WELLINGTON ACADEMY

Wellington Academy Christmas Celebration

Wellington Academy are proud to present this years Christmas Celebration, working together with one of our cluster primary schools - Highlanders Academy.  The event is taking place on Tuesday 19th December at 7pm in the school theatre.  Entry is £2 which includes seasonal refreshments at the interval. 

Miss Phillips is currently working with Highlanders Academy primary 6 and 7 pupils for a number of items in the concert.  Pupils are very excited to be participating and Wellington are looking forward to welcoming these pupils.

We all hope to see you there on the 19th!

More details on the programme to follow...watch this space.....

Karolyn Phillips

The Event was held in T-Mobile Greenock with a lot of schools participating, it was a teacher free zone for the day and pupils from the school sat with their own school group competing against the other schools in a 2 events. From Wellington we had Kirsty Townsend, Jamie Wilson , Frazer Dewar , Laura Hare and Gary Baird. The Event was well organised with a kind of warm up with the talkers John and Jim racing about the room asking questions such as "What qualitys do you look for in people" and "What sort of thing gives you a positive impression about someone you have just met". These questions were to be answered by first of all just shouting out then we worked as a team to come up with what we thought were the most important answers.By giving answers you earned a bar of chocolate (brilliant way to promote healthy eating !) This worked,with everybody automatically loosing nerves of having to answer out in a room were most of the people are complete strangers.

The second event was a take on the reality t.v. show  "X Factor" where Jim took three volunteers out the room and briefed them as to what they were to do whilst John got another three volunteers to be the judges. The first set of volunteers had to come back in one by one, tell the judges all about themselves then the judges and the audience voted as to who was the best at presenting themselves best. This was a good laugh and really showed how first impressions really count and how youve got to be positive about yourself to give the right impression. Wellington failed miserably at the event but we took it all in the name of fun,well we did get a day off school for it after all !

The last event of the day and the one that most of the participants,including myself thought was the best.The room was split into two halves and that  meant there was only three other school groups you were competing againstT.  this went down well as it meant there was a better chance of winning whatever goodies T-Mobile had set up for us. We were givin a quick briefing which we were to take note on then givin a pack consisting of basically what we were to do,from then on we were basically on our own. Our team got straight down to business and each of us took on a role we thought we would be best at, Gary Baird became our company owner who deligated,kept things running smoothly and most importantly gave the final once over to all company descisions - a role which suited him well. Laura Hare became our head of finances who basically had the job of doing all the calculations to make the most of our money without hesitation - this suited her as this is her strong point and as she is currently doing higher maths, it was a good way of reassuring her teacher that her time wasnt completely wasted away from the class. Frazer Dewar and Jamie Wilson worked well as a team on advertising and promotional issues, as they are friends there was no arguements and they shared the task evenly and well with Frazer in charge or design as the more artistic of the two and Jamie in charge of looking at the maps and deciding our best site for our business and how to capatalise on this. I on the other hand, was in charge of human resources, this meant i was in charge of the staff, their wages, making sure desicions about wether to expand or not had been thought through carefully and basically worked closely with all other team members makin sure we worked as a team in all desicions. Our task was to make a business strategy that worked. We ended up with our last choice of location (not at all what we had planned for) but we redesigned our strategies around this as we knew things wouldnt always go to plan. Our main aim was to set up a pizza shop in a small tourist town in europe, we had to choose our site and bid for it, decide what type of business we would create,whether it were up market appealing to the families in the area as it would be quite expensive or wether to cater for the young in which case we would need to keep costs quite low.

Thanks to our brilliant team work (which we were congradulated on) we won a task involving a presentation which was mainly thanks to Frazer who delivered it to the judges on behalf our team although we were beaten overall by the worthy winners Greenock High and Gourock High. We came second in line and only missed out by a couple of hundred pounds but that didnt matter as we worked throught it all together,having fun along the way and... i can officially say that we were the only team out of the seven that never once went into bankrupcy thanks to Laura our accountant!!! It all goes to show that in the real world of business, even teamwork matters and having the right people on board is key.

The day overall was very enjoyable and i was pleasently surprised at how much participation was needed, i was expecting another long lecture but by actually working as a team in a company, all be it  game, we did learn a lot about the way things need to work to be successful which im sure will help us in our school enterprise company. Last but not least i would like to say that T-Mobile were brilliant hosts and the facilities were excellent,well worth going !

Kirsty Townsend 5E

Wellington Academy pupils were extremely fortunate to host an Enterprise Event delivered by Careers Scotland presenter Teri O'Brien on Wednesday 15th November.  The entire year group were gathered in the games hall for the morning and took part in the "Colours Challenge" where they learned about what kind of team and workforce they could effectively contribute to.  S1 pupils worked alongide S4 mentors, Careers Advisors and Wellington Academy Staff to complete all challenges set. 

The second challenge was "Popstars".  Pupils were given a choice of popular songs and had to work within a team to market their pop group and perform the end result to the rest of the year group.  All pupils enjoyed this challenge and was a great opportunity to make new friends and work within new groups.

