March 2017
Dear
Parent/Carer
Rights Respecting School Award
I am delighted to open my latest blog with the
marvellous news that on Monday 13 March Gracemount High School was awarded the Unicef
Rights Respecting School’s Award. We are only the 2nd secondary school
in Edinburgh to achieve this award and feedback from our assessor suggests we
are well on the way to achieve the Level 2 award.
Why become a Rights Respecting School?
There are 4 key areas which impact on the school
community and we are already noticing a marked difference.
1. Children are healthier and happier – examples of which include increased participation rates in a wide
range of extra-curricular activities and extra study classes. Our ‘Get
Gracemount Going’ initiative is focusing on the health and wellbeing of a selected
group of S1 pupils. Bike Maintenance and Duke of Edinburgh classes have been
added to the curriculum this year and is helping to focus on developing a wider
range of skills in our senior cohort.
In a recent survey of
over 100 pupils led by the Head Teacher, 97% indicated that they either agreed
or strongly agreed that they felt happy and safe in the school.
2. Children feel safe - we know
from feedback that a significant majority of our young people feel safe in
school and our approach on Rights Respecting will further improve this.
3. Children have better relationships - Our focus on ‘Relationships for Learning’ is starting to make a
difference in the school. Our policy is simple and easy to understand. All our young people understand our
expectations regarding behaviour in school and in the wider community,
attendance and more recently our increased expectations on punctuality,
especially at the start of the school day. Staff are fully committed to develop
and sustain positive relationships and this will remain an ongoing focus in
school.
4. Children become more active in school life and the wider
world - participation in after school study classes and
in a wide range of curricular and extra-curricular activities is very positive.
We have also seen an increase in the pupil voice influencing change within the
school. The LGBT group ran a very successful Purple Friday, the Mentors in
Violence Programme ensure that senior pupils are working with younger pupils to
help them better understand how they can make a positive contribution to school
life and our very active pupil council is running a question of the month
around key school issues to ensure that the pupil voice is represented.
At Gracemount we take participation in PE very
seriously and offer 2 periods per week of high quality Physical Education to
every child in S1-4. This is in line with the
Scottish Government’s commitment that: -
- every school pupil in Scotland will benefit from at least two hours per week of physical education in primary school and two periods in S1 to S4 by 2014.
We
recognise the positive impact Physical Education can have on a pupil's
health, educational attainment and life chances and we place a high level of
importance on being physically active. Our Physical Education experience
provides all pupils with an opportunity to take part in a wide range of
activities.
On Monday 24 April we will be changing the way we deal with pupils who do not
bring PE kit to lessons. A separate letter will be sent home to explain our new
approach and I very much look forward to your support in this matter.
Key Dates:
· 20 March – Parent Council meeting in the School Library
– all invited. It would be great to see you there.
·
24 March – S2 course choice interviews complete
·
27 March – Senior Tracking Report Issued
· 31 March – End of term and S4/5 Interviews completed.
Please note Easter revision classes will run for
senior pupils and details will follow in due course.
·
18 April – Return to school.
Staffing Update
Music
Ms Rebecca Fox has taken up post on maternity cover for
Ms Hirst.
Drama
Ms Annette Maloney has taken up post on maternity
cover for Mrs Whyte.
School
of Football
Mr Ruairi Nicholson was appointed as a teacher of PE
and lead teacher for School of Football. Mr Nicholson will take up post on Tuesday
18 April.
School
Office
Ms Patricia John joined the School Office team on Monday
6 March.
SQA
Update
Pupil Equity Funding
As part of the Scottish Government’s
approach to supporting all young people in Scotland, all Scottish schools, both
primary and secondary, were awarded money based on pupil numbers on the roll
entitled and registered for free school meals.
We are currently in the
process of consulting with staff, parents and pupils regarding targeted
interventions where we feel funding would make the biggest impact in our school
community. I will be contacting you in due course regarding a parent engagement
session. If you would like to find out more, please come along to the Parent
Council meeting on Monday 20 March in the School Library.
Celebrating
Our Young People’s Successes
Young Writers
9
of our Young Writers contributed to the Busta Rhymes
publication. Their writing is fantastic and this is a great achievement for all
involved. Well done to Pascal Tene, Ayaa Madjid, Michelle Bahat, Shannon
McNeill, Thomas Jamieson, Brooke Dickson, Eila Tether and Logan Woodhouse.
Crown Officer and
Procurator Fiscal Service – Public Speaking Competition
I
am delighted to say that Gracemount are represented in the final of this
competition. This takes place on Wednesday 22 March. We will be represented by
Craig and Nicole in S3 – good luck to both of them.
