BEATH High’s connections with the United States and Malawi continued to make the school’s rector very proud. in the 2013-2014 session Douglas Young told the school prizegiving, “This last year had a number of highlights for us – and a number of them are very much connected.

“Firstly, I got a call from the US Consulate in Edinburgh. My initial thoughts were along the lines of ‘what do they want to speak to me for, what have I done now?’ They were, however, calling to ask if we would like a visit from Ambassador Matthew Barzun, the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, to allow him to deliver an interactive lecture to our S6 pupils.

“I can tell you that was possibly the easiest ‘yes’ I’ve ever had to give! What an honour for Beath. His visit was brilliant and he was one of the easiest guests we have ever had to look after – a genuinely nice man.

“The same could be said all the Consulate staff who came along with him – they were all just really nice. Why did they call us? Well Ambassador Barzun had met our own Chantelle Leswell who had been in the States last summer on a study tour with Sutton Trust US – our very first such pupil.

“The story doesn’t end there either. Inspired by her story we had more of our young people apply to Sutton Trust US this year and I am absolutely delighted to say that from over 3700 applicants both Craig McHugh and Sam Fox of S5 were invited down to London at Easter to join another 173 young people from across the United Kingdom trying to secure places in the US over the summer. It gets better still. Both were successful and are heading off to the States in the next few weeks”. He added, “Our link with Malawi is very much on the up at the moment. After the wee lull I reported on last year we are now moving forward at pace.

“We are working with two schools in the South West of the country – Mapanga, which is in the small village of Chonde right next door to our first partners Mendulo, and Njale, where Peter Mchenga was moved to and that is in Thyolo about 20km to the east.

“Under the banner of ‘Three Schools, Two Continents, One Goal – A Partnership in Action’ we will see our work develop quickly. A partnership agreement built on Trust, Mutuality, Equality and Reciprocity will see genuine joint curricular working benefit our pupils and the learners in our two partner schools. They are also committed to working together towards the same goal to improve the opportunity and life chances for young people. Our work is recognised by Education Scotland who now regularly contact Beath to ask about what we are doing. They really like our partnership model and want to see it taken up by others.” Mr Young went on, “On top of all of this we are currently planning a visit to Malawi for 18 pupils and six staff in October 2016. The trip is booked, the itinerary is planned and the fundraising has started. We are treating this like the World Challenges that are undertaken in other schools and it will be a full 18 month experience for all of us involved – culminating of course in the experience of a lifetime as we go out to work face to face with our partners. Exciting times indeed!

“I want to pause here and take a couple of minutes to say a huge thank you and express, to you, the gratitude of the people of Chonde village following recent events.

“You may well be aware that the south west corner of Malawi was absolutely devastated by some severe flooding in January – it didn’t hit the press here as it really was confined to three regions of the country – but it affected tens of thousands of people in what is already one of the poorest countries in the whole world. Our two new partners – and our previous partner Mendulo school were all badly affected. When we first heard about these floods through the Scotland-Malawi Partnership, an organisation we work very closely with, our Malawi committee decide to hold a dress down day to try and raise money for Chonde, the village that sits around both Mapanga and Mendulo. Within just two days our pupils had raised almost £1000 which I sent out to the village chief Isobel. She, and a village flood committee which they had quickly set up, purchased blankets, grain and vessels to carry fresh water to give to those families who had lost most.

“The Central Fife Times put the story of the floods and our efforts out there and within the week we had huge donations from our local Rotary Club and from the Cowdenbeath Area Community Association, which, along with a couple of other donations from individuals, made up another £1000 which I send out to Isobel.

“This time the money was used to try and help some of those stranded in camps as they had lost everything, including their homes, which were simply washed away, to get back on their feet. The flooding is over now – but things are hard as almost all their crops were washed away and the little they managed to re-plant with your money will not yield much as it was planted so late in the season. There is genuine food insecurity there which means many will simply be starving for months ahead. You may wonder about our other partners in Njale – well a group called the Beit Trust donated £20,000 to the Scotland Malawi Partnership to be given out as small grants of no more than £3,000. To cut a long story short “Peter Mchenga and I put together a bid for these funds (the bid had to come jointly from both sides of a partnership) and we were deemed to be one of the top four sent in. Njale were awarded the full £2,400 (these are huge sums of money in Malawi by the way) to rebuild their latrines, re-roof some of their school buildings and rebuild parts of two teachers’ houses.

“Work is just about to start on this project that will have a huge impact on the learning environment for their staff and learners.” Mr Young said that in closing his report , “I want you to consider what I have just said. I’ve painted a pretty positive picture of our work here because that reflects what is going on in your school, in Beath.

“It is a positive, well-structured learning environment that works. Are there challenges? Yes of course there are – but we face them, we deal with them and we are relentless in trying to solve each one of them with the minimum of fuss and with a desire reach a positive outcome in each case.

“Do we make mistakes? Yes of course we do. I don’t believe it is possible to make as many decisions as we all do every single day and get all of them spot on. What I would say tho’ is that we always focus on our aims and our values. We keep our young people at the centre of what we do and we focus on that.

“There are many, many reasons for us to be very proud of Beath and many many