Coronavirus – Sixth Year Experience

All of this is not to say the sixth year experience was in any way easy. Constantly looming deadlines combined with the relative lack of social interaction to which young people are used often resulted in significant stress. The kind of stress that causes you to freeze up and do nothing at all instead of chipping away at the mountain of work expected of you. I think for me personally, it was the fact that my house was both my school space and my rest space, and it was harder than expected to separate these two worlds in order to achieve any level of focus.

Then, after what seemed like an eternity, we did return to school. Teachers eased us in with an introductory set of presentations, offering reassurance for the assessments that would inevitably decide our grades. Yes, while “exams” as we knew them were not to go ahead, the school offered a fair substitute. We would first have practice exams in class to understand our progress, then a week or two later, would return for an in-class assessment conducted under exam conditions. Fortunately for me, all my classes had finished the course while still in lockdown, meaning that all the remaining in-class time we had could be focused on revision. From what I understand, not every pupil was as lucky, with some still learning new information a matter of days before the crucial final assessment. In the end, however, the provisional results provided by the school seem to have pleasantly surprised a large number of pupils, and given them a sense of pride for the work they put in over this trying academic year.

Overall, I am immensely proud to have been a part of Aberdeen Grammar School, and the challenges over lockdown have not changed that. Of course, there may be things that could have been handled differently, with the benefit of hindsight, but it was never in doubt that the school always acted in the best interests of safety, wellbeing and quality education. Frankly, I’m happy to have just survived these past 16 months. And so, reader, should you be.

Deputy Head Girls 2020-21

e n z i c K e M e n t c l i l i M

e r g i D a a c c e b e R

A n d r e w D e n i s o n M a r c u s B u r n s

Deputy Head Boys 2020-21

Developing the Young Workforce

Developing the Young Workforce continues to be the youth employment strategy of the Scottish Government which aims to keep youth unemployment at the lowest possible level. Schools and employers have been encouraged for the past few years to enter into partnerships with a view to preparing young people for employment after leaving school.

This arrangement has resulted in the School engaging with a number of local employers who deliver careers talks and provide opportunities for pupils to visit their offices and experience the reality of business life.

The current list of employers willing to become involved with the School, whether during class time for talks or by way of visits to their premises, is as follows:

Ernst Young John Clark Royal Bank of Scotland Bank of Scotland Aberdeen City Council Entier Porsche Aberdeen Wood Group Skene Street Dental Practice

Foundation Apprenticeships, which help young people to gain valuable, realworld work experience and access work-based learning while they are still at school, are also available to pupils in a two-year programme. The two currently promoted in the school are that in Children and Young People, which is now accepted as an entry qualification by Aberdeen University into the Primary Education Course, and the Apprenticeship in ICT & Digital Hardware/system support.

Recently about fifty S5 and S6 pupils who are studying Art, Drama & Graphic Communication received a presentation from a member of Info Film about careers in the film industry related to digital technology, film technology, computer graphics and gaming.