Dear Parent/Carer,
Welcome to this weeks Rector’s log. I hope you and your family are doing well.
The week that’s been…
This week saw our final groups of S1s attend Fordell Firs for some outdoor learning. Young people have had a great time, developing their confidence and other key skills for learning and life.
Our learners in Supported Learning did an amazing job in organising and running a Macmillan Coffee morning today. Family, young people and staff all enjoyed the hospitality offered and also had the opportunity to take part in some games. Well done to all our young people and staff who helped to organise this fantastic event.
Some of our S2 learners involved in the ‘First Chances’ programme attended Carnegie Conference centre on Wednesday. We also had a group of young people in S4 from the English department attend Jupiter Artland on Wednesday, completing a guided tour and creative writing workshop. Thank you to families, young people and staff involved in supporting this.
On Wednesday, we held our first in person Parent and Carer Evening here at the school. It was great to welcome families back into school and there was a positive and productive buzz around the night. Thank you to all families who managed to come and to staff for their time and feedback on learning.
As ever, here is some information from Mrs Whyte regarding the DYW padlet…Padlet has a few local jobs such as many seasonal workers at the Retail Park if you are looking for a part time job. S5 pupils are invited to apply for Career Ready – an opportunity to get career input and mentoring from a local business. This will lead to 4 weeks paid employment next summer and the chance to build upon your employability skills. If you are interested, please speak to Mrs Whyte in C13. More information on the padlet.
Following our consultation on our School Improvement (SIP) and Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) plans, these plans have been agreed and will be shared on our website from next week, along with our Standards and Quality Report for last session.
As part of our PEF plan, we had proposed 2 new roles to support our aspiration of ensuring all young people achieve their potential. To that end, I am pleased to announce that Mrs K Hume (PTC English) was successful in being appointed to a temporary post of DHT Closing the Gap and Ms L Hay (PT Numeracy) was appointed to a temporary PT Engagement. Both posts will be until June 2023 initially and will support work to identify, target and work with young people who are furthest from achievement. We wish both well in these important roles going forward.
As part of our school improvement priority around increasing attendance in school, we would like to seek your views on making some changes to Tutor classes. At the moment, classes come in groupings of young people from S1-6 in each class. Some of our young people have reported that they would prefer to go to tutor with their year group and therefore in there year and house group.
We are seeking KHS community views on whether to change this system to one that has young people in Tutor classes with their year group only. I will send more detail to you via ‘Groupcall’ and seek your views through an online form. We will also be seeking the views of all young people and staff.
Finally, S4-6 Reports are due to be sent to families today but will be delayed due to the postal worker’s strike. These will be with you as soon as practically possible.
The week ahead…
Next week is the final week of term with school finishing at 3.15pm on Friday. The October break starts for all on Monday, 10th October until Friday 21st October inclusive.
Friday, 7th October will be a ‘dress down’ day with donations welcome to support ‘Paige’s Musical Butterflies’ charity. The charity raises awareness of childhood cancer and also provides access to musical therapy and lessons for children going through the cancer journey.
Best wishes
Chris McKay
Interim Rector
30 September 2022
