School Based Police Officer
Our school based Police Officer, PC Tony Harkin, has now been in post since August, and has become a familiar face to most of our pupils. PC Harkin spends a considerable time in school interacting with pupils in a proactive, positive manner. He has taken PSE classes on the qualities of good citizenship, whilst highlighting the dangers of alcohol, substance abuse, knives, etc. Pupils relate particularly well to this, because it is an operational Police Officer with first hand experience discussing these problems. PC Harkin also takes part in work with pupils eg in the Activate project, and links with our associated Primary schools as well. PC Harkin is primarily in school to build good working relationships between the Police and young people, and not to discipline pupils, which remains the duty of the school. Obviously, the school based PC is always an operational Police officer, and consequently manifest breaches of the law will be dealt with appropriately eg substance abuse, assault, vandalism, etc. These would always have resulted in the Police being contacted, but with an officer on site, the matter is always dealt with immediately.


Tony Harkin
School Nurse
Our former school nurse, Ms Astrid Gibson, moved to a new post in June. Our new school nurse, Ms Maria Mann, took up post in November, and is now fully operational in school. Nurse Mann will be involved in delivering health awareness to pupils through input to PSE teaching, as well as operating a drop-in service for pupils who may have health concerns. This general drop-in facility, which was provided by our previous school nurses, is likely to be extended as part of a wider Ayrshire initiative. It is proposed that our school nurse will offer a wider response to student sexual health issues, including pregnancy and Chlamydia testing, as well as providing advice on contraception, when requested. These latter services will only be offered to pupils who self refer to the drop-in facility and not to the pupil population in general.

Maria Mann
Fire Service School Liaison officer
The school also has the benefit of a fire service school liaison officer, Mr Paul Baker. Mr Baker is not based in school, but has regularly visited the school since taking up this liaison post in October, usually speaking to pupils on subjects relating to fire safety. This appointment stems from an initiative being piloted in North Ayrshire schools. Pupils have found these classes very interesting, since they normally involve multi-media presentation with relevance to their own circumstances. Increasing pupil responsibility in this fundamental safety area is a very important aim indeed.

Paul Baker

Posters, photographs and videos
The school has provided a considerable number of subject display boards throughout the school, which will display good examples of pupil work. Some of this might involve photographs of pupils engaged in department activities eg carrying out and experiment, working in a workshop or writing in a class group. We also intend having video clips of pupils involved in good school activities, showing on an in-house TV system in various areas of the school. Additionally, we will continue to show pupil activities on our school website. These photographs will always be taken with the knowledge of the pupils involved, but if there is any reason why you would not wish your son/daughter to appear in photographs or videos in any school based activity, please let me know and I will ensure that this does not happen. We wish to portray pupils and the good work they produce in the best light possible to as many people as possible, but we particularly wish this to be done with the approval of the pupils and parents/carers involved.

Past Papers
In preparation for prelims and final examinations, pupils often seek out past paper questions to practice their knowledge and skills on. This is excellent preparation, so you may wish to note that the SQA wesbite allows the free download of, not only past exam papers, but also making instructions. The marking instructions give answers and details of how marks are allocated, which students should find very helpful in assisting their studies. The SQA website can be reached at www.sqa.org.uk Thereupon follow the link for Services for Learners. The SQA exam timetable, and much more useful information can also be found on this site.
Students and parents may also care to note that SQA Past Papers are also available, free of charge, from local libraries.

Building Works
Anyone who has visited the school over the past few weeks will have observed that it is almost totally surrounded in scaffolding. The programme of window replacement in S-block was completed by mid-November, with tremendous improvements being experienced and observed all round. Classrooms are noticeably much warmer. The window replacement programme for A-block is about half way through and should be completed by the end of January. All windows in T-block and other areas of the school were replaced in 2005.
Work on fitting lifts to the buildings to allow disabled access to all areas will commence soon. T-block and A-block will each have a totally new lift shaft constructed to allow access to all floors. S-block will have the existing service lift upgraded to bring it up to the same standard as those in the other blocks. This work will bring some unavoidable disruption to adjacent classrooms, which will be temporarily re-housed until the work is completed.

Rubik Cube Champion
In November, Breandan McElhill (S6) once again confirmed his position as the British champion rubik cube solver at the national championships in Birmingham. Breandan’s average time for solution of a normal “three by three” rubik cube was 10.3 seconds, timed over five solutions. This is a staggering feat of mental agility which the rest of us can only look at and wonder how anyone can think so fast. Breandan also won the five by five and seven by seven competitions. (Don’t even think about these unless you want a serious headache.)
Congratulations to Breandan and his amazing, unique skills.

Sports Tops
I would like to thank pupils and their parents for continuing to support the school dress code. This has moved a long way since I first wrote about such matters in 1993 and has become the accepted norm for Garnock Academy. We have, however, made a small concession to pupils, allowing them to wear sports tops in PE, which allows some freedom of expression without hindering the excellent work being carried out there. However, it is important that all sports tops are removed after PE, and not worn under school sweatshirts with the collar sticking out showing football colours, or even as a track suit top. Abuse of this privilege will lead to confrontation with other teachers, and possibly pupils, and cannot be allowed. So if you want to keep this privilege at PE, make sure all sports wear goes back in your bag and replaced by your normal school wear.

Last Post
This year, on 11th November (Remembrance Day), the whole school had a two minute silence at 11.00am whilst Jennifer Locke (S6) played the last post on her trumpet, in the back playground. This sounded very haunting as the sound echoed between the buildings, and gave the event an added layer of solemnity, which pupils and staff very much appreciated. We will almost certainly repeat this presentation in future.

School Events
Pupils in school have been incredibly busy over the past term planning and carrying out varied and interesting activities and events. To give a flavour of some of these, they are listed in no particular order: Halloween Discos, A Question of Sport Subjects, Strictly Come Dancing, Champions League, team sports events, lunch time sports events, band events, choir events, Art excursions, music events in the community, supported study, Christmas concert, fantasy football league, prelims, Xmas factor (talent competition), collections for charities, poppy sales, House Charity events, Young Musician of the Year event, Olympics Day for S2, S1-S2 Christmas Party, Prefects & Staff Ceilidh, Church service on the last day, and so on. And attending classes and trying to do their best.