St Joseph's Academy – East Ayrshire

Dear Pupils and Parents/Carers,

Further to the information shared at our Parent Council meeting last Monday, I can now confirm that we will change timetable on Monday 18th May. Individual timetables will be issued to pupils, and they will be sent information on how to access new Teams/Groups/Classrooms next week.

Kind Regards

Mr Kane

To our young people,

We really hope you enjoy this.

Take care and keep safe.

With love from your school family.

Dear S6,

Firstly, I am sorry I missed you during your final week in school. For personal reasons, I was not able to be in school at that time. I have since had a chance to see the video of your guard of honour and I am glad that we were able to mark your farewell in some way. I think that you have started a tradition likely to stay with us in years to come. Now that things are settling slightly in terms of online learning, I wish to send you a message here to express my thanks for all you have done for our school community. I know that you will have lots of questions about the prom, yearbook, exams and what you should or should not be doing in terms of online learning. Here is a brief overview.

Prom

As you will understand, all proms were cancelled across Scotland, including our own.  The practicalities of organising another prom are likely to be fairly complex, but if there is a will amongst your cohort we will find a way. Whenever schools re-open, we will make contact with you to determine viability or otherwise. Given that by that time, many of you will likely be at University, College or in employment, we cannot be certain that it will happen but we will take our lead from you in terms of your willingness or otherwise to have a formal prom.

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Please report IT issues during school closure by completing this form.

We have released a file pupils may wish to use to help them track where to find work for each subject area. Pupils in S3 to S6 should add subjects depending upon what they are studying at the moment. The files are available in Microsoft Word format and can be accessed by clicking the text links below:

S1 and S2 Planner

S3 Planner

S4 Planner

S5/S6 Planner

We hope to release an index of where work is placed for each class by the end of the week. Pupils can then check the index and fill in any blanks on their planner.

Dear Parents/Carers and Pupils,

We realise that young people are used to receiving notifications on mobile devices, and that notifications help young people plan their learning from home. We can now confirm that both Google Classroom and Teams will allow for direct access from the dedicated apps you can download from App stores.

We would also strongly recommend that pupils download Teams to their laptop of PC if they are using a laptop or PC to access work. Instructions can be found by clicking on the screen shot shown below.

Dear pupils and parents/carers,

We have noticed that the vast majority of IT problems raised with us have already been addressed in correspondence posted here or on social media. Please take the time to check the undernoted guidance before raising issues with us. This post is updated regularly in response to issues raised by pupils, staff and parents/carers.

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Dear Pupils and Parents/Carers,

You can access Google Classroom from within Glow. You should not use a personal gmail address or try to access it from an app. It requires Glow login access at the moment.

Instructions can be found by clicking on the image shown below:

You can access Teams by following this guidance:

Dear Parent/Carer,

Please view the undernoted in light of the current pandemic. As with many workplaces, our working priorities are changing near daily across the late part of session 2019/20 and the entirety of session 2020/21. It is likely that a revised overview of progress against policy generation and revision will be shared in August 2021.

Original Post – April 2020

You may be aware of the high turnover of staff over the past few academic years. It is also the case that the National and Local Authority policy landscape has changed significantly since many of our school policies were last revised. With this in mind, we have started the process of reviewing all school level policy. In some cases, our policy will reflect exactly National and Local Authority level guidance. In other areas, it will be necessary to provide a school level context from which policy can be understood.

Given that the generation of policy, particularly at school level, should involve consultation, we aim to revise at least three policies per academic session over the course of the next few years. It should be noted that not all policy need be extensive should it satisfy the needs of our school community and our legislative obligations.  I am sure all stakeholders will recognise that aligning all policies with current guidance takes considerable time. We thank you for your forbearance while we work to provide clarity on all aspects of school life.

Please note that our annual School Improvement Plan, Standards and Qualities Report and School Calendar can be found on the homepage of our website, and are always updated annually. Our School Handbook also provides a general overview of school procedures as they relate to the day to day running of the school and can also be found on our homepage.

You can find revised policy on this page of our website:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ea/stjosephsacademy/school-policy/

At the time of writing our policy revision schedule is as follows:

Complete

• Learning and Teaching – Revised 2018/19
• Uniform – Revised 2017/18 (publication online to follow)
• Curriculum Rationale – Revised 2019/20
• Staff Development/CLPL – Revised 2018/19 (publication online to follow)
• Guidance at time of personalisation and choice
  • Will be subsumed within Transitions policy at a later date
  • Available via School Handbook and website news feed for current session

Partially Complete

• Celebrating Success and Achievement – Revised 2019/20
  • Fluid, with updates annually in relation to Award Ceremonies and Extra-Curricular Activity
• Reporting to Parents/Carers – Revised 2018/19
  • Further revision will include Assessment, Homework and Tracking Progress throughout 2020/21 and 2021/22

Ongoing this session – Publication by end of session 2020/21

• School Handbook (Last revised 2018)
• Vision, Values, Aims and Catholicity
• Equality and Inclusion
  • Informed by Scottish Catholic Education Service (SCES) and East Ayrshire Council policy
  • Includes Promoting Positive Behaviour and Anti-Bullying
• Communication, Digital Learning and STEM
  • Including complaint handling procedures
• Pastoral Care, Child Protection and Support for Learning
• Revision to assessment, homework and tracking (as detailed above)

Planned for review during session 2021/22

• School Leaver Support Policy
• Staff Handbook
• Promoting Attendance and Good Timekeeping
• Family Learning and Parental Engagement
• Pupil Leadership

Planned revision post 2021/22

• Developing the Young Workforce/Skills for Work and SDS Partnership Guidance
• Community Engagement and Parish Partnerships
• Self-Evaluation and School Improvement
• Promoting Literacy, Numeracy and Health and Wellbeing
• 2 + 1 Modern Foreign Languages
• Transitions
• Raising Attainment and Closing the Attainment Gap
• Global Citizenship, Enterprise and Learning for Sustainability

Once all policy is revised, we will move to a refresh schedule on a rolling basis. However, it is anticipated that this will not result in substantial alteration unless our qualitative or quantitative data identifies a need to consult and revise fully.

Click here to return to our main School Policy Page.

Kind Regards

Mr Kane