Dear Parent/Carer,
I hope you are all safe and well. Please find attached to this update a letter from Maria Lloyd, Head of Education with further information about SQA and how national qualifications are to be awarded this year. As ever any questions or concerns do not hesitate to get in touch.
SQA estimates letter to parents 5 May
Teams Update
Thank you to all the parents who have supported us to get their young people set up in Teams to move our learning forward. A number still have to go online and enter the appropriate code to allow access to learning. Please try to ensure your child has done so by the end of the week so that there are no gaps in learning, as all programmes will be progressing as planned.
Next steps for Teams will be for us to use an analytical tool built into the system to monitor levels of pupil engagement, to track whether or not pupils are logging in to view materials, upload work and communicate with teachers. We will feed back to you if we feel there are any issues and plan what we can do to support.
Please note that the timetable has not moved on as such, plans for this are in line with previous years and individual pupil timetables will be issued early June as normal.
Reporting
There will be no further reporting to parents for the remainder of the Session. One of the clear advantages of us moving as a school to regular and succinct tracking reports throughout the year is that young people all received reports in Term 3 and therefore we will resume tracking of progress next Session.
PE Choice – S3
Thank you to young people for completing the Teams quiz and sharing choices for the S3 PE curriculum. Obviously, as with all learning this term and next, participation will be dependent on the recovery plan set out by the Scottish Government and Fife Council with regards to our return to school. Further information on this will follow as and when we hear more.
Bell Baxter Parent Council
We had a lovely meeting Monday evening with some members of the Parent Council – was great to see everyone, albeit remotely! A key part of the discussion was thinking about delivery models for remote learning. We had already established a working group within the school to consider this and pilot models however we would like to tap into any expertise/interest from parents out there.
If you would be interested in linking with the group, please email Karen Brown, the Chair of the Parent Council on bellbaxter.parentcouncil@gmail.com
P7 Transition
Sadly our transition programmes have been pretty much wiped out as a result of COVID. However, we are working on a number of things behind the scenes to try to plan various ways of connecting with our primary 7s. Further information to follow on this soon.
Awards Ceremonies
We are in the same position as above with awards ceremonies. Again we are thinking creatively around this and will be sharing more in the next few weeks in terms of how we plan to conduct these extremely important celebrations of our young people’s hard work and achievements.
Guidance Contact
The Guidance Team are working through each of the young people in their year groups to make contact and check in with you all. With between 250 – 300 young people per year this is a huge undertaking but well worth it. They have now spoken to approximately 50% of their year groups each and will be continuing to work on speaking to you all over the coming days and weeks. If you have any worries at all however please do not wait for them to call. You can email each of them directly on the following emails:
S1 carron.pour@fife.gov.uk
S2 tara.pollock@fife.gov.uk
S3 kirsty.simcock@fife.gov.uk
S4 niall.duncan@fife.gov.uk
S5/6 anne-louise.cunneen@fife.gov.uk
I think that is everything! As ever stay in touch and we will do our best to help you in this difficult time.
Best wishes
Carol Ann
Carol Ann Penrose
Rector
Bell Baxter High School
Carslogie Road
Cupar
Fife
KY15 4HY
Tel. 01334 659459
Online www.bbhs-online.co.uk
Twitter @BellBaxter_HS
Facebook @BellbaxterHS
