Currently, my team and I, consisting of 9 other students of years 10 & 11, Ms. Kemp, Mr. Albano, and Mr. McKenzie, are in the process of preparing for the Global Alliance of Innovative Learning (GAIL) convention to be held in South Africa in June of this year. The theme of the convention this year is ‘Ubuntu’ which translates to ‘Humanity and Compassion.’

We are all very excited, and it is integral that we are ready to make this most out of this incredible experience that Scotch has offered. My team and I, have three main objectives before we leave, these are; to raise awareness within the school, learn about South Africa’s culture and history, and to become a close-knit group before our departure. To achieve these goals, we meet weekly.

We have started to raise awareness by promoting GAIL in the Middle School, which will hopefully motivate or inspire them to apply for the convention themselves in the coming years.

Our second goal is about educating ourselves, and we have begun looking at topics such as the apartheid, the history of racism, Nelson Mandela’s story, the Bantu Women’s League, becoming familiar with the native animals, and other events and cultural aspects we believe are the fundamentals of South African history.

Lastly, we believe it is incredibly important to get to know each other, to establish our strengths and weaknesses prior to the convention. Our ‘team bonding’ has so far included talking about our character strengths as a group and socializing outside of school together. We recently went bowling as a group, and we are now organizing our participating in a charity event called the ‘Relay for Life’.

In summary, our preparation for the upcoming GAIL convention has so far been successful and we are all exceedingly enthusiastic for the trip.

Lalla Nugent
Year 10, Douglas