Welcome to this weeks Rector’s log. I hope you and your family are doing well.
The week that’s been…
With the sun starting to shine, and the temperatures increasing, life at KHS continues to move forward at pace!
On Monday and Tuesday this week, we had visitors from across the Education department support our Validated Self Evaluation process around Guidance and Support. The process involved members of the school team working with colleagues from Fife Council, visiting classes, holding young people, parent / carer and staff focus groups and reviewing our systems and processes around areas such as attendance, bullying, supporting young people with Additional Support Needs and Child protection.
Our visitors had a very positive experience, again remarking on the calm, respectful atmosphere that exists across the school and that our young people feel part of our school, displaying this through their uniform and commitment to KHS. They noted strong, positive relationships between young people, and between young people and school staff. They noted a number of emerging strengths around our systems and processes and noted the improvements made over the past year – Positive Destinations at a high of over 95%, attendance up 2.5% since last year, more robust planning around young people with identified needs now in place and that we have taken an approach that will continue to improve outcomes for young people. Lastly, young people report that they feel safe, cared for and respected at KHS.
Areas for development include ensuring that we take areas of good practice for particular groups of young people and develop these for all young people across the school. Other areas include ensuring that we have a clear, strategic approach to developing well-being for young people across the school (young people being aware of and using the well-being indicators) and ensuring we continue to develop a culture of ambition and aspiration for young people, working alongside and in partnership with families and our community.
As you will no doubt be aware, we had ‘The 3rd Kirkcaldy Pals Battalion’ visiting the First World War battlefields of western Europe this week. After departing KHS at 9.30am on Saturday morning, a tired and weary group made their safe return from the front late last night. I am sure you were keeping up to date with the daily blogs posted on our website but if you haven’t, they are available on the website.
It was a wonderful opportunity for our young people, and one that will stay with them. Well done to all our young people who should unbelievable positivity and respect throughout the trip. Thank you to parents and carers for supporting your child(ren) to have the opportunity and to our staff team for everything they did to ensure that the young people had a safe and worthwhile educational experience.
Over the course of this week, our young people in S4-6 continue to work towards and undertake qualifications through the SQA examinations diet. Our young people continue to work hard and give of their best throughout the examinations, with some even sitting 4 exams this week alone! We have had examinations in Music Technology, Drama, Business Management, Modern Studies and National 5 Mathematics to name some of the examinations this week. Our masterclasses continue to be well attended and we would encourage young people to make use of these extra supports prior to their examinations.
On Tuesday, I attended the Friends of Kirkcaldy High School (FoKHS) virtual meeting. As ever, it was great to work and listen to such a devoted team of ex-Kirkcaldy High School pupils and staff. Our most recent event made over £1500, with this money used to support young people in S6 undertaking training in First Aid at Work, leading to certification and skills that could potentially save a life in future. FoKHS do an amazing job in fundraising and raising the profile for and of KHS. We are grateful to have such an active and supportive group.
Today, young people from the Interact Club passed on a donation to Blood Bikes Scotland. The Interact club raised £140 from a Bake Sale and Tombola for Blood Bikes Scotland. The donation was made through Kirkcaldy Rotary Club who support the Interact Club weekly in school. This very worthwhile cause makes approx. 900 runs per month for the NHS in Fife and beyond delivering blood to help people in need and to save lives. This service is vital to many and supports NHS Trusts in Fife, Forth Valley, Lothian and most recently Tayside. In 2023 alone, Blood Bikes Scotland completed over 8400 successful deliveries and this number is looking to increase this year. The service relies solely on volunteers and this money will go towards keeping their 14 bikes and 5 cars on the road over 365 days a year. Thanks to everyone involved!
We continue to seek your views on our school. These views help to shape our school improvement priorities. Please take a few minutes to complete this online survey. Moreover, at the last Parent Council, there was a discussion around young people receiving homework across their subjects. We are keen to find out more to help inform our development of a Home Learning policy. Please share your views.
Lastly, a wee update from Ms Black on our Supported Learners:
“This week in Supported Learning we have had a lot of sporting learning with young people out training with Raith Rovers, physical literacy sessions, indoor curling and kayaking at Lochore Meadows. A lot of discussion around the social skills, teamwork, communication, focus and resilience that are transferable between our classroom learning and what we learn in sports sessions. We will be entering teams for the Fife Cross-Country and Supported Learning Depts Boccia tournament and look forward to sharing more around them.
As a Support Faculty and school, we have had some visitors from the Authority working with us and our school improvement planning, I have been so proud of learners and how they have conducted themselves. In particular, our pupil focus group who met with them and shared their thoughts very eloquently around their learning and how they feel about our school. Thanks go as well to our parents that kindly helped with this process too.
In SLD4 we are completing some work for qualifications and have some learners working on additional units through the study leave period, SLD2 continue work in the community and with Nourish towards their qualifications and SLD1 and SLD3 are planning a collaborative project which I look forward to hearing more about. Lovely for them to be working together and leading their learning.
Next week we will miss our learners on Monday (Bank Holiday) and Thursday (In-Service day). Wishing you a safe and lovely long weekend.”
As ever, please click on our blog to keep up to date with all the latest goings on and celebrate the success of our young people too – click here.
The week ahead…
Please note that the school will be closed to all learners on Monday 6th May for the May day holiday. We will open again on Tuesday 7th May as normal. On Thursday, young people will be off again as we have our final INSET day of the session. Please note, those sitting SQA examinations should attend their exams as required. There are no exams scheduled for Monday but Higher English, amongst others, take place on Thursday.
Lastly, advance notice that the last Parent Council meeting of this session takes place, virtually, on Tuesday 14th May 2024 at 6pm. I will share the agenda in next weeks Rector’s Log.
I hope you enjoy the long weekend. Fingers crossed for sunshine!
Best wishes,
Chris McKay
Rector
03 May 2024
