Today Knox Academy CCF was visited by Brigadier Allfrey part of the Biennial Inspection. He arrived to be met by the Headteacher, the OC and the Provest of East Lothian. After a quick coffee he met the contingent (all 50 pupils!) and inspected them on parade. At this point the Knox Academy Pipe Band accompanied the proceedings. The visitors were then shown round various stands where cadets were undergoing lessons on the different subjects contained in the CCF syllabus.

Having never met Brigadier Allfrey before, I was very impressed with the way in which he not only encouraged the cadets, but was also genuinely interested in their achivements, ambitions and interests.  

The Inspection proved to be a huge success and an enjoyable experience for all involved.

Last week my colleague Jayne Easson and I accompanied 12 S4 pupils to the annual Outdoor Education Challenge. This year it had a watersports theme with the pupils (and staff) getting a taster of Kayaking, Canoeing and Sailing. The pupils have a brilliant time trying out the various activities and I particularly enjoyed sailing the Lazer picos although it was a bit scary in the gusts!

The event finished with a rather chaotic race to retrieve a ball. I am very pleased to report that the Knox Academy team won the trophy.

I attended the CCF Pipes and Drums Committee AGM  which was held at Dollar Academy last week. 

The Knox Academy cadets attended their annual camp held at Barrybuddon near Dundee. We left last Saturday and headed up to Ballater in Aberdeenshire for a two day adventure training package. We stayed at Victoria Barracks and were treated to hill walking, abseiling and kayaking. Big well done to LT Byers and all the pupils for a successful assent of the 3rd highest mountain in Scotland at Lochnagar!  

On Monday evening we arrived at Barrybuddon camp for the military skills part of the week long camp. We were greeted by our outgoing OC Major McFarlane, Sergeant Kerr and Miss Patterson a member staff from Knox. Tuesday was a very busy day which started on the ranges. Pupils were given the chance to fire the cadet GP riffle. However, the main excitment of the day was firing the machine gun. After a bit of persuasion and encouragement from LT Byers and the cadets I had a go at firing the machine gun. I will now admit that I was indeed ‘cheesing’, it was fun!

We left the ranges mid afternoon and the pupils were put through their paces in the drill competition. The pupils did extremely well and came second, missing out on first place by just 1 point! The drill competition was followed by the assault course. Due to a tightening of the rules, only five of our cadets were allowed to take part. Nonetheless they did very well to come in 6th place.

On Wednesday the pupils visited a number of different demonstration stands and were shown various aspects of military life from first aid, to the infantry and the artillary to signals and mine sweeping.

Thursday was the day that the pupils were most excited about and I was dreading most. We left camp in the morning to go to the woods that we would be spending the night in. The pupils took part in a section attack where they were acting out a scenario of helping locals preserve their independence. The enemy was played by the UOTC.  The cadets enjoyed the chance to run around and fire at the enemy.

Next stop was the survival stand where the pupils were shown how to build an effective shelter, how to trap animals to eat, how to light a fire and how the skin and prepare a rabbit.

Thursday night saw the much talked about ambush. We left the camspite at 2130 and the cadets patrolled through various terain until they reached the ambush area. The ambush gave the cadets another chance at firing at the enemy but this time flares were being set off all over the place lightening up the sky much like a fireworks display. It truly was an awsome sight! We were back at the campsite by 2330 ready to get into our bashers. I must thank Lt Byers for building me a five star luxury tent! Despite my worrying I was very surprised at how warm it was and how easy it was to sleep in our shelters.

Next morning we were woken up at 0430 to the sound of riffle fire as the cadets from Kelvinside Academy took part in a dawn attack nearby. By 0500 we were all up and getting ready to walk back into camp. The Knox cadets did well patrolling back into camp and the UOTC even commented on the professionalism of the pupils!

After some much needed sleep we were treated to a visit to Arbroath where we were given some time to look round the fishing town.

Back at camp we held a presentation ceremony for the pupils who were congratulated on their efforts over the past year with prizes and promotions. The pupils also thanked the staff with presents which were very much appreciated. In addition, Major McFarlane was presented with a photograph by the senior cadets in celebration of his retirement.

It was a fitting end to a vey busy, eventful, but most importantly a very enjoyable week. I must thank all the pupils who attended the camp for making me feel so welcome and helping me when I was unsure of things and also for their encouragment when I was trying new activities. As always, they were a credit to the CCF and Knox Academy. In addition, I must thank Riki Byers for his support and encouragment and for building me the hotel on Thursday night. Finally, huge congratulations to George McFarlane on his retirement. He will be missed within the contingent but his legacy will be with every cadet that he has taught and nurtured.

