St Joseph's Academy – East Ayrshire

Dear Parents/Carers and Pupils,

Please see an outline of our January assessment diet. Please note that there will be no study leave in January. This is in keeping with our approach in recent years. If not sitting exams, pupils should attend class as normal.

The timetable shows dates for each assessment. All relevant Health and Safety checks have taken place.

Click to access Prelim-TT-Jan-2021.pdf

Dear Parents/Carers and Pupils,

You may be aware of the changes to the length of self-isolation periods for those close contacts of anyone to have tested positive for COVID. This letter should act as a helpful reference point if needed.

Click to access Letter-to-parents-and-carers-self-isolation-periods-13.12.20.pdf

Dear Parents/Carers and Pupils,

Please see below two letters from Linda McAulay-Griffiths, Head of Education.

Our January assessment timetable will be released to young people on Monday 14th December.

You may also find our earlier post useful when considering SQA matters – https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ea/stjosephsacademy/2020/12/09/sqa-and-p7-s1-update/ .

Letter for Young People

Click to access Young-Persons-Letter-SQA-11.12.20-.pdf

Letter for Parents/Carers

Click to access Parent-Carer-Letter-SQA-11.12.20-.pdf

Kind Regards

Mr Kane

Please note, this correspondence is in four parts. The first details our position as it stands in respect of our January assessment period, the second outlines our position as it relates to the generation of evidence that will be used by staff to inform teacher judgement. The third provides clarity on the quality assurance timeline the SQA will implement at National 5 level. The final section is a brief summary of the impact of COVID on our community thus far, including an update on P7/S1 transition work.

If you would like further clarity on the undernoted then please do not hesitate to contact me directly by using the ‘Contact Us’ form on our website – https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ea/stjosephsacademy/contact-us/ .

January Assessment Block

I addressed every pupil in S4 to S6 today and stressed that their immediate educational priority is to adequately prepare for the assessments which will take place in January.

As intimated in the letter released in mid November, we intend to run two assessment blocks this session. The assessment blocks will run in January and April and will be for all S4-S6 pupils studying for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher awards. In most subject areas, we will run prelim exams at these times.

We have a draft prelim diet which we will release to young people as soon as possible but no later than next week. There are some COVID specific risk assessment and health and safety considerations we must take account of prior to being able to commit to dates, times and locations for January assessments.

All pupils know that they are preparing for assessments in all subject areas. Please be assured of the fact that the delay in releasing specific dates and times is to ensure that the protocols we put in place for administering assessments do not compromise our risk assessment.

Teacher Judgement – National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher Awards

Following the cancellation of Higher and Advanced Higher exams, we are not yet in receipt of SQA guidance for teachers. However, we anticipate that the advice we receive will be broadly similar to that already available at National 5 level. This means that staff are likely to assess between two and four pieces of evidence in each subject area before coming to a teacher judgement as to the provisional award a young person should receive.  It is important to understand that in some subject areas, assessment evidence will draw on a combination of prelims and folio/practical work, while in others, the assessment evidence will be drawn mainly from both prelim papers.

At the time of writing, we are close to being in a position whereby we can share subject by subject clarity at National 5 level. We hope to release this to young people either next week or during the first school week of the new calendar year.

Given that we are not yet in receipt of SQA guidance at Higher or Advanced Higher level, I do not anticipate that clarity around which pieces of work will be used to inform subject by subject judgement of performance at these levels will be available until late January at the earliest.

SQA Quality Assurance – National 5

SQA published quality assurance guidance yesterday. This guidance outlines how the SQA intend to ensure that grades issued this session are fair for all learners in Scotland.

Communication for young people can be found here:

https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/96098.html

Communication for Parents/Carers can be found here:

https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/96097.html 

P7/S1 Transition

One aspect of school life which has changed dramatically this session is our P7/S1 transition process. Mr Boyle met virtually with P7 pupils from St. Patrick’s Primary this morning. Similar sessions will follow shortly for those pupils at St. Andrew’s, Mount Carmel, St. Sophia’s and St. Xavier’s.  The majority of our transition events will need to take place virtually. We appreciate the support of P7 parents/carers as we get used to holding virtual meetings across different school settings.

COVID

We have been very fortunate thus far in that we have only had one occurrence of school level contact tracing since August. Contact tracing on that occasion impacted upon pupils in S1 and S2 only.  A very, very small number of staff and pupils have contracted COVID since August and I would like to reiterate my previous thanks around the readiness at which all members of our school community have adapted to our new working environment and health and safety protocols. I do appreciate that community based transmission has resulted in some periods of isolation for a number of our young people and acknowledge that in a small number of cases, pupils have been out of school for around two weeks.

