Good afternoon Mr Kane,
Could I ask you to share the following email with the wider parent forum via the school website and app? Once again, thank you for the dedication and hard work of you and your team!
Gavin
Good afternoon everyone,
I hope you are all doing well, and keeping safe.
I just wanted to contact all of you to share an update which Mr Kane sent to me on Wednesday of this week. Updates, communication and feedback from the Head Teacher are not uncommon. However, I feel that in these most difficult of circumstances in which we all find ourselves, I should pass on some supportive and positive feedback about the quality of work and huge efforts being made by Mr Kane and all of the staff at St Joseph’s Academy. These are, as we know, unprecedented times. The schooling of our young people is neither ideal nor perfect right now but I think there is a huge amount of credit due here. The detailed communication which the Parent Forum regularly receives through the school website and App tells me that our young people are in good hands on a local school level!
Please have a read of the email below. It gives a great insight into just how much hard work is going on behind the scenes to support our school community. Also, a reminder that your Parent Council are here to support you too. Should you need to contact us you can email at: stjosephsacademyparentcouncil@gmail.com . We will endeavour to respond at the earliest opportunity.
Sincerest thanks to Mr Kane and all of his staff team.
Take care everyone and stay safe!
Gavin Duffy (Parent Council Chair).
UPDATE FROM MR KANE 13.01.2021
In terms of in-school provision, nine pupils were in attendance today, and our daily figure has varied between a low of three and high of fourteen. Members of SLT and PTs delivered various packs to pupils studying Art and Graphics. This will support the completion of folio work.
We intend to share plans for a jotter pick up and instrument collection (where it is needed) early next week. The actual drop offs will likely take place at the end of next week or the start of the week after.
Two members of SLT, three classroom assistants, our IT Technician, Catering staff, our AFO and one or two members of the office staff are in school, with the actual personnel changing day to day on a rota.
We are following up with support for two families we know to have no internet access and will deliver those devices as soon as we can. We have been given the go ahead to allow Upstream (Bethany Trust), our PEF funded counselling service, to facilitate ongoing support via Teams for four pupils within their caseload. These pupils had requested that contact be maintained while the building is closed. Upon receipt of parental consent, our Pastoral PTs will ensure that those sessions should start soon.
I sent out a message today to say that parents/carers of those pupils with online access issues call the school either today or tomorrow between 9am and 12 noon. We took around ten calls today, and resolved the majority of issues over the phone. There are some ongoing snags with some of the government funded ipads we received but IT are supporting us to resolve those.
I also dropped off an ipad earlier and have three more replacement devices to drop off tomorrow. Donna, Angela, Andy and I will carry out ad-hoc drop offs at doorsteps during lockdown. Some of these drop offs include food and practical support as well as equipment to support online learning.
The list of those not to have logged in/registered this week now sits at 35. In reality, 99% of our pupils who should have accessed glow have done so this week. Next week, we will specify times when parents/carers and pupils can call with any other technical issues beyond signing in, and the week after we have plans in place to audit actual engagement at class level. We will then follow up via supportive phone calls to families.
As always, we continue to respond as soon as possible to support requests received via email and the Contact Us page. I believe I have replied to around 150 individual emails since Monday, with the majority of issues easily resolved. This is over and above issues resolved by colleagues when teaching online and those handled by SLT, classroom assistants, our IT technician and office staff when in school.
S5/6 tracking was due this week, and we had intended that it would include provisional grading (A1, A2, B3 etc.) However, staff can’t access SEEMIS, so we are in the process of sending each teacher a spreadsheet which office staff can then input when in school. This significantly increases the time taken to gather and input data but we are working on it. This is further complicated by the fact that assessment records are on the school network but we can work around that this week. Among the staff, there is some concern around the reliability of any provisional gradings, and I am due to meet with Principal Teachers tomorrow to discuss this.
S3 reports are due at the end of the month, and staff will email word files which we then need to be copied and pasted across to SEEMIS one report at a time. That will involve circa 1700 individual reports being copied and pasted over, and we only have one or two members of the office staff in per day due to COVID restrictions. The reports will still be issued but there may be a delay to the advertised date. S3 reports will specify projected progression route by subject i.e. Pupil X would likely progress to National 5 next session. As they are full reports, there will be detail in terms of progress and next steps.
Pupils completing College courses as part of their school curriculum were sent guidance around how to access the sessions that each College will offer.
We are in the process of collating options information guidance and will need to send out an online form for completion by families. If time allows, we may record a message to support the paperwork and form. Our careers advisor has been in contact with around twenty families since Christmas and is available to anyone who needs support. We will reinforce this as and when we share options guidance in the coming weeks.
SQA released a fairly broad statement yesterday, but the Education Recovery Group (includes Mr Swinney, government advisors, SQA, HT Union (SLS), Teaching Unions (SSTA and EIS) amongst others) are not due to meet on this particular issue until tomorrow, so there is not much more that we can share yet.
Our Pastoral Team continue to make near daily contact with the most vulnerable families and young people, with weekly check-ins for a larger group of pupils where there are some concerns.
Office staff are also communicating with parents/carers via SMS to make sure that we have up to date email addresses (likely used for reporting) and will shortly make contact to ensure that parents/carers still have access to Satche:One (new name for Show My Homework).
Staff CLPL is ongoing, albeit remotely and we have completed gathering feedback from pupils as part of our Learner Participation work. By the weekend, I intend to share a survey from our SfL staff for parents/carers. This forms part of our ongoing work towards Dyslexia Friendly School accreditation.
Part of Mr Swinney’s statement today was around the role of HMIe to audit school level provision of remote learning. This is due to begin next week via telephone calls with HTs. I believe we are well placed to reassure HMIe should they make contact, and look forward to any such call.
Kind Regards
Mr Kane
Head Teacher
St. Joseph’s Academy
Grassyards Road
Kilmarnock
KA3 7SL
