Face the Music

got us into the spirit of a (perhaps oversized) “band.” With Brian May performing such incredible guitar solos in the original soundtracks, our show wouldn’t have been complete without our own rock and roll guitarist, Struan Morrison. Struan rehearsed tirelessly, perfecting the numerous and seemingly impossible guitar solos featured throughout the show, his particular favourite being Bohemian Rhapsody. Kitted out in snakeskin boots and wearing his favourite band tee, Struan got his spotlight with this hit song as well as Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

Overall the week was a great success, with both our Wednesday and Thursday nights sold out, much to the delight of the cast and crew. Every pupil involved would agree that it was most definitely a worthwhile and satisfying experience which has helped them gain confidence and given them the opportunity to develop their stage presence and dramatic skills. Despite all the hard work we put in, we couldn’t have done it without the help and guidance of the department staff who took the time out of their day to ensure the best experience for Face The Music, so for that we would like to thank them all!

S1 Science Club

Aberdeen Grammar School’s S1 Science Club is not only a place where S1s of all abilities and backgrounds can have fun, but it’s also a place where children can see the true magic of science. The activities cancel out the stereotype of science being boring and introduce the S1s to a whole opportunity for a new career pathway from a young age. Not only has it benefited the youngsters at the club, but also the Senior Pupil mentors who have learned many skills like leadership, building relationships and communication. The school has also recognised the club as an important extra-curricular activity, even so much as allowing the senior helpers to get citizenship colours for their time and effort spent planning for science club.

One of the major events that S1 science club planned was the S1 Science Fair. This allowed the S1s to use the knowledge and skills they had developed throughout the year, and plan an experiment in groups of one or two, under teacher supervision. The Fair not only surprised the Senior Helpers but also amazed the teachers; the S1s had a large variety of experiment ideas and were given the chance to research, plan and demonstrate their projects over the course of four weeks.

On the afternoon of the Fair there was a buzz of excitement between the S1 pupils who were well-prepared to show off their skills and science knowledge to visitors. When the hordes of teachers came in and asked complex scientific questions, the S1s replied with confidence while teaching the teachers about science! This impressed the visiting teachers and they gave brilliant feedback to the pupils. One of the Senior helpers said “their work was outstanding”. At the end of the teachers’ visit, they were all given a card to vote on who had the best and most original idea. The winner was Karanika with the “Science of Sparklers” but not to worry because the other kids were rewarded for their outstanding effort in their projects.

Abdelrahmen Ghanduri (S5)

A History Trip to Poland

During the September long weekend, ten other pupils and I went on a History trip to Poland. We flew from Edinburgh to Kraków and on our first day there we visited Kazimierz, which is the Jewish quarter. We visited the Remus synagogue where almost all of the grave stones had been destroyed when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. The Rabbi’s gravestone had not been destroyed as the Germans who were ordered to destroy it refused as they thought it would bring them bad luck and misfortune. After the war all the gravestones which had been destroyed were made into a wall around the cemetery. As we continued our walk around the Jewish Quarter we were taken to a lane where we were told that fifteen children had been shot. The children were lined up in three rows of five and shot in the head. The bullet holes are still visible in the side of the building. Whilst we were standing in the lane comprehending what we had just been told we were informed that the square beside the lane was where Jews were lined up to be taken to death camps and labour camps. The square was also turned into a blood bath as the Nazis would often shoot hundreds of Jews at a time there.

Next, we went on a guided tour of Schindler’s Factory which is now a museum which tells the story of Schindler and the Jewish prisoners of Plaszow. The museum led us through all the events that happened during the extermination of Jews. Schindler’s factory was far bigger than any of us expected and the photos on the wall of all the Jews he saved really put it into perspective. After a very long day touring the Jewish quarter and ghetto, we had pizza before bowling. We then checked into the hotel where we would be staying for two nights.

For our second day we started with a walking tour around the Plaszow concentration camp. The story of the Nazi concentration camp at Plaszow, which is located in the Podgorze district, ten kilometres outside the city centre, highlighted that there was no way of escaping as it was so big and there was nowhere to hide. During our walk we saw many memorials throughout the Camp. One which stood out was on the top of a hill and represented the Jews who had been killed during the holocaust. The memorial can be interpreted in many ways but I thought the different hands on the memorial represent the different attitudes of the Jews. Some Jews tried to fight back and that is represented by the clenched fist. Others didn’t do anything as they felt they were helpless, and this is represented with the flat hand that looks lifeless.

After visiting Plaszow we started to drive to Auschwitz I. The scale of this left me speechless. I wasn’t able to comprehend that humans were able to do such unspeakable things to other humans. We had a guided tour around Auschwitz and we were able to see the possessions of the prisoners such as shoes, pots, pans and the other normal things that someone would have. One display that really affected our group was of human hair; this was cut off soon after a prisoner’s arrival at the camp and was used to make blankets and stuff mattresses.

After Auschwitz I we walked over to Auschwitz II, Birkenau. Birkenau was unforgettable. As we toured one of the only buildings still intact, we were taken into a room filled with pictures found in the suitcases of the prisoners after the camp was liberated. These photographs showed all the victims of the holocaust and how they were just normal people. They are normally only talked about using statistics instead of actual human beings. These photos were family portraits, sport team photos and photos that were

Remus Synagogue Cemetery

taken on a daily basis. After looking around at all the photos we were taken to a shallow pool of water about 200m away. At first it looked normal but we were told that many of the Jews we had just seen in the photos were gassed and cremated and their ashes were thrown into the pool.

