Dear Parent / Carer,

End of term letter October 2025

I am delighted to share with you an update from our first term of the session. Although the term has been short in weeks, we have crammed a lot in and I am sure everyone is ready for a well deserved break.

It was great to welcome and meet with families from our new S1 year group through the English and Maths information evening early in September. It was also great to see families from those in S4 attend both the information evening on the 11th September and Parent / Carer evening at the end of September.

We have launched updated policies across the school, including an evolved Positive Relationship policy and our new Learning Standard.

We have had lots happening in school, from assemblies led by our young people and staff teams around new school policies, wellbeing and most recently, sharing outcomes from the wide range of pupil voice that takes place across KHS in a ‘You Said, We Did’ approach. All of this has been underpinned by our commitment to the rights of the child and school values of Community, Ambition and Respect.

Today, all S1 were involved in an exciting project based learning day – Jungle Quest! It was amazing to see the variety of learning taking place, coupled with a real sense of fun and enjoyment for all.

We have also engaged with our families through our PACK (Parent and Carers of Kirkcaldy) meeting, and through a range of surveys – seeking feedback on our new learning standard to our School Improvement and Pupil Equity fund plans. We are grateful to those who have taken the time to contriubute to these areas.

I would like to thank all of our families for their continued support over this term. We really couldn’t do it without you!

Successes of last session

Through our Standards and Quality Report (SQR) for last session, you will be able to note the following successes:

• Young people feel safer in school, from 92% in May 2024 to 97% June 2025
• Improved attendance in school, from 85.8% in session 2023/24 to 86.89% in session 2024/25
• Continued improvement in literacy and numeracy at L4 and L5 in S4 – L4 from 90.49% in 2023/24 to 93.82% in session 2024/25, L5 – from 61.64% to 75.64%
• Improvement for those young people achieving 5 qualifications in S4 at L3 (up 9% to 90.6%) and L4 (up 7% to 81.3%) – compared to last year
• Improvement for those young people achieving 5 qualifications in S5 at L5 (up over 4% to 59.2%) and L6 (up almost 10% to 19.58%) – on previous session
• Improved positive destinations (follow-up), from 91.7% for session 2022/23 to 93.5% for session 2023/24, above the national figure

School Improvement Priorities session 2025/26

Following our continued consultation with families, learners, staff and partners, we have amended our School Improvement Plan and shared this with all. We have 3 key priorities. They are:

• Ensuring a Rights-based approach to supporting young people, underpinned by our shared vision, values and aims, developing leadership at all levels
• Learners will increase engagement, participation and leadership in learning, leading to an increase in confidence, motivation and achievement
• Improving attainment of our middle 60% of learners through well-planned curriculum experiences and focused attainment and achievement intervention

Simply put, we are aiming to ensure that we embed our refreshed Vision, Values and Aims to ensure continued progress and improvement in wellbeing, learning, teaching, curriculum and achievement for our young people.

S4 Assessment Weeks – w/b 24th November and 1st December 2025

Please find, the timetable for S4 assessment weeks. These start on w/b 24th November and run for approx. 8 school days.

Mrs Hume shared a wealth of information on studying, resources and support for young people through the S4 Information evening on 11th September. The slides for this have been shared with families.

Formal assessments for S5/6 will take place from w/b 19th January 2026.

Transforming Learning (iPads)

As you will be aware, all learners were given iPads through Fife Councils Transforming Learning programme on 16th / 17th September. Over the past few weeks, we have been working to develop our lessons to support the use of iPads and to develop confidence in both teachers and learners alike. Initial feedback from everyone is overwhelmingly positive and we will continue to implement and embed the use of iPads over the coming terms and sessions.

Please remind your child to charge their iPad and bring it to school in their bag everyday. I would also ask that young people take care of the devices and ensure that they act responsibly.

Attendance

We continue to work with all our young people and families to ensure that learners attend school. I cannot stress how important it is for young people to attend school and follow their agreed timetables.

When a young person is off for an extended period of time, this can have a big impact on their wellbeing and achievements in school. Even a young person with an attendance of 90% means that they may miss 3 weeks and 4 days of learning at school.

We are here to help and support with this. Please get in touch if we can support in any way.

Extra-curricular offer

Please find our most up to date extra-curricular offer.

Family Engagement

We are keen to hear from you on how we can improve family engagement further in KHS. Please use the link in the “GroupCall” to share your views.

Staffing

As usual at the end of term, we have a number of staffing announcements to make you aware of.

We bid a fond farewell to the following colleagues who are leaving KHS at the end of this term and wish them the very best in their future pursuits:

• Mrs F Waddell – Admin – Retiring from KHS
• Mrs C Cook – Admin – Retiring from KHS
• Mr M Robb – Teacher of Physics – Retiring from KHS
• Ms R Thomson – Teacher of BGE – Moving to a new post
• Ms E Brown – Teacher of HE – Moved to a new post
• Mrs N Dempsey – Principal Teacher of Guidance / Techer of Biology – Moved to a new post

We welcome the following staff to KHS from the start of term:

• Ms J Fell – Temporary Teacher of Biology

Unfortunately, we are having to amend our curriculum in S1/2 and remove Home Economics. This is due to colleagues leaving. We have advertised but have not had any success so far. Further adverts will be raised and we hope to appoint a suitable candidate soon.

Ms J Webster will take over from Ms R Thomson in the role of Teacher of BGE next term. Ms Webster has been in KHS this term supporting cover across Business and other subject areas. We are in the process of raising a permanent job advert for this post.

Lastly, we welcomed back Mrs R Wilkie this week to our Supported Learning department following maternity leave.

Notable dates for the terms ahead

Please see notable dates below:

Christmas Fayre and Concert

• Our annual Christmas Fayre and Concert take place on Tuesday 16th December from 5/5.30pm. Concert begins at 6.30pm.

Friends of Kirkcaldy High School (FoKHS) Race Night

• Friday 7th November 2025 – 7pm at KHS

Parent / Carer Evenings

The dates for our parent / carer evenings are below:

• S1: 5 November 2025
• S2: 14 January 2026
• S3: 17 March 2026
• S5/6: 4 December 2025

Dates for our parent / carer information evenings are below:

• P7: 20 November 2025 – Family Learning Event
• P7: 10 June 2026 – Information Evening
• S2,4 and 5: 30 – Oct Curricular Information Session (Online Event)
• S2,4 and 5: 2 Feb -Parents Curricular Pathways Evening

All Parent / Carer evening will be in person at KHS unless otherwise stated.

Reporting Dates (Term 2, 3, 4):

• S1-3: 19th December 2025, 13th March 2026, 15th May 2026
• S4: 21st November 2025, 23rd January 2026, 3rd April 2026
• S5/6: 21st November 2025, 27th February 2026, 3rd April 2026

Parent Council – Provisional dates (1 meeting per term):

• Term 2: w/b 10th November 2025
• Term 3: w/b 19th January 2026
• Term 4: w/b 4th May 2026

*Parent Council meetings take place online (TEAMS). All parents / carers are welcome. Agenda and link will be sent out to all parents / carers the week prior to the meeting.

Finally, I hope you find the information contained in this letter useful. I hope you have a restful break and we look forward to seeing everyone when we return. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can support in any way.

Best wishes,

Chris McKay

Rector