Monthly Archives: May 2016

School Starts Back

SQAHopefully most pupils have enjoyed their holiday weekend – unfortunately for a few there have still been SQA exams! Our exams finish on Friday with PE.

 

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is an Inservice Day so only pupils with exams should be in school. On Wednesday 1st June, we start the new timetable and the existing S1, S2 and S3 move up to S2, S3 and S4 respectively. School starts at the usual time of 8.45 am.

Seniors (new S5 and S6) return on Monday 6th June at the usual time of 8.45 am. Some pupils will need to see Mrs Crawford about changes to options if we have not been able to run all the courses.

Hillwalk up Conic Hill

 

DSCF1269On Saturday, 100 pupils, staff, parents and friends headed once again to Conic Hill. As well as a day out for the school community, it was an opportunity to raise funds through sponsorship for the “Send My Friend to School” charity which draws attention to and supports the millions of children who do not have access to education.

The pupils from our Rights Respecting School have coordinated our activities – thanks to them.

The weather was highly unpredictable but ended up in our favour with a dry walk and even some sunshine. Thanks to all who joined us on the day.

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New S5 & S6 students

New S5 and S6 pupils can come into school on the morning of Thursday 26th May to meet with Pupil Support to make any timetable changes before the start of the new timetable on Monday 6th June.

 

Now the Work is Really Underway!

photo-73 of our S1 pupils – Sophie, Jamie and Kyle – accompanied Mr Sinclair to the official “turf-cutting” event for the new school last week. They were joined by ERC councillors and officials celebrating the start of the process.

It was exciting to see the difficulty they had in finding a bit of turf to cut. Work has already started and things are moving quickly. The noisy pile-driving stage has been completed ahead of schedule with no disruption to the SQA exams. You can now see the shape the building will take from the piles that have been sunk into the ground to support the foundations and the whole area has now been dug up ready.

Sophie wielded a mean spade and the boys could only doff their hats in respect! Well done to all 3.

Mr Sinclair

SQA EXAM UPDATE

SQAWe are now half-way through Day 2 of the exam programme and things are progressing well.

Over the past few days we have been monitoring noise levels from the work on the new build. While it is great to see things progressing quickly, we have been conscious that we are in the noisiest period of the building work – the piledriving of the foundation supports into the bedrock.

While the noise-levels are not too high, the constant thumping could be disturbing to pupils’ concentration. Consequently, we took the decision yesterday, based on that monitoring, to re-room our exams to the opposite side of the school. When pupils sign in they may be told a different room to go to from what is on their exam timetable but otherwise things will be as before.

We will continue to operate this for the duration of the noisier work to ensure that all pupils have the best conditions possible to produce their best work.

Mr Sinclair

 

 

Scholar Online Sessions

These are our final SCHOLAR online sessions for this academic year focusing on exam preparation.  

National 5 Maths                                                           Monday 9th May              6.00pm

Higher Modern Languages                                          Monday 9th May              7.30 pm

Higher Math                                                                   Tuesday 10th May            6.00pm

Advanced Higher Modern Languages                       Tuesday 10th May            7.30 pm

Higher Computing Science                                          Wednesday 18th May      7.00pm

 

Full details can be found on the SCHOLAR website: http://scholar.hw.ac.uk/Resources/Live_Online_Sessions/

The Tutors will also be online to answer student questions on the discussion boards, details can be found: http://scholar.hw.ac.uk/Resources/Ask_a_Tutor.html

 

SQA Exams

SQAOur first SQA exams commence tomorrow (Wed 4th May) with Lifeskills Maths for some S5/6 pupils.

S4 will see their diet kick off with National 5 English on Thursday (5th May), which is also the day for Higher and Advanced Higher English.

We are then in to what will be a fairly intense exam period for some pupils, with in some cases an exam a day and even for some the possibility of 2 exams on the same day (Business Management & Computing).

I wish all our pupils well and trust that the efforts made in class, at home, through Supported Study and Easter School, will now pay off and everyone achieves what they have worked hard for.

Pupils have been issued with individual timetables. Pupils in S4 with 5+ National 5 exams and all pupils in S5/6 may use the time that they do not have exams to work from home with their parents’ permission. They have also been informed about additional support sessions, usually organised for the day preceding each exam, when staff will be timetabled to be available to offer additional help. Please encourage your young person to take advantage of these.

Other pupils in S4 will have been given an individual timetable with additional activities during this period.

Pupils should be in full uniform if they come into school throughout the exam period whether they are in for exams or in to seek additional help. In the latter case they must sign in at the school office so we know they are in the building.

Mr Sinclair