Duke of Edinburgh
Bronze
Duke of Edinburgh pupils completed their practice expedition, walking through
the Pentlands and camping overnight at Bonaly. Pupils involved were: Gregor
McRae, Julia Sanderson, Esme Page, Lauryn Anderson and Iliana Ortiz. They will be completing their final
expedition in April on the 21st, 22nd. Good luck.
The Silver Duke of Edinburgh pupils – (Miriam Castano
Viera, Jessica Simpson, Cara Wood Conway and Lucy Hunter) are about to embark
on their Silver Practice Expedition at the start of Easter (2nd, 3rd,
4th April) – when they will be canoeing and camping overnight. They have been attending Bridge 8 Hub for the
last 4 Wednesdays to improve their canoeing and camping skills. What an
achievement this will be. Good luck to all involved.
Go4SET Competition Winners (Science Technology,
Engineering and Maths) STEM
Congratulations
to Janett Ghulam, Callum Mitchell, Aisha Olaide, Jennifer Ross, Jonathan
Tennant and Nicole Ferguson on winning the Pupil’s choice award at the Go4SET
celebration day. They all represented the school brilliantly and received a
well-deserved award. The team’s brilliant pitch and fantastic
wearable technology idea was praised by the assessors and proved popular with
the other competitors. They all demonstrated great teamwork and dynamic
presentation skills. What a result! Well done all.
Music
David
Harrold, S6, performed in the Queens Hall on Thursday 16 March as a
member of the Edinburgh Schools Classical Guitar Ensemble. This recital forms
part of the CEC Instrumental Music Service “Resonate “concert series.
Congratulations David.
Princes Trust
Colin
McKinnon, S3 graduated from the Princes Trust Achieve Programme on Wednesday 14
March – a great achievement. Well done Colin, we are so proud of you.
Snooker
Kieran
Kay S1 recently won the age 8-16 Paul Hunter Foundation Scottish Snooker
Championship. What an outstanding achievement. The Crucible awaits. Well done
Kieran.
Ogwini
Our global partnership with Ogwini High School in Umlazi, South
Africa goes from strength to strength. In September we hosted a visit of
two learners and two educators. They had an amazing time, experiencing
life at Gracemount, attending classes and getting around the sites of Edinburgh
(including the NHS emergency dentist for Andile), meeting many new friends
along the way.
In February nine
pupils and three teachers from Gracemount visited Ogwini for a week. They
experienced a whole day in the school life of their ‘buddy’, which is very
different to their own at Gracemount. With their buddies, the group
looked at The Right of the Month for March, the right to have clean water
(in light of a water crisis in the Umlazi/Durban area). Their discussions have
been turned into a display in the dining area. They had a tour of the Umlazi
township and visited Durban. They went on Safari to the Tala Game Reserve and
experienced the excitement of the slides at Ushaka Marine Water Park.
Overall they embraced the diversity of our two cultures, whilst making friends
and finding shared interests. The essence of the visit was captured on
BBC Radio Scotland, when Ben Ferguson was interviewed by Stephen Jardine.
The group will be talking about their trip at assemblies this week. They
will also be speaking to S1 pupils as an introduction to their South Africa
Information Skills Project.
Assessing
Children’s Progress
From
August 2017 new national standardised assessments will be introduced in all
schools in Scotland. These assessments will provide an additional source of
nationally consistent evidence for teachers to use when assessing children’s
progress
Teachers
remain best placed to know how the children are progressing in their class.
Their professional judgement will continue to be the most important way of
assessing individual progress in school.
What you need to know:
· Every child in P1, P4, P7 and S3 will undertake national
standardised assessments covering some aspects of reading, writing and working
with numbers.
·
Assessments will be completed online and will be automatically
marked by the online system giving teachers immediate feedback to help children
progress.
·
The assessments will be used to help teachers understand how
well each child is progressing with his or her learning and to plan next steps.
There will be no pass or fail. The system will be designed so that if a child
is struggling with the questions they will get easier, and if a child is doing
well the questions will become more challenging.
·
The standardised assessments will be as short as possible and
will be age and stage appropriate. A time limit of 50 minutes for each
assessment has been set. This is an absolute maximum to ensure that no child
feels under unnecessary time pressure when undertaking the assessments. We expect
the majority of children will not require the full 50 minutes.
·
Your child will not be expected to take assessments covering
reading, writing and working with numbers in one sitting.
There will be no set day or period of time during which the
national standardised assessments must be taken. Individual teachers and
schools will decide the most appropriate time during the school year for your
child to take the national standardised assessments.
The assessments will, as far as possible, accommodate the
needs of children who require additional support.
As you can see from the
above there is so much going on at Gracemount High School and so much to be
proud of. We are continually focused on how we can improve and our partnership
with our parents/carers has never been as important.
Thank you for your
continued support of the school.
Kind regards
Ross Hunter
Head Teacher
