Mountain Bike Renovation

S4 Enterprise: Harbour Lights have kindly donated their ex – hire bikes to the school. Four S4 boys spent two of the enterprise days working on them. The smaller bikes will be used for younger pupils in the school and the very small bikes have been passed on to Gairloch nursery. Thanks to Lewis Martin for coming in to help out.

Landscape Painting

‘Mind your own business’

Mr Hulme, Mrs Whall and Mrs Hildrey worked with S4 pupils on a presentation of a camping product for 2 days.  The climax was each team showing their bid to the whole of the school, in the multi-purpose hall.  We look forward to hearing what the results are next week…

Building a space rocket in the library… see also Library News

Drama

A guided walk around Scottish Natural Heritage, Kinlochewe.

On behalf of Gairloch High School, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to another varied and enjoyable week.

Jim Sutherland, Determined to Succeed June 2010

Shona, Harry and Gordon met our S3 pupils at Loch Maree to spend the day on activities at Slattadale.

The pupils made safe fires; toasted marshmallows; build a timer using drainpipes and a golf ball; developed their team-building; built a shelter (during a hail storm), made clay faces and followed a ‘night-line’.  Phew!

On Monday we welcomed back Paddy and his team of Royal Marines to Gairloch High School.  Despite rather ‘raw’ weather conditions everyone mucked in well and participated in a range of physical, problem solving and fun activities.  Swedish Longball and The Pudding Race seemed to go down well – to find out more ask anyone in S3!

Bike Skills with Mrs Johnston and ‘the Forestry’.

Photography with Mr Ellis.

‘Earth Walk’ with Mrs Newman.

Learning about flora and fauna with Scottish Natural Heritage.

A big thanks to all the session leaders who made this another great day for S2.

Graeme Morgan of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd. with S6 pupils from Gairloch High School.

Day two kicked off with a very informative session from Graeme Morgan of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd. Graeme discussed why businesses must consider the impact they have on the environment.  Pupils were then set the challenge of looking at how a mechanised car wash business could have an effect on the environment.

After a break for coffee and shortbread Dave Charnley came in to look with the pupils at running a successful business.  Dave started this session by asking the each of the groups to describe a hero figure.  Barack Obama, Sir Chris Hoy and Steve Irwin were chosen by the four groups – you can try to guess who was chosen twice!  Dave has a business of his own – Artisan Interior Designs, this includes installing bathroom suites.  The groups were each given a ‘blank toilet’ seat with which they had to come up with an innovative advertising presentation for a toilet seat.  Along with Dave the four presentations can be seen below:

After lunch the four teams became two and were given the task of producing a business plan for a bike hire company in the Gairloch, ‘Sheet 19 area’.  Each new team had to decide on a who was taking up the posts of : production; human resources; finance, marketing and of course …  management.

Keep an eye out, you might see this company for real one day!

Well done to the sixth year pupils who participated in this year’s business dynamics event.  Many thanks to all of the session leaders who contributed and a very big thanks to Sheena Matheson of business dynamics for putting together another superb two days for us at Gairloch High School.

Sheena Matheson, business dynamics & Dave Stewart, Highland Employers Coalition with Gairloch High School pupils.

Session leaders were treated to a stunning, but challenging drive up to The Myrtlebank Hotel, Gairloch to start this year’s business dynamcis event.  Dave Stewart of Highland Employers Coalition began with a session on management styles.

Over the next two days 20 of our sixth year pupils will participate in session on management; social enterprise, business & the environment and running a business.  At the end of the event each team of four pupils will present a business plan which draws together all of the above.

Paula Kirby of Cause & Effect Products can be seen below leading her session on innovation.

Working on the 'Innovation' session with Paula Kirby.

After lunch Lindsay Dunbar from HISEZ introduced the idea of social enterprise to the pupils.  This was nicely illustrated by a discussion on the three local examples of Two Lochs Radio, Laide Woodland and Good for Ewe.

Many thanks to business dynamics for making this great event possible once again.

Watch out for some photos of the event on this blog soon.

Gairloch High School, 7.00pm to 9.00pm, Friday the 20th of November.

All proceeds will go towards the Traidcraft charity.  £2 entry for adults, pay at the door – Tea/coffee included.  Children/pupils go free!

Informal musical entertainment from pupils.

A great opportunity to look at some different ideas for Christmas presents this year…

Two small groups of S3 and S5/S6 pupils have been involved in the preparation for this event.

Read below what they have worked on so far…

Traidcraft, by Gary & Kim:

Traidcraft was set up as a faith organisation in August 1979. Traidcraft helps people in poor countries like Africa.   We are buying Traidcraft food to help raise money for poor people. Traidcraft has lots of foods such as, coffee, different kinds of tea, and healthy snack bars called Geobars.   Traidcraft food is expensive but there’s a reason for that, because the people in the poor countries help make the food for us, but don’t always get the right amount of money for it, so we are helping them get the right amount of money.  We bought, double chocolate cookies, chocolate selections, instant chocolate drink, fairbrake wafers, divine milk chocolate, chocolate and mixed barriers Geobars, chocolate peanuts and milk chocolate beanies.   Kim’s favourite food is the double chocolate cookies and Gary’s favourite food was the chocolate selection.

Sometimes people ask why Fair Trade products are so expensive?  Here is some information from Wikipedia on Fair Trade by Max Mckerron:

Fair Trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as social and environmental standards.

Fair Trade’s strategic intent is to work with marginalized producers and workers in order to help them move towards economic self-sufficiency and stability. It also aims to allow them to become greater stakeholders in their own organisations, as well as play a wider role in international trade.

In 2008, Fair Trade certified sales amounted to approximately US $4.08 billion (€2.9 billion) worldwide, a 22% year-to-year increase.While this represents a tiny fraction of world trade in physical merchandise, fair trade products generally account for 1-20% of all sales in their product categories in Europe and North America. In June 2008, it was estimated that over 7.5 million producers and their families were benefiting from fair trade funded infrastructure, technical assistance and community development projects.