ARNOLD CLARK SCHOOL CHALLENGE WINNERS!

On Friday 28 October, after a week of tension and intense voting, the ‘Appy Chappies’ were announced as the winners of the Arnold Clark Schools’ Challenge. Three sixth years – Andrew McQuarrie, Ross Angus and Stuart Elliot – are the ‘Appy Chappies who designed a new game app for mobile phones to enter the national competition.

There were 700 entries from across Scotland and just before the October holidays the boys were told their entry had reached the final ten. They were against nine other secondary schools to win the competition and amazing prizes: a minibus for the school to have for two years; £5,000 to purchase computers and an Apple MacBook for the three of them. Terrific!

To win the final there was an on-line voting system on Arnold Clark’s national website. Each of the final ten schools placed the storyboard for their game on the site and voters could view each game before clicking the all important button to register their vote. EHS was a frenzy of activity to encourage as many people as possible to vote for ‘ Arnold’s Tyresome Tyre Trail’ – the name given to the game.

The result was a closely guarded secret and staff and pupils had no idea that on the morning of Friday 28 October they were being visited by the Managing Director of Arnold Clark to present the prizes. Miss Strong was obviously in the on secret as she had organised an S6 assembly to discuss the day’s Hallowe’en non-uniform activities. It was to everyone’s surprise when Miss Strong was interrupted during the assembly by the representatives from Arnold Clark and their press photographer. A huge cheer erupted when the visitors announced the reason for the interruption. The three sixth years were presented with their individual MacBooks and the year group gathered at the front of the school to see the minbus.

Miss Strong congratulated the boys and thanked the local community for voting for them. She said, ‘We are thrilled with the prizes which I guarantee will bring a wealth of benefits to the school.’ In these financially challenging times, Arnold Clark is to be applauded for their continued generosity and engagement with such projects.’

It is very clear that everyone at EHS is an ‘appy chappy’ and we are looking forward to using the bus and ICT equipment. The three boys have already made extensive use of their MacBooks and spent last Wednesday with the Computer Game company, who are preparing the boys’ game to be a live app for the public to download and enjoy.