational programme, particularly in building personal resilience; physical health and emotional well-being.

Individual drawings of ‘seashore finds’ by our S2 students, ready to apply to our CLAN Little Lighthouse.

Fantastic skill, refined detail and much care have gone into each drawing for the Little Lighthouse.

Preparation paintings underpin the decorative expressive tiny lighthouse structures that the S2 students will be embarking on.

16th November 202016th November 2020

Colours November 2020

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we recognise that our S6 pupils have not had the opportunity to demonstrate progress from the Silver colours award to gold standard. In order that our young people are not disadvantaged, we have reviewed and amended the system for Gold awards for this session.

S6 pupils who have already achieved a Silver award in their activity may self-nominate using the appropriate application form. We have included the criteria for Gold colours below together with some examples of the standard required to achieve Gold Colours.

We also recognise that some of our pupils missed the opportunity to apply for Bronze colours in May. Pupils in S4-S6 who did not apply for Bronze colours in May, can do so in this round. Those who were unsuccessful in May, cannot reapply.

Our young people have not had the opportunity to demonstrate participation in citizenship events since March. However, we are aware that some pupils have demonstrated good citizenship within the community during these months. We are, therefore, giving pupils in S4-S6 the opportunity to self-nominate for Citizenship colours. Any application will have to be verified by an external party. Applicants will be notified of the process for this once they have submitted their application.

All applications will be carefully considered and a final decision will be made by the Colours Committee (comprising of myself, staff representatives and Senior Prefects).

More detailed information can be found in the presentation below.

In summary, this month (November) self-nomination applications are being accepted for:

Gold colours from S6 pupils
Bronze colours for those pupils who missed the process in May. Those who were unsuccessful in their application in May cannot apply again.
Citizenship colours – pupils who have participated in a community project or supported the community in some way during the period of lockdown.

Applications open on Friday 20^th November. Deadline for applications to be submitted is Sunday, 29^th November.

Late applications will not be accepted.The decision of the Colours Committee will be final.

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5th June 20195th June 2019

Rampaging Chariots Robotic Games 2019

On Saturday 1^st of June four AGS Young Engineers travelled down to Edinburgh to compete in this year’s Scottish Robotic Games. The pupils did extremely well for their first completion and came four out of forty robots in one element of the competition and into the quarter finals of another. They did themselves and the school proud.

This event was hosted by Leonardo, Crewe Toll, Edinburgh. Leonardo is one of the UK’s leading aerospace companies and one of biggest suppliers of defence and security equipment to the UK MoD. The pupils were given a tour of the factory where they are producing the most up-to-date radar systems.

The Rampaging Chariot is a powerful, radio controlled featherweight sporting robot that is used by schools and youth groups to compete in a tournament to determine the Robotic Games Champion. It is a project aimed at interesting young people in engineering organised by the Rampaging Chariots Guild.

The pupils received the robot as a free kit and the team had to build it and test it (this takes about 12 hours work). Pupils can then design unique bodywork and think of ideas to improve its performance.

Schools Young Engineer & Scientist Clubs and Air Cadet teams battle it out in Football, Sumo, Assault Course and Tug-of-War for the Scottish Grand Champion trophy.

This engineering challenge can teach: