Dear Parent/Carer
I hope that you’ve had a good week. We’ve been busy here and the main story continues to be the SQA exams; French on Monday, Business Management and Computing Science on Tuesday, Physics on Wednesday, Classical Studies on Thursday and Modern Studies today. It has been good to see such a good turnout for the “masterclasses” on the day prior to each exam, these continue next week.
We had a vaccination catch up session for those who were absent when the visiting NHS nurse team administered HPV, polio and diphtheria jags recently. That took place on Monday.
This week was also our S1-3 Health Week with a particular focus on physical activity and mental health. We had S3 on Tuesday, S2 on Wednesday and S1 on Thursday with agencies delivering various sessions e.g. dance (with Love2Dance), karate (with JKS), Australian Rules Football (with Kingdom Kangaroos), football (with Raith Rovers and AM Soccer), rugby (with Kirkcaldy Rugby Club), floorball (with Fife Floorball Club), tennis (with Kirkcaldy Tennis Club), handball (with Fife Handball Club), boxercise (with The Edge Gym), and gymnastics (with Kirkcaldy Gymnastics Club). Many thanks to all our supporters, and also to Miss Mitchell (Principal Teacher of Health and Wellbeing) who coordinated a very full programme.
All pupils also had an input on emotional and mental wellbeing and were even offered the chance to spend some time with Alfie, the therapy dog! Many thanks to Ms Mahr of the RME Department for bringing him in. Alfie is a registered “therapet”.
On Tuesday evening we had a Parent Council meeting. One of the main issues was our plan for the “Pupil Equity Fund”, the direct additional funding available from the Scottish Government. This will be used to support learners from families affected by poverty. I explained to the Council that we will be addressing “gaps” in attendance, exclusion, attainment, participation, mental health and “destinations” on leaving school.
The Council members also aired a few concerns about the way we organise our parent/carer evenings. I’m happy to take any comments you have on board. I’ve said we’ll consider how we do things and look at different approaches for next session. The main issues seem to be; queuing and waiting areas, not knowing whether you are next in the “queue” and appointments running over the allocated 5 minutes. For me that’s the biggest problem. If one appointment runs over time it can have a huge “knock on” effect over the course of the evening, potentially affecting hundreds of appointments.
Please reply to this email if you have any comments or suggestions about the way we organise Parent/Carer Evenings.
Our annual Activities Day is taking place today and we have a great range of trips; trampolining, snowboarding and ski-ing, crazy golf, white water rafting, bowling, M and D’s Theme Park near Motherwell and Blair Drummond Safari Park. I’m sure our young people will have a great day out. Thanks to all the staff involved, and in particular to Mr Young (Depute Head), who has been hard at work making the arrangements over the past weeks. If the level of excitement as the trips set off is any indication, it should be a great day out.
Next week’s exams are Biology and Human Biology on Tuesday, Health and Food Technology on Wednesday, Engineering Science on Thursday and Geography on Friday.
On Tuesday, it will be good to welcome the Primary 6 pupils from Capshard, Fair Isle, Valley and Torbain for a themed learning day. We’ll have a special sequence of lessons all on the theme of numeracy. We’ll also have the interviews for those who have applied for the Fife College Skills for Work programme in Construction (Tuesday and Thursday afternoons).
On Wednesday, as I mentioned previously, KHS will be a big part of the Stonewall Scotland Education Conference in Glasgow. I’m one of the “keynote” speakers in the morning and Miss Pirie and Dr Murray are delivering a “workshop” on supporting an in-school LBGT Group. We’ll continue to do all we can to help young people who identify as being gay, lesbian or bi-sexual to be themselves, and we’ll also stand firmly against homophobia … it’s part of our core values and I’m proud that this is a such a welcoming school community.
On Thursday we host a primary cluster netball competition and the week ends with the First Year Reports being posted home.
Next week’s hot dish menu is; Monday: Stovies with crusty bread and turnip. Tuesday: Chicken korma with boiled rice and vegetables. Wednesday: Sweet chilli beef with noodles and vegetables. Thursday: Steak pie with potatoes and vegetables. Friday: Breaded Fish/scotch pie with chips and peas. We also have our pasta, sandwich, soup and salad options too. Do remember that a cup of home-made soup is available free to all young people at lunchtime.
As always, we are happy to help with any issue … do be in contact for support. Please remember, I would appreciate your comments and suggestions about Parent/Carer Evenings.
Many thanks.
Derek Allan
RECTOR
19 May 2017
