Sporting successes

Congratulations to the Under-18 rugby team who made it though to the semi final of the Scottish Plate this week. Although the boys lost 5:7, to Marr College from Troon, it was a great achievement to make it so far through the tournament.

In hockey, the first XI team also competed in the semi final of the Aspire Cup on Monday against Dunfermline and won 1:0. They are now through to the final at Glasgow green for the second consecutive year.

Well done to all concerned — players, staff and coaches.

Universal Children’s Day

Today, 20th November, is Universal Children’s Day established in 1954 and celebrated on this day each year. It is also the date in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and in 1989 the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

To mark this day on which children’s rights are advocated and promoted, we share a part of a wonderful poem written by George The Poet, aka George Mpanga.

A child is not a portion of an adult.
It’s not a partial being.
A child is an absolute person,
An entire life.

The fact that the child is developing,
Doesn’t mean it’s incomplete.
This just makes it especially important for the Child to drink and eat,
and get a decent wink of sleep.

Lest we forget

The Third Battle of Ypres (31 July – 10 November 1917) concluded 100 years ago today and has come to symbolise the horrors associated with the war on the Western Front. It is frequently known by the name of the village where it culminated – Passchendaele.

Chateau Wood, near Hooge in the Ypres salient, 29 October 1917

Outside the school’s main hall is a memorial to the pupils and staff of Trinity Academy who lost their lives while engaged on active service during the First World War. After we’ve been around the school a while it’s easy to walk past without even noticing it.

Among the names listed from Trinity Academy is Sergeant George Eckford, aged 26, who died at Ypres on the 4th October 1917.

Trinity Academy WW1 Roll of Honour

Philip K Lawrence wrote about the horrors of the First World War in the book Modernity and War: The Creed of Absolute Violence:

“I go forward with them … up and down across ground like a huge ruined honeycomb, and my wave melts away, and the second wave comes up, and also melts away, and then the third wave merges into the ruins of the first and second, and after a while the fourth blunders into the remnants of the others.

We come to wire that is uncut, and beyond we see the grey coalscuttle helmets bobbing about … and the loud cracking of machine gun fire changes to screeching as of steam being blown off by a hundred engines, and soon no one is left standing.”