A selection of S1 pupils added the following comments...

Tiffany Scott  says "It was fun and I got to learn about other people"

Kirsty Smith  says " It was great fun because you got to know people better"

Grant Cameron says " It gave me a chance to try things I havn't done before"

Jami Arkley says "Teri our presenter was great...really funny!!"

Laura Wilson says " I liked everything"

Lauren Murdoch Says " Popstars was really fun"

Jennifer Derrick says "It was fandabidosey"

Ashley Mulholland says "I liked the whole thing"

A sincere thanks to Teri and the Careers Scotland mentors who presented the event to the pupils.  We look forward to welcoming you back to Wellington soon.

Karolyn Phillips, APT Citiznship & Enterprise

ENTERPRISE AND CITIZENSHIP - have always played a major role in the education of young people at Wellington Academy , but this year saw an even more focused approach throughout the school helped by funding from the Determined to Succeed Innovation Fund.

HISTORY - First year History Club pupils worked during their lunch breaks to produce historical bookmarks for sale at parents' evenings, with proceeds donated to a local charity. A Christmas card project was undertaken by first and second years, involving design and production. Market research was also carried out into current design trends.

OUT OF SCHOOL CLUBS - have been just as busy with one group of first and second year pupils learning enterprise skills through IT, language and numeracy. By embedding and developing skills at an early stage, the aim is to enhance enterprise initiatives throughout the school.

SVS - Fourth year Social and Vocational Skills (SVS) pupils are being empowered to take responsibility for their own learning. They are working on the production of a Grecian urn, along with some personalised picture frames.

NEWSLETTER - Encouraging independent, successful learning is the main aim of a second year project aimed at Business Technology pupils. They designed and produced a newsletter to reflect events within the school community.

PERSONALISED CARDS - Coordinating language and social skills and enhancing self esteem, has been the goal of learning support staff working with Modern Language pupils, who are producing personalised cards.

CLUSTER PRIMARIES - An excellent example of secondary and primary liaison can be seen with Wellington Academy and its cluster primaries. Youngsters participating in an out of school hours club for primary six pupils from cluster primaries have been learning about integrated enterprise skills through involvement in specialist subjects such as art, craft and design, and home economics.

Wellington have a very busy week planned for National Enterprise Week.  Here are some of the activities taking place...

Monday 13th November 2006

Make Your Mark Challenge - S3 GOALS pupils will be participating in this national activity assissted my staff member Miss Siobhan Macdonald.

Young Enterprise National Conference - 4 young achievers will be attending the National conference in Bute Halls in Glasgow. We await the gossip from this event !!!

Wednesday 15th November 2006

S1 Enterprise Event hosted by Careers Scotland - S1 pupils will be involved in a morning of enterprising activities hosted my Terri O'Brien from Careers Scotland. Pupils will be reporting on this event very soon after the event is held.

Thursday 16th November 2006

Enterprise Event @ T Mobile - 6 S5 pupils are attending this event.  More details to follow.

Look out for reports and thoughts from pupils and staff about these events...feel free to share experiences and comments with Wellington Academy pupils and staff about your events.

Wellington Academy's senior students are getting into their entrpreneurial and financial stride this year - as part of the Young Enterprise Scotland (YES) programme rolled out across Secondary Schools who chose to participate across the country.

The senior students, all in their final year of Wellington Academy before it amalgamates with Greenock High School in June next year, have created two separate teams this year in a bid for top place in the Renfrewshire District Finals.  And, if the students win that, they will receive a place in the Scottish finals next summer.  S5 and S6 pupils this year have both a team utilising Wellington's award winning Samba Band and a team of experienced pupils with skills in Jewellery making.  The Samba Band team, managed by Jonathan Glass, plan on doing many things to raise funds - for example, organising a schoool talent show and selling affordable samba instruments - like shakers and whistles.  The samba team - called "Samba de Bamba" - also plan on playing live gigs across Inverclyde to sell product as and raise money. 

Wellington's secons YES team is "Rainbow Jewlz" managed by Rebacca Clive.  They are making bracelets, mobile phone charms and plan to expand into the increasingly popular phone and shoe customisation markets.  "Rainbow Jewlz" and Samba de Bamba" will both work as separate teams at the YES trade fair at Braehead in December, but will join forces selling samba themed jewellery and organising events for students at the school.

And, as the link teacher, Karolyn Phillips points out, "Wellington have a very good reputation and history when it comes to Young Enterprise.  We have in previous years reached for and achieved success at both regional and at a national level also.  Furthermore, with this being the last year of the school, pupils are wanting to succeed all the more".

So, this year, Wellington are Determined to Succeed and if pupils do achieve great things, pupils get to keep and share any profits that the company's make. 

This is perhaps one of the many reasons senior students in Wellington are saying YES to Young Enterprise Scotland!

Report written by Jonathan Glass, Head Boy, Wellington Academy

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