We are delighted to report that Youth Worker Rachel Barr was runner-up in the national part-time Youth Worker of the Year category at the Youth Work awards. Rachel Barr is an absolute professional who clearly demonstrates her skill, knowledge and experience of Youth and Community Learning Work in Portobello High School. She has a high profile among staff and pupils and has worked hard to introduce, initiate and develop innovative projects in school. Her commitment to Youth Work is unquestionable and she actively engages with partner agencies to investigate new Youth Work opportunities for the pupils of Portobello High. Most recently, her work with the Mentors in Violence Prevention Programme has involved her in recruiting and training a large group of S4 – S6 pupil Mentors who work with current S1 pupils to deliver this important gender based violence awareness and prevention programme. read more…

In April the Science Club ran a two week project to hatch and raise baby chicks from eggs.  The eggs arrived on Tuesday 16th of April and spent the first two days in an incubator to keep them at the required 37.7 degrees Celsius needed for chicken egg incubation.

On Wednesday 17th pupils arrived to find that two eggs had cracked as the chicks started ‘pipping’ their way out and ‘cheeping’ was heard from the eggs throughout the day.  At 5.30pm on Wednesday the first chick hatched, followed within 20 minutes by the second.  All of this was recorded on the webcam set up to monitor the eggs overnight.

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Neil Rowan was awarded the Basketballscotland School Age Volunteer of the Year. Neil has been a pupil at Portobello High School for 6 years and since the day he started he has always shown a real interest, ambition and desire to play and coach basketball at its highest level. Despite training and playing demands with the Open Boys school team, The City of Edinburgh Junior and Senior Men’s teams and the U/18 Men’s National team, Neil has always been determined to give something back to the sport that has given him so many opportunities. He has coached very successful school teams at all levels and offers so much to the club game too. Congratulations to Matthew Wingate who was one of three others in competition for this national award.

A useful information booklet on moving into positive destinations can be found HERE. The booklet gives information on 16+Learning Choices, The Edinburgh Guarantee, Recruitwork – Teenwork, Skills Development Scotland, Modern Apprenticeships and Training, Further Education, Higher Education, Activity Agreements and Volunteering.

In the lead up to the Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow in 2014, Active Schools are giving pupils the opportunity to learn more about the Games through classroom activities and practical sessions. Portobello High School’s Young Ambassadors for sport produced and delivered a presentation to all P5s in October and encouraged them to set health related goals to achieve before the Mini Games event held on Thursday 21st March at the Portobello Bowls Centre and Powerleague. They were all given a taster of three of the four Commonwealth Games sports on offer: Rugby, Bowls, Hockey and Athletics.

250 primary 5 children from Parsons Green, Royal high, Towerbank, Duddingston and Brunstane primary schools took part. Despite the cold weather they all loved the chance to try new sports and had a great time! Bowls was overwhelmingly their favourite activity and this event will lead to a new after school bowls club being se up at the Bowls Centre.