Thursday 30 October 2014

Gracemount Parent Bulletin Friday 31 October 2014

Staffing

We look forward to welcoming our new Head Teacher, Mr Ross Hunter, who joins us on Monday 3 November.  Assemblies have been arranged for him to meet all the young people in school. 

As a result of his arrival there are a number of staffing changes to be made with staff returning to substantive posts.  I will resume my role as Depute Head Teacher and would like to thank you all for your support during my time as Acting Head Teacher.  Ms Pretswell will resume her role as Pupil Support Leader for Skye pupils and Mr Knight will return to the Science faculty but will retain some input with the Support for Pupils team. They have both done a tremendous job in supporting your youngsters and their efforts are very much appreciated.  These moves have a knock on effect in Science with Dr Fiona Scott leaving us and I thank her for all her work to date.

Our congratulations go to Ms Barker who has secured an English teaching post at Denny High School.  We are in negotiation with her new school to agree her start date and are currently advertising her post.

We will be interviewing next week to fill vacancies in our Social Subjects Department and in the meantime supply staff are covering these posts.  We also have supply staff covering in English for Mr Patterson’s absence.

This week we welcomed 25 ESOL student teachers on a visit from Edinburgh University
Moray House.   They were very impressed with the good classroom practice they observed throughout the school.


The Parent Council

The next Parent Council meeting will be held in the library on Monday 03 November at 7pm. Please note that any parent/carer can come along to these meetings and will be made very welcome.  It is a great forum to hear what is happening and make a contribution.


Dance for Mr Drain

Well done and thank you to Kirsty Farmer and the Charities Committee for organising this fundraising event on Friday 24 October.  Staff and pupils danced the afternoon away and raised £144 for Macmillan Cancer Support in memory of Mr Drain.  A great time was had by all.

Applications for Outward Bound 2015 Trip - Closes Monday!

I am pleased to report that we have yet again had a good response from pupils wanting to go on the Outward Bound trip next May.  Just to let you know however there are still a few places available, so it is not yet too late to sign up.  Pupils who are still interested should see Mr Wyllie or Mrs Towers for further information and an application letter. To secure a place return the tear off slip from the letter plus a £28 deposit to the School Office. The deadline for this has been extended very slightly to the end of school on Monday 03 November.  Thanks to a generous donation the cost of the trip will be highly discounted for all participants and costs £158 for the week or less for any of our pupils eligible for free school meals.  


GRACIE Focus Fortnight

The current Focus Fortnight has been ‘C’ – Calm, Considerate and Co-operative.

I am pleased to tell you that lots of our pupils were awarded raffle tickets as a result of their good efforts and the lucky winners are:-

Bradley Bryce 2L3, Chris McKellar 6L2, Jay Watson 2L2 and Richard Nye 3S9

October WOW class IS Mr Gregor’s Wednesday period 6 S4 core PE class.
Well done to all and keep up the good work.

The next FOCUS FORTNIGHT is from Thursday 30/10/14 to Wed 12/11/14
‘I’Instructions – “follow them first time, without argument, to enable learning and teaching”.  

We will be focusing on rewarding those who do.


L Sinclair
Acting Head Teacher