It doesn’t seem very long ago that I was planning a sailing voyage on board Greater Manchester Challenge for 11 S2 and S3 pupils. The trip has now been and gone and we have already started the planning process for next years trip. We left Knox Academy on Monday 19th May and headed to Troon Yacht Haven to meet the 78ft Gaff rigged ketch that was to be our home for the next week. We were welcomed aboad GMC with a lunch of soup and sausage rolls. After a discussion on our aims for the week and all the relevant familiarisation and safety briefings we departed a plan to get to Campbelltown.  After alot of ‘feeding the fishes’ we arrived at Campbelltown where we stayed the night. The next day was another long sail round the Mull of Kintyre to Bowmore on the Island of Islay where we anchored for the night. Both days had been tiring for all the pupils so we made the descision to stay in Bowmore on the Wednesday. This allowed the pupils to have a look round Bowmore and go swimming. On the Thursday we left Bowmore at 7am to head back to Campbelltown. Due to weather and tidal conditions the sail took us 21 hours and we arrived in Campbelltown at 4.30am on Friday morning, just in time to watch the whole of Cambelltown fishing fleet leave - quite a sight to see! Friday morning was spent catching up on some well needed rest and buying goodies for the remainder of the trip. We left Campbelltown late afternoon to enjoy a short sail up the Mull to Carradale Bay where we played lots of games around the table. On Saturday we sailed up round the top of Arran and headed back down towards Troon before heading off to the beach to play rounders. We cleaned the boat on Sunday morning before leaving on the bus to go back to Haddington. A great week was had by all and I must thank my colleague Peter Doig for stepping in to help at the last minute.

In June this year, East Lothian Council, in partnership with Lothian and Borders Police, will be hosting a series of Internet safety and responsible use training sessions for parents with pupils in P5 - S6 across the county.  This is in response to growing concerns, expressed by individual parents and parent councils, about how to make sure young people use the internet safely and responsibly. The sessions are also designed to show parents how they can protect their youngsters from on-line dangers.
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> The training sessions will be led by Ollie Bray (Depute Head at Musselburgh Grammar School) and PC David Gunn from Lothian and Borders Police. Both Mr Bray and Mr Gunn are accredited Ambassadors of the Child Exploitation Online Protection Agency (CEOP).
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> The training session has already been piloted within the Musselburgh Cluster and received positive response from over 200 parents. The content of the evening includes background information on new technologies and information about computers and mobile phones and the law. But the main part of the presentation involves Mr Bray taking the parents into some > ‘> real> ‘>  social networking spaces that young people use. This includes Habba Hotel, Teenspot, MSN Instant Messenger and Bebo. The session also gives advice on how you can protect your home computer and advice on on-line gaming.
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> Everybody who attends the training will have access to a comprehensive on-line handout.
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> The sessions will be held at:
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> *     Preston Lodge High- 3 June 2008
> *     Ross High - 10 June 2008
> *     Dunbar Grammar - 11 June 2008
> *     Knox Academy - 18 June 2008
> *     North Berwick High - 24 June 2008
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> All training sessions will take place between 7 - 9pm.
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> Ollie Bray, Depute Head at Musselburgh Grammar School, says:
> ‘> This is a very exciting time for East Lothian to be leading the way in Internet Training for staff, parents, families and pupils.  We are going to use the feedback we gain from these sessions to inform good practice nationally through the Scottish Learning Festival.> ‘>
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> These evenings will start promptly at 7pm and have a limited availability. If you have any queries or you would like to book a place on one of these sessions, please email Tess Watson, (Acting Education Support Officer) at  twatson at eastlothian.gov.uk or log onto http:edubuzz.org/blogs/internetsafety

This evening East Lothian council hosted a civic reception in Haddington Town House to mark the start of the centenary celebrations. An exhibition showing events and photographs from throughout the history of the cadets at Knox was open to the public all afternoon and was well attended. Some newspaper articles on display actually mentioned an unofficial cadet force being in place at Knox as far back as 1906!

The official reception was opened by the Knox Academy Pipe Band. This was our first external ‘gig’ and the pupils put on a wonderful show for the invited guests. The performance was follwed by speeches. These speeches included an address by the Head Teacher of Knox, Major George McFarlane and Colonel J Wilson the head of the Scottish Territorial Army.  This was followed by a fantastic buffet.

The event was a huge success and I am very much looking forward to the next event in what promises to be a very busy year for the Knox Academy Combined Cadet Force.

Last week Knox Academy held its annual Spring Concert. As always the standard of music on show was very high with many pupils displaying a great deal of talent. This was the second public performance of the Knox Pipe Band. We marched in with Scotland the Brave, Rowan Tree, Bonnie Galloway and then we played The Skye Boat Song and Glasgow Police Pipers. The second being a jig. I was very proud of the band especially as we played the jig very well complete with some fantastic drumming and harmonies and even more so when you consider that many competing pipe bands won’t even try this jig!

A huge thanks must go to Colin Pryde and Carl Williams for all the hard work they have put in to help get the pupils sounding so fantastic.

I am hoping to post the perfomance on here but need to find some way of extracting the sound from the video. If anyone has any ideas as to how I can do this then please drop me a line.

Today saw the annual Alloa Half Marathon. The event has always been of interest to me, as growing up I lived in the street next to the start and finish line which is at Lornshill Academy. This year my colleague and our staff jogging group leader, Jayne Easson, took part in her third Alloa race. Jayne finished in 1 hour 48 minutes which was a fantastic time. She is pictured above (middle) with Sarah and Monise. Huge well done to Jayne, and everyone who took part in the gruelling 13.1 miles route!