News from Lockerbie Academy - Thursday 4 March 2010

Stock Market Challenge On-Line Game

Stock Market Challenge is an on-line educational game that will help you to develop a range of skills in Business education and Applied Mathematics. The game is played in teams of 2/3 and is aimed at 14-18 year olds.

During the game the teams take on the role of stockbrokers buying and selling company shares and foreign exchange on-line just like the professional brokers do on trading floors/offices in cities all around the world. All teams start with £50,000 to invest and the team with the highest value of investments at the end of the game is the winner.

Anyone interested should contact Mrs Bell in Business Studies.

Fairtrade Fortnight Continues

Krishnan Sainathan – Cotton Producer

Krishnan Sainathan (known as Sai) lives in Bangalore and has worked for Agrocel Industries Ltd, based at Bangalore in Karnataka, south India. For the last three years he has been managing the organic Fairtrade cotton project in three states in south India. This involves organising small-scale farmers into functioning farmers associations to help them improve production methods and meet organic and Fairtrade standards so that they can increase their incomes by accessing higher value markets. Krishnan’s work includes spreading the Fairtrade philosophy and encouraging pride in farming, particularly to younger farmers many of whom drift to the cities, disillusioned with the status and financial prospects of farming.

Sai came to Lockerbie Academy on Friday 26 February and gave a talk to all S4 Geography students as well as S4 Science and S5 and S6 Business Management. He demonstrated how cotton is made and had some examples of cotton from the crop to Fairtrade cotton products that can be purchased in the shops. He encouraged the students to look at the labels and always try to buy Fairtrade products.

Sai was accompanied by Dan Morey from the Fairtrade Foundation who also gave a presentation to all pupils regarding the big swap and how they can make a difference.

Pupils in S4 Geography prepared and sent thank you letters to both Sai and Dan. You can visit Sai's blog on http://sainathan.wordpress.com

The Finance and Enterprise group are selling Kilombero rice from Malawi at £2.75 per kilo.

The purpose of this enterprise activity is to educate a secondary pupil in Malawi for one year. This costs £230

Morrison Vouchers

Morrison vouchers were collected by the school and the parents and items purchased have now arrived in school. “The Counters of Vouchers” the S3 Lifeskills group are shown with some of the equipment which hopefully will be very useful in the new school garden. Equipment includes 2 barrows, 1 propagator, 1 cloche and 3 kneeling pads and gloves

Lockerbie Gala and ROM 2010-03-01

Last week third year girls who live in Lockerbie or within a 4 mile radius of Lockerbie, put nominations in for this years Gala Queen.

German Student in School

Susan Rüther, a student from Essen University, will be completing a five week placement in the region from Monday 22 February until Friday 26 March. She will be working in the Modern Languages Faculty here and at Annan Academy. Susan will be at Lockerbie Academy on Mondays and Fridays. We would like to extend a warm welcome to her and we hope that she enjoys her time with us.

Regional Schools Squash Competition

At a recent squash competition, held at Lockerbie Squash Courts, schools from all over the region took part in the chance to be crowned Dumfries and Galloway Schools Champion. Four of the six competitors came from Lockerbie Academy. It was a good night for Lockerbie Academy claiming 2nd Martin Crolla and 3rd Callum Robson. Also Cameron Farish and Robert Macgregor took part doing Lockerbie Academy proud.

Dates for the Diary