On our last day we visited Galicia Museum. At the museum we had a talk from an Auschwitz Birkenau survivor. Her name was Lydia Maxsymowicz and she was brought to the Camp at the age of four in 1942 and stayed there until the camp was liberated. During her time there she was experimented on by Doctor Yosef Mengele. A large number of children there were used for medical testing and many didn’t survive; Lydia was considered one of the lucky ones. When Lydia arrived at the camp she was separated from her mother and grandparents, her mother was taken to the women’s barrack and her grandparents were sent straight to the gas chambers as they were deemed unfit for manual labour. Lydia’s mother would sneak into her barrack and provide her with the little rations she got so that she could survive as long as possible. Once the camp was liberated, Lydia and her mother were unable to find each other and Lydia was sent to live with a new family. When she was 16 she was contacted by the Soviet Authorities and told where her mother was and they were able to reunite and be a family again. One part of her talk that stood out for me the most was when she stood up to show us the number that she had tattooed on her when she arrived at the camp. This has been with her for her whole life and has been a constant reminder of the devastating events of the holocaust that affected her and millions of others. After Lydia’s talk, we were able to ask her questions to help us 20

process and comprehend her story. Lydia struggles to tell her story but feels that she has to. She knows that history can repeat itself but is using her story in the hope that this will never happen again. Lydia’s story shows that in times of darkness there will always be a glimmer of hope.

After the Galicia Museum we went to the Weiliczka salt mines. These were lots of fun and were much bigger than any of us expected. As we went around the mines a few people even licked the walls!

Eilidh Munro

WW1 Battlefields Experience

The WW1 Battlefields trip to Flanders and the Somme in France, was a very powerful and moving experience for the whole Aberdeen Grammar School group.

On our arrival, the experience began with a visit to Hill 60 in the south of the Ypres Salient where we realised how close combat was. Following this, at Sanctuary Wood, we explored a British trench and one of the many underground tunnels used by both sides. We drove through Messines, where the Famous Christmas Football Truce Memorial lies. Then we moved on to the Pool of Peace, a most tranquil spot.

The following day we visited Newfoundland Park, where 91% of the Canadian Newfoundland Regiment lost their lives. This is commemorated by a stunning monument of a Caribou which looks over the battlefield mourning for her lost soldiers. We laid crosses for two former AGS pupils, William Stephen and Roderick Ferguson, and laid a wreath at the 51st Highland Division memorial. At the Thiepval Memorial, we commemorated seventeen more former AGS pupils, included among whom was maths teacher George Dawson. Dartmoor cemetery holds the grave of the oldest soldier to die, Henry Webber, who was 67 when he died. At the Vimy memorial, four more AGS soldiers were remembered, including Robert G Combe who was the only AGS pupil to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the 1914-18 War.

At Essex Farm, we explored a casualty clearing station where surgeon John McCrae wrote ‘In Flanders Field’, one of the most moving poems of the First World War. We also saw one of the soldier’s graves, Valentine Joe Strudwick, who died aged fifteen. This shocked us as many of our group are also fifteen. The least visited of many of the cemeteries is at Poelcappelle where over 80% of the graves are unknown soldiers. The largest cemetery on the Western Front is Tyne Cot, where we commemorated eleven of the Grammar’s former pupils.

The highlight of the trip was the Menin Gate ceremony where Euan McCready and Rowan Gillies laid a wreath on behalf of Aberdeen Football Club where three of their players were commemorated. This was followed by Victoria Scott and Cameron Vargesson laying a wreath for the AGS First World War fallen. The group held a private ceremony at Poelcappelle cemetery where Georgina Stewart read the poem ‘for the fallen’, and we had a minute’s silence.

Overall, this school trip was not the usual activity-filled excursion that many of our school friends are used to. We came back more informed and aware of what these soldiers, no different from us and many only a year or two older than us, had gone through. Our guide, Andrew Byrne, impressed upon the group the terrible sadness and despair their families endured. It is only when you see the hundreds and hundreds of beautifully kept headstones that you understand the futility and the waste of the war. 21

Cameron Vargesson, Coby Keith, Zachary Rist.

F1 Challenge in Schools Success for A G S Team Overdrive

F1 in Schools is a non-profit organisation set up to educate secondary school students on the possibilities with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths). F1 relies solely on support and contributions from various industries to be able to operate and deliver a World-Class competition. F1 aim to engage with millions of students, like us, across the globe to provide us with the opportunity to develop key skills such as leadership, organisation and time management which will form the foundation of our future, whichever career path we choose.

Team Overdrive are a group of five senior pupils from Aberdeen Grammar School, with various project management roles ranging from Design Engineer to Finance Manager. We are participating in the F1 in Schools challenge as Team Overdrive and are representing our school and country in the World finals to be held in Abu Dhabi.

To be able to represent Scotland at the World finals, we had to achieve a top-3 place at Scottish Regional and UK National finals. Team Overdrive went through with a first-place award at the Regionals held in Livingston and, as Scottish Champions, at the Nationals held at the Airbus UK factory in Broughton. Our team were granted two further awards for the engineering design of our car. We achieved the “Fastest F1 Car” award and the “Best Engineered Car” award.

To be able to participate in the F1 competition we had to raise circa £5,000 funding to help us achieve our goal of participating in the World finals. Team Overdrive contacted large engineering-based companies to explain what the sponsorship money they provided us would be used for and what Return of Investment each company would receive via car logos, our YouTube interviews and extensive social media coverage.

Cara Gardiner

Finance and Sponsorship Manager