Pleasingly, the overwhelming majority of those in S4-S6 have been able to engage in course content and learning and teaching since August. I trust that this will stand our young people in good stead in advance of what will be a very busy 2021.

Kind Regards

Mr Kane

Dear Parents/Carers and Pupils,

Please see the following letter from NHS Ayrshire and Arran. While it is the case that a group of young people were sent home earlier today on a precautionary basis, NHS Ayrshire and Arran is advising that no self-isolation is necessary for anyone other than the member of our school community to have tested positive. Thank you for your ongoing support.

Kind Regards

Mr Kane

Click to access School-No-Contact-Generic-Parent-Letter.pdf

With support from local councillor Jim McMahon and Mrs Burnett, S3 and S6 students from our school’s Mentors for Violence Prevention (MVP) group helped launch the 16 days of action campaign for White Ribbon Scotland.

The White Ribbon campaign encourages people across Scotland and the UK to speak out against domestic violence and abuse towards women.

As part of the school’s 16 days of action, MVP mentors are delivering input to all year groups. Our pupil mentors are encouraging peers and staff to sign the White Ribbon pledge and highlight local supports that can be accessed by victims of domestic violence.

Parents and carers can find our more about White Ribbon UK and sign the pledge here:

https://www.whiteribbonscotland.org.uk/make-your-pledge/

Dear Parents/Carers and Pupils,

Christmas Specials will be available via pre-order from Monday 7th December until Friday 18th December.

The menu is as follows. Please note all options listed include a drink and Christmas cupcake or biscuit.

Turkey fillet burger

Turkey fillet served in a toasted bun with crisp lettuce & tomato, topped with bacon, mozzarella & cranberry (option to remove toppings) served with wedges or onion rings (5)

Festive Nachos

Crispy corn Nachos topped with Shredded turkey, crispy lardons of bacon & melted mozzarella.

Served with a cranberry or mayonnaise dip. (Option to remove toppings & choose dip)

Festive selection box choose 3 items from + dip (salad included)

Sausage roll or Vegetarian sausage roll or Chicken Goujons (2of each)

+

Pigs in blankets or Mozzarella sticks (4 each)

+

Potato wedges or Onion rings (5)

• Cranberry dip or mayo / ketchup / brown sauce

Festive salad box

Crisp mixed salad box + choose 3 items + mayo or salad dressing

Sliced turkey

Sliced ham

Assorted cheeses (3)

Grapes

Pickled onions

Branston pickle

Assorted Crackers

Cranberry

Catholic Education Week is a significant milestone in our annual calendar. Celebrated between the feast days of St. Margaret and St. Andrew, we take time to reflect on our mission as a Catholic school. This year, our celebrations were somewhat different. As would always be the case, class groups have been praying for our deceased friends and relatives throughout November. Our Caritas group have launched our Christmas Hamper appeal and we have started to plan ahead for the visit of the NET ministry team in February. When the NET team join us we will launch a broad consultation on our vision, values and aims. Our faith will remain the most central theme of our vision, values and aims.

Pictured below are Mr Sikora and Fr. Martin with representatives of our Pupil Leadership Teams. Mass was celebrated on Thursday 26th November with as many attendees as social distancing would permit. We now look forward to the beginning of Advent and the various charitable activities that will help us prepare for the birth of Jesus at Christmas.

e-Sgoil (in collaboration with Education Scotland) is offering an initial 8-week webinar programme of real-time, interactive study support for Scottish school pupils in the Senior Phase. Please note, e-Sgoil sessions are not delivered by class teachers. e-Sgoil is a national programme designed to supplement content learned in school.

To find out more and register, please visit http://www.e-sgoil.com/ . Sessions running this week are as follows:

Dear Parent/Carer,

Please see an important letter from NHS Ayrshire and Arran. All pupils and staff identified as potential close contacts were sent home earlier today. Thereafter, NHS Ayrshire and Arran will confirm detail of isolation periods with families over the course of this weekend. All families of those sent home today are in receipt of an initial letter outlining what will happen next.

If you have not heard from us, your son/daughter has not been identified as a potential close contact.

I would like to thank colleagues at East Ayrshire Council, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, our school office staff and wider staff group for their forbearance this morning. The manner in which school staff handled matters this morning was exemplary.

Kind Regards

Mr Kane

Click to access Parent-Letter-General-COVID.pdf