Dear Parent / Carer,
Welcome to this weeks Rector’s Log. I hope you and your family are doing well!
The week that’s been…
I would like to start off by saying a massive thank you to all our young people, families and colleagues for your support on Tuesday given the power outage and decision taken to close KHS to those who were not doing National 5 and Advanced Higher English. These decisions are not taken lightly and are undertaken in collaboration with Education Manager and Head of Service.
Even with these extraordinary issues, our young people coped very well with the incident and were supported by colleagues in school, including our amazing Chief Invigilator and her team of Invigilators. Over the rest of the week, young people undertook SQA exams in Higher English, woodwork, Drama, Higher PE and History. Masterclasses have continued also.
As the week has continued, learners across the school continued with their learning as they look forward to the change of timetabled classes on Monday. Today, learners in S1-3 were issued with their new timetables that begin on Monday. As you will be aware, this is a change from previous sessions where the timetable would normally change after the holiday in June. We hope that this change is positive for learners, increasing engagement in learning through this transition phase and continuing to support improved attendance.
Today, colleagues from all 4 Kirkcaldy High Schools took part in professional learning sessions focused on Learning, Teaching and Assessment across all four locations. Colleagues were undertaking learning around using digital tools in the classroom, strengthening practice using assessment for learning and Improving pupils engagement and pupil led learning. Our middle leaders were involved in a session around leading learning and teaching as a middle leader.
As always, you can read more about all the goings on in our blog.
Mr Harrower has asked me to share a message about a parent / carer meeting for the Battlefields 2026 trip:
On Tuesday evening, there will be an parent/carer information evening for pupils who returned a letter declaring their interest in the 2026 KHS Battlefields Trip. The meeting will take place at 7pm in the KHS staffroom. Tea and coffee will be available prior to the meeting. If you are unable to attend, please contact Mr or Mrs Harrower via email.
Next week, our young people move forward into their new year group for session 2025/26. As a result, your child(ren)’s year head will change. Please be aware of the new year head as noted below:
- S2 – Mr S Young
- S3 – Mrs S Hamilton
- S4 – Mrs K Hume
- S5/6 – Mrs J Davidson
Mrs Gibb will continue as Year head to our supported learners and will be supporting new S1s through the various transition events that are underway.
Some staffing news, with the change of timetable, Mr Walsh has decided to step away from his current temporary role as PTG (Adam Smith) back to permanent role of Teacher of Business Studies. Mr Walsh has been a fantastic Guidance teacher of the past year and I would like to publicly thank him for the support he has provided over the last year to his caseload, families and colleagues.
Mrs Harrower will support this caseload over the next six weeks until Mrs Donaldson’s return from Maternity leave at the end of June.
A wee update from Ms Black and our Supported Learning department:
We are very proud of the way our learners have handled the unusual start to the week we have had with a Bank Holiday off and then a school closure. They have returned to their learning so well and have shown a very resilient attitude.
A snapshot of the department this week: SLD5 have continued their Environmental Studies and are looking at how we can improve our green credentials with a focus on recycling. They have also been learning about Pointillism. SLD2 and 3 worked together in Geography and were looking at rocks found in our environment and sorting them into porous, permeable and impermeable. They showed a really good understanding of their method and what needed to happen to be an accurate study and also of the topic. There were some great questions around the rock foundation of this area and how this compares and why to other parts of Scotland. Lots to investigate.
We look forward to timetable change on Monday and learners have come home with a letter and a class timetable.
House Point totals for the week and session so far are as below:
This weeks total:
Adam Smith – 19
Carlyle – 36
Oswald – 32
Overall total:
Adam Smith – 3149
Carlyle – 3389
Oswald – 3512
Well done to all!
An email will be sent to all families on Monday asking for your thoughts on our school and the improvements that you feel we need to make moving into next session. Please keep a wee eye out for this hitting your inbox. I would appreciate as many responses as possible to help our planning for next session.
The week ahead…
The timetable changes on Monday and young people were given their timetable today. For any young person who was not in today, they can collect their timetable from the school office on Monday morning.
Our next PACK meeting will take place on 13th May 2025 at 6.30pm. You can read the agenda. Please contact us for the link if you would like to join the meeting.
I hope you and your family have a great weekend!
Best wishes,
Chris McKay
Rector
09 May 2025
