Personal Writers

While Matthew Martin is with us to work on the year 9 Eco project, he got dragged in to help 12 Donard with the personal writing section of their coursework. Already he has been pushing the boundaries of the definition of personal writing, and will show the class how to take advantage the techniques used in the Writing Centre he runs in the university. It's a fantastic opportunity, and perfectly timed to fit in a great piece of coursework as we head for the deadline.

Doctor Who?

The first meeting of the Bad Wolf club will take place on Wednesday at 3.30pm in Mrs McMillan's room. Everyone welcome!

Oppenheimer Back in Town

Lots of Shimnites met up at the two Oppenheimer gigs in Belfast on Saturday. Great to hear them on such good form after the American tour. Shaun will be with us at Presentation Eveining, doing the door as usual, we hope.

NaNoWriMo

Tomorrow marks the end of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

A group of young writers from Shimna have been meeting together regularly for the last month to discuss ideas and support each other through the weighty task of writing a novel in just one month!

Passersby might have been interested to overhear conversations about telepathy, zombies, Japan, World War I (and II, and III), romance, aliens and emo....

Read more about NaNoWriMo here and join us next year for more frantic scribbling and chat!

Operation Soapbox!

For the past four weeks various Key Stage Three classes have been expressing their views about things that matter to them. Operation Soapbox is a fun and interesting way to get our views heard and be able to speak our minds to others.

It all started with a mysterious wooden crate appearing in our classroom one day! Inside there was a golden envelope with a question inside to get us thinking and an instruction leaflet.

The instruction leaflet contained four steps to help us as we create our soapbox. The tips were:

*by making an argument that captures other people's imaginations we could get our ideas across easily

*by asking a challenging question we could help people get more involved in our project

*by setting an inspiring example we could get people to follow us

*by communicating something in an unusual and creative way we could get people interested.

We got examples of what other schools had done and what they sent back. One school grew tomatoes in their soapbox and they sent back a jar of homemade tomato sauce. Another school put photos, wishes and stories in their box. Another used their box as a stage and filmed a movie which they sent back. We could also send presentations, play scripts, letters, opinions and poems.

Operation Soapbox was named after an area in London called Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park.

We have really enjoyed doing Operation Soapbox and if anyone wants to find out more click here.

On this site you can

*download podcasts and films

*see what others are doing with their soapboxes

*upload your ideas and discoveries.

Thank you very much for reading this and enjoy Operation Soapbox, on display in the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre in London during June 2008!

By Danielle Trainor and Jana Rodgers (9M)

An Afternoon of Stars

A judging panel which included former Northern Ireland Champion, Shimna student Lee Mc Mahon, today undertook the monstrous task of shortlisting for this years "Stars in Yer Eyes". A long, long list of acts assembled, indicating the depth of talent among Shimna's musicians. It's great to see such a wide spread of year groups, ages and musical styles on display. Book yourself in for the College final in the Spring term.

Soon to be Famous Scriptwriter Too

Cathy Falk, our Fulbright exchange teacher from Oregon, called in during one of her frequent visits back to Newcastle. The film script she was working on at the time is heading towards production. Exciting times.