Well done to the Alford Academy Pipe Band who performed this afternoon with the Inverurie Concert Band at their Christmas Concert in the Thainstone Centre, supported by their tutors Ian Dallas and Scott Niven.  Playing Highland Cathedral, Amazing Grace and Celtic Crest to an audience of well over 200 people, the band were on top form.  For the majority of pupils, this was their first formal concert and the standard of playing was exceptional.  Three members of our school orchestra also performed with the band after missing out on our school concert due to its postponement last week.  Many thanks to Ian Dallas, Scott Niven, Hamish Wood, Ben Light and Nicola Tierney for rehearsing the pupils involved and for their support of the performing arts at Alford Academy.

We are running a swap event in the run up to Christmas to try to encourage the reuse of ‘preloved’ Christmas jumpers. Many of us don’t realise that these are usually made from polyester and other plastic fibres, and often end up being quickly discarded. A study in 2019 showed that many young people buy a new Christmas jumper every year. In fact, it highlighted that Christmas jumpers have become one of the worst examples of fast fashion, now recognised as hugely damaging to the environment. Two out of five Christmas jumpers are only worn once over the festive period, and one in three adults under 35 buys a new Christmas jumper every year!

Children quickly grow out of their festive jumpers, so this year we are asking our pupils and/or parents/guardians to bring in and donate Christmas jumpers that they have outgrown, or no longer wish to wear, into school by Monday 12^th December 2022. These can be put in the ‘drop box’ at the school reception.  Jumpers need to be clean and in a good condition for resale, please.

On Wednesday 14^th and Thursday 15^th December, during break and lunch, we will be asking children to bring in a Christmas jumper to swap or to pay a donation of £1 to buy a new (preloved) jumper. The money raised from this will be donated to the Trussell Trust (food bank).  There will be a ‘Christmas Jumper Day’ run by the Interact Group, at school on Thursday 22^nd December, allowing pupils to wear their newly purchased/swapped Christmas jumper, with all donations also going the Trussell Trust.

We hope that this event will save lots of Christmas jumpers from entering landfill, being incinerated, or just being lost and unloved at the back of a wardrobe, and that the children will enjoy choosing a new preloved jumper to use this year and potentially beyond!