Tam Baillie, Scotland's Commissioner for Children & Young People joins our Celebrations of Success

Posted on Saturday, 24 July 2010 08:01PM by Paul Gilroy

On 24th June Ballikinrain hosted it's Annual Celebration of Success, this was another outstanding success where the acheivements of children and young people were warmly celebarted. This year the standard was once again extremely high. Attainment in SQA National units was higher than ever before and includes a number of young people acehiving Standard Grade certification.  As all years we welcome and celebrate our involvement in the local community and once again this was highly successful, with our contribution to Killearn Wee Green Market, Fintry Hoolie and the annaul Drymen Show where the art & Literature work entered by Ballikinrain pupils was judged very high.  In his opening address Paul Gilroy (Head of Service) described the children and young people of Ballikinrain as 'Mountain people' likening their acheivements to climbing mountians by facing life's challenges and getting to the top and knowing that this experience of acheivement will give confidence to face the other challenges we all meet in our life's journey.      We were delighted this year to be joined at our celebrations by Peter Bailey, Crossreach CEO and Rev. Syd Graham, Convener of Crossreach Social Care Council. Our guest of honour this year was Tam Baillie, Scotland's Commissioner for Children & Young People who presented the prizes.  Tam gave us all the opportunity to put in some practice at having a right good blether in preparation for next term where Ballikinrain will be involved in Tam’s ‘Right Blether’ project gathering the views of young people in Scotland about things that affect them    This was a wonderful culmination of a year of hard work celebrated with fun, laughter, tears and pride from young to old. Mrs Mitchell, mother of a former pupil presented a new trophy in memory of her son Steven. She and her family wanted to show how much they were appreciative of the work done for their son and other young people at Ballikinrain. .