Greenfaulds High School

Head Teacher Blog

Dear Parent/Carer

I hope you are well.

A slightly disjointed week this week with our Inservice Day on Thursday this week has led to a slightly disjointed feeling. Nonetheless, our pupils have continued to be fantastic. Mr Scoular, who led the compensatory Avanti Train issue visit to Blackpool this week summed it up for me when, upon returning after a long day texted me to say ‘Really good for the teacher soul to be reminded how many lovely young people we have’.

As always, if you have any questions in relation to the information contained within this blog or any other school matter please do not hesitate to be in touch with the school.

Inset Day

As you know, on Thursday the school was closed to all pupils (except those sitting exams) as it was a Staff Development Day. On the day we spent our morning looking at what we have achieved over the course of this year, how we can demonstrate this improvement and what we feel we need to do next. One of the key areas in terms of school improvement is to ensure that families voices are included in our decision making. As such, I will be in touch with all families in the next few weeks looking for your feedback on learning, attendance, support for pupils and other areas. I appreciate that you will already have lots of organisations asking for feedback, but I would really value it if you could find 10 minutes or so to help the school continue to improve.

S2 Reports: Parent Portal

In line with our policy of using Parent Portal, moving forward no future pupil reports will be printed, but are accessible to families via the Portal. Today, all families of S2 should have received a notification that their child’s report is available via Parent Portal.

As you will know from a number of HT Blogs this year, I have been keen to encourage families to sign up to the Parent Portal as it provides a one stop shop for families to access parent/carer evening appointments, view their child’s timetable, make online payments, report absence and monitor their attendance.

If you have been unable to register for the Parent Portal yet, the sign up process is relatively straightforward and is available here. If you are struggling to sign up, there is a help document which is available here. Alternatively, please contact the school and we can support you to access this resource.

World Championship Dancers

I was delighted to hear of the achievements of our pupils who were competing at the Dance World Championships in Florida. Rebecca Forsyth and her teammates in Scotland youth all girl median cheer, made it through the semi-final and competed in the final where they demonstrated a perfect routine and placed 5^th overall.

Poppy McBride and Aaliyah Smith in S6 were both competing in the team called Glitter White for JC Cheer and Dance in 2 styles. They finished 6^th in the World for their Lyrical dance and 7^th in the World for their Pom team.

An amazing achievement by the both teams and by our very own Rebecca, Poppy and Aaliyah.

School Show

All families should have received a communication this week regarding the process for purchasing tickets for our school show this year ‘High School Musical’. The show is deep in rehearsals and pre-production activities and is shaping up to be a fantastic evening. The dates for your diaries are 11^th – 13^th of June at 7.15pm with tickets being an absolute steal at £5.

Payment for tickets will be through the online school payment system, ipayimpact. Or, when the coffee pod is open, tickets can be paid for using the contactless system at the pod.

All families have been invited through Ipayimpact to pay for tickets on their preferred evening or all 3 nights for all you die hard Musical Theatre fans! The funds will be called High School Musical School Show. Once the tickets have been paid their child can collect tickets from the office.

If you are having any issues with purchasing the tickets, please contact the school.

Mark Scott Leadership for Life Award – omission

Last week I included in my blog an update about the amazing achievements of Greenfauld’s pupils at the Mark Scott Awards in Glasgow.

The Mark Scott Award combines a residential adventure in the wild with a project back in your community. Our pupils spent five days in Loch Eil near Fort Wiilliam working as a team in a range of activities including rock climbing, abseiling and raft building as well as an overnight expedition. Our pupils then returned to the school community to research, design and implement a community project. This year our pupils chose to undertake to create and present a series of sex education lessons with other pupils.

I did name all the pupils bar one – Grace Brodie. I did manage to find Grace this week to apologise in person but wanted to ensure she was rightly recognised here in this blog.

Barista Bar Award and Plea

This year Greenfaulds have been proud to launch ‘The Coffee Pod | Beanfaulds, our school Barista enterprise. We are pleased to announce that our Barista enterprise, has been awarded a second Social Enterprise Award. Our baristas will be invited to the award ceremony in June to receive the award and share information on the venture.

The Social Enterprise Awards Scotland are a real opportunity to showcase the very best of the sector, highlighting the agility, ability and active role that social enterprise play in building places, supporting communities and making a positive impact on the environment and wellbeing. Our Barista enterprise will have a focus on bringing our school community together, offering a safe space for pupils to seek advice, gain support from peers and have a person to talk to. We are extremely proud of the steps our Barista have taken in a short space and excited about the growth and future of our enterprise.

To expand our enterprise next session we would like to offer a range of cold brews and iced beverages. To do so we will need to obtain a small chest freezer, ice-machine and blender. If you have any contacts who could help supply any items or donate we would appreciate hearing from you.

New Signing-In System

To improve safety and security within the school, if you visit the school there is a new sign in system for all school visitors. This touch screen system requires all visitors to sign in and then to have a picture taken of them – their pass and photo will then be printed and visitors will be given a lanyard. This system will help ensure an up-to-date record of school visitors and fire register.

Community Clubs

I’m always delighted to share community initiatives with you via this blog and this week I’ve been asked to share two.

Firstly, an all girls fitness class with TKDFita, this is a fitness class incorporating the kicking and punching within our Taekwondo Classes for high school aged girls.

Please follow the link for booking https://www.rawtaekwondo.co.uk/raw-taekwondo-memberships/

Secondly, Cumbernauld FM has started up a Radio Club giving the young people the opportunity to learn more about Radio Broadcasting. The young people will be working towards presenting a weekly show LIVE on the radio.

Online Study Resources

For Senior Pupils we wanted to ensure that we were providing as much support for them as possible for studying and revising. Alongside traditional supported study in school I felt it appropriate to draw your attention to two online resources.

Firstly, this year we purchased a school account to provide our pupils with access to interactive study materials via the ACHIEVE platform https://achieve.hashtag-learning.co.uk.

When signing up to create their own account pupils should use their school GLOW Email address and use the unique Greenfaulds High School Code (XQfQPVhy) to activate their account. As you will see they will have access to many resources for learning key concepts, testing their knowledge, self-evaluating etc.

Secondly the e-sgoil study resources – Pupils can access a range of resources including help with Study planners, revision tips, managing stress etc. They can also access a wide range of subject webinars every week. Details are posted each week to advise what topics are being covered each evening in the Webinars. They can google Esgoil Study support and it’s very straight forward or can use this link. We have posted the link on Teams for them already.