School's pride in Polish A students
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POLISH PUPILS at a Moray school have achieved a first in Scotland – and done it with straight A’s.
Elgin High has 51 Polish students, and 10 of them achieved top marks in a GCSE exam in their native language.
It is the first state school in the country to offer the qualification, although because Polish is not available to sit as a Standard Grade, they had to run the GCSE class as an extra-curricular activity.
The after-school course was organised by retired Forres Academy guidance teacher Lucyna Bednarek Elliot, who is Scottish-born but to Polish parents, and a local member of the Polish Philanthropic Society.
With the help of Ewa Wright, Elgin High’s bilingual translator, and Lorna Wiles, a language support teacher for Moray, they prepared the 10 pupils to sit the exam. With eight of them achieving A passes and two gaining A* passes, the results were hailed as outstanding.
"This is an amazing achievement and equivalent to all pupils gaining a Credit 1 award at Standard Grade," said depute head (pupil support) Anne Duncan.
"We have had a lot of youngsters arrive at the school with little or no English, and slowly but surely they are moving up the achievement list.
"Last year, we had a large number of pupils who wanted to do something in their own language, and we need to support their culture, too.
"To provide the course as part of the curriculum would require a Polish-speaking teacher on staff. So Lucyna was recruited to run the after-school class once a week on a voluntary basis."
From an original class of 21, some dropped out as it proved too much in addition to their normal studies.
With four elements to the course – speaking, listening, writing and interpretation – there was a lot of work for the pupils to undertake. In their final exam, the pupils read the material in Polish but answered in English, while the spoken element was in their native tongue.
Mrs Duncan said Elgin High was proud of the achievements of these Polish pupils, who have all integrated well. "They are all part of the multi-cultural build-up in Moray and they bring a great richness to the school, as well as some challenges."
Ms Elliot, who was born in Edinburgh but has spent the past 26 years in Forres, said: "This was something completely new, and finding materials wasn’t easy, although we did manage to find a Scottish-Polish publication, and we also encouraged the pupils to watch Polish television and current events.
"I am very proud of their achievements. We thought we might get a few A’s, but didn’t realise just how hard they were all working."
For Kasia Jaworska (17) and Klaudyna Kasprowicz (17), it was an exciting challenge. The girls hope to go on and do travel and tourism studies at university in Aberdeen.
Said Klaudyna, whose family moved to Scotland four years ago: "It was very interesting and something different. It was good to speak in our own language and it has given us a lot of confidence."
Kasia, who achieved an A*, said: "It was something new for all of us. We like being at Elgin High School."
Kasia has a brother Dawid Jaworski and cousin Monika Jaworska, both pupils, who also took part in the class.
While Klaudyna is staying on at school, her brother Mikolai, who also completed the course, begins a business management course at Moray College next week.
The other pupils who successfully passed the course were Kamila Dawiec, Klaudia Janusz, Dominik Sikora (A*), Monika Stec and Martyna Stopinska.
