March Newsletter

Diary Dates

Parental
Engagement
Survey

School Music Concert Raises £700

This survey wants to investigate how schools across Highland are currently communicating with their parent forum.
We want to find out how we can communicate better with you and what information you would like communicated.
This short survey will take no longer than 10 minutes to complete and we hope the results from it will help us
increase effective engagement between schools and the home. We want to deliver improvements to the way in which
we communicate with parents in line with the requirements specified by parents themselves.
We want to assure you that your responses are completely anonymous. Anonymous answers are maintained and
cannot be traced back to the respondent. No personally identifiable information is captured unless you voluntarily offer
personal or contact information in any of the comment fields.
Thank you in advance for your time in completing this survey!

The talented musicians in Thurso High School recently held a concert! The acts included the Scottish Group, choir, String Quintet, THS Horrors, the Wind Band, and the Country Band, among many others. The wind band started the concert off with the juniors playing, and then the seniors. After the wind band, the Scottish group performed, playing a selection of traditional Scottish reels and jigs. The popular song group, THS Horrors, wowed the crowd with their singing and dancing skills. The Highland Dancers and the pipers showed their talent , along with Frances and Muir, who played their accordions. Calum Rosie performed as well, once singing and then on tuned percussion. One of the best acts was the country band called Patchwork, who did exceptionally well and were loved by the audience. The schools Rock Challenge also took to the stage, and were another favourite with their Jungle Book themed performance. The String Quintet performed My Heart Will Go On, from Titanic, and the choir staged their version of several songs, including Stand By Me, by Ben E. King. To conclude the night, the choir and Scottish group joined together to carry out their adaption of Touch The Sky, from the film Brave.

Thanks to the generosity of the public who attended the concert, around £700 was raised, from the entry tickets, raffle tickets and the donations for the refreshments. Thank you to all who went to see the performances, and a big well done to all who took to the stage. (See Photo ‘Concert’) Katie Reiss 3S5

Click here to access the survey.

Nationals
in a
Nutshell

S2 Pupil Rhianna
Wins Pushkin Prize

Rhianna Urquhart, 2S2, is one of the winners in this year’s Pushkin Prizes. 2012 marked the 25th anniversary of the competition. Run annually for S1 and S2 pupils across Scotland, and their equivalents in St Petersburg, Russia, entrants must submit a folio of three pieces of creative writing, and these are judged by some high profile writers and journalists. Rhianna is now looking forward to tak-ing part, along with the other nine Scot-tish winners, in the five-day creative writing course at the Arvon Foundation Writers' Centre at Moniack Mhor, near Inverness in May. In the past the win-ners have received encouragement and advice from writers such as Catherine MacPhail and Gerry Cambridge.

Click here for information on the new National courses.

House Points
Friday 22nd March 2013

Some of her work will was read out at the annual Rotary Speechmaking com-petition at the West Church in Thurso on Wednesday, March 13thc
The English department, indeed the whole school, congratulates Rhianna on her achievement and hope she has an enjoyable and creative time at Moniack.

Pushkin - Diary
Pushkin - Potter
Pushkin - Refugee

Brandon McPhee
Thurso High School's Own Musical Prodigy

Thurso High School 5th Year pupil Brandon McPhee recently won The National Association of Accordion and Fiddle Clubs (NAAFC) button box accordion championship held in Polmont near Falkirk on 2nd March. This was the open contest and not the junior competition! Brandon has been playing accordion since the age of ten and a half and was originally tutored by his granddad Donald and then his uncle Daniel. Currently studying Music, History, Hospitality and Maths at the High School Brandon is focused on a career in music. Bran-don was the 'starr' at last term's School Christmas Dances were his band „The Brandon McPhee Trio‟ took up residence for the S1 to S4 dances. So successful was Brandon‟s ap-pearance that his band (including Manson Grant and Robert Cameron) were quickly booked for the School‟s Burns Supper in January. Brandon performance and recording career to date was featured in both the Scottish Daily Mail and Daily Record and his exploits made front page of the Caithness Courier as well as appearing on BBC Radio Scotland‟s „Call Kaye‟ programme. Brandon is an extremely popular student with both staff and pupils and we all wish him well in his future career. We shall all be watching with interest, enthusiasm and encouragement.

Harlem Shake
Thurso High School Edition!

Well done Thurso Gymnasts!

Having qualified for the National final of Rock Challenge in Dundee there is a mad dash to raise the cash needed to fund this event with a bus needing to be chartered for two days and an overnight stay for around sixty individuals. The cost therefore running well into four figures! What better way of raising money than by having fun? The staff involved decided to organise and film a “Harlem Shake” copying the current Youtube phenomenon. Our very own version of the Harlem Shake raised £80 to-wards the cost of the trip. Thank you to all who participated.  Any money raised through site hits will of course go towards the cost of the Rock Challenge Final trip.
Well done to Mitchell McKechnie for editing the film you did a great job!

On Sunday 3rd February, Thurso High School pupils travelled to Inverness to participate in the Scottish Schools Gymnastics Association Regional Heats 2013. The Caithness contingent included pupils from local primaries. In total 75 Teams competed on the day. Caithness successfully won medals in both the Primary and Secondary categories. Secondary Level 1 Team Bronze went to the Thurso High School A Team – Eilidh Sinclair, Anna Stanger, Rosie Fidler, Vikki Wright.