Dear Parent/Carer

I hope that you are well. Here is the KHS news roundup.

Last week I mentioned the significant number of student teachers we are currently hosting and welcomed them to the school. This week we also welcomed Helen Flockhart as a new member of the Pupil Support Team. Hello too, to Jayne Preece who joins us as a Pupil Support Officer with a particular responsibility for helping our young people to secure a “positive destination” on leaving school. This will involve working with employers and the College on behalf of our most vulnerable learners. I should also add that Rebecca Loughran, a student teacher of Business Education joined us this week too. A warm KHS welcome to all our new staff.

At the Education and Children’s Services Committee of Fife Council this week, KHS came in for praise due to our approaches taken to young people’s mental health and wellbeing. On Tuesday, The Courier newspaper visited to speak to our young people about pupil led initiatives and peer support programmes such as our mental health ambassadors, online “toolkit”, serenity garden and bereavement and loss programmes. I’m very proud of all our young people involved and grateful to the staff who guide them, particularly, in this case, Mrs Kendrick (Guidance Team Co-Leader) and Mrs Wood and Mrs Rae (Pupil Support Officers). I understand that you can check out The Courier’s coverage this weekend. I’ll try to send on a link next week. Our Mental Health Ambassadors are pictured with Mrs Kendrck; Sam, Amber, Eilidh and Robbie.

This morning we will be sending out a short report for parents/carers of S2 pupils. This is our response to the current situation whereby we can’t have parents evenings. We’ll be doing update reports for all yeargroups over the session which the next one due for S5/6 in 2 weeks time. I’ll include a calendar with all the report dates next week.

However, we can hold a Parent Council Meeting and having discussed this with Gillian McIntyre (Chair) we are going for Tuesday 24 November at 6pm and we’ll once again hold this on “Zoom”. We should know more about SQA arrangements by then, and there will undoubtedly be other developments to discuss, especially in relation to health and safety. As before, I’ll ask for notes of interest in a fortnight’s time and send out details to those replying.

Next week we’ll be marking Remembrance in school with wreath laying at our War Memorial and  a two minute silence at 11am on Wednesday 11 November. I’m grateful to Miss Osborne (History) and Mrs Duckett (Music), who have collaborated with some of our young people to create a video presentation we’ll show across the school. Cameron Hamilton (S6) will mark the end of our silence by sounding the Last Post on cornet. He’ll play out in the playground and we expect this to be heard across most of the school.

Thursday is a “Dress Down Day” in support of Children In Need and donations are welcome (suggested £1 if possible). Friday 13 November is a staff training day and pupils do not attend that day.

Also, and probably not unexpectedly, we have another COVID update. We continue to value your support in ensuring that any young person who may have had contact with the virus or has any of the symptoms should stay off school as a precaution. This week we have continued to have around 15 daily “COVID Related” absentees on average. I would stress that these are not positive cases but are “precautionary” absences.

Of course, it’s really important that should we have any young person testing positive that we know right away in order to follow all the test and protect procedures. Please call us immediately with all the relevant information. Should a result come “out of hours” eg in the evening or at the weekend it would still be really helpful for us to be notified promptly. For this purpose only, we now have a COVID ONLY emergency out of hours contact number. Please call 07990 108 538 to make an out of hours notification. This number should only be used to report a positive test result of a pupil of KHS. Many thanks.

Finally, some more staff news and it involves two of our current teachers gaining promoted posts after interviews held this week. Congratulations to Mrs Christie and Miss Samfat, who have now been appointed to the Post of Principal Teacher of Mathematics and Digital Learning respectively. I am delighted by these appointments and wish both “all the best” in their new roles here. Also, very best wishes to Mrs Armstrong (Home Economics), who will be leaving us to take up a new challenge at Starley Hall School near Burntisland after next weekend. Liz has been a great asset here for the last nine years. Thanks and all the very best.

Thanks also to you, as always, for your ongoing support and understanding. these are difficult days, but we’ll get there I’m sure. Best wishes, have a good weekend.

Derek Allan

RECTOR

6 November 2020