This concise weekly HT Update is generally published every Friday afternoon. It’s a simple opportunity for you to also feedback/ask questions via the link at the bottom of each Update. Any feedback received, given the holiday, will be responded to and published on Monday 5th January 2026 on the school website.
Feedback from last HT Update: Click here.
Key messages from this week
Calendar: Significant events week beginning 05/01/26; on Monday staff return for our In-service Day; on Tuesday our students return to school, we’ll begin the S2 into S3 Course Choice process, we’ll hold a series of Welcome Back Assemblies for all year groups; on Wednesday we’ll hold our S2 Student Support Consultation Evening for parents, see below
Staffing: We have no posts currently live on myjobscotland.
Student Support SPCE: This consultation evening, where Student Support teachers are available, is running on Wednesday 7th January. It’s an online event for S2 Parents/Carers. It may be particularly helpful as we enter the S2 to S3 Course Choice process. Click here for details.
Peter Pan: Our 2025 School Panto was held on Wednesday and Thursday. In total the cast and crew did 3 performances across 2 days as we hosted the P7 pupils from our Associated Primary Schools on Wednesday afternoon. Each performance was outstanding, particularly considering the age and stage of the cast. What we are seeing is result of our curriculum model and in this case our Academy of Performing Arts (APA). Not all of the cast were APA students but many were. Congratulations to them. An inspirational way to end 2025.
Save the Date: Progressive Masculinity: This session we have worked with this organisation; https://progressivemasculinity.co.uk/ On Tuesday 3rd February, from 6.30pm, we’ll hold an in-person session at the school. This session is for parents/carers and aims to provide insights and strategies to support their children in developing a positive understanding of masculinity at home. Particularly in the context of the on-line world that many young people are now exposed to. There will be practical advice on how to communicate effectively with boys about their feelings and experiences and how to model positive behaviours. I cannot recommend this session highly enough. More details in January.
Wider Achievement News: If you’ve got a wee bit of time over the next couple of weeks have a look at the latest Wider Achievement News. It’s the December 2025 Edition and you’ll find it here on our website, click here. Be aware there’s a lot in it and it might take a minute to load. My thanks to Rebecca Hardie who works in our Creative Design Team for her leadership on this.
Christmas Appeal 2025: It’s been a busy few weeks collecting food donations and gifts for local families in need. Thank you all for your support. This year, we are providing 29 students with gifts and 14 families (59 people) with festive food hampers. The team in the school, staff and students, have worked tirelessly. Thank you. A phenomenal effort. We’re so proud of you!
Phone Replacement: Reminder. All of our school phones will be upgraded over the Christmas break, which will include a change of our main external phone line. The new main number will be shared with all parental contacts via text on Monday 5th January. Please save the new number to your phone. We’ll adjust all our ‘public’ contact details and there will also be a 90-day overlap period where the old external number will be redirected.
Take Care
Campbell Hornell, Head Teacher
Bringing up children can be tough at times.
Every day we hear from parents and carers across Scotland that raising their babies, children and teenagers is harder than ever. Many feel overwhelmed and at a loss, not knowing where to turn for support.
Children First support line is here to to offer emotional, practical and financial help to any family in Scotland and we need your help as professionals to spread the word!
Please see the Child First website for helpful hints, tips and support lines: Children First
On Tuesday 13th January 4.30pm – 6.30pm, the online S3 Student Parent/Carer Consultation Evening will be taking place.
The system that we use for S1-S6 Parents’ Evenings is called ‘Parents Booking’ (see website https://www.parents-booking.co.uk/lasswade).
Dates for your diary – the booking system opens at 6pm on Sunday 4th January and will close at 10am on Sunday 11th January.
You will not be able to log in to your account before this time.
Please note that as we are opening the parents’ booking system on a Sunday evening, our admin staff will not be able to respond to any issues, or respond to any calls until Monday.
All of our Parents’ Evenings are now fully online (video call), so if you have not taken part in an online Parents’ Evening at Lasswade HS before, please read the Parents Booking User Guide ahead of the evening or watch this useful video: Video Meetings Demo, with Troubleshooting. If you have any issues logging in or making appointments please contact the school admin team lasswadehsoffice@midlothian.education who are happy to support.
Each appointment lasts for 4 minutes (on screen timer) and will be automatically end when the 4 minutes is up.
If more than one parent/carer wishes to join the video call, the identified ‘main carer’ (person who makes the appointments) must be the person to share the joining details with the other parent/carer.
SDS Careers Advisers are available for telephone appointments to discuss any career related queries.
Nicola Croft is the contact for pupils in St Leonards and Mount Esk
nicola.croft@sds.co.uk
Ailsa Morgan is the contact for St Anne’s and Melville
ailsa.morgan@sds.co.uk
Please email the careers adviser for your child’s house and they will get back to you to agree a time to contact you by phone (or your queries could be answered by email.)
On Wednesday 7th January 4.30pm – 7pm, the online S2 Student Parent/Carer Consultation Evening will be taking place. This consultation evening is led by our Student Support team (Melville, Mount Esk, St Anne’s and St Leonard’s). The Student Support Team teach all S2 students on a weekly basis as part of the Personal and Social Education curriculum and they provide all of our S2 students with regular support. The system that we use for S1-S6 Parents’ Evenings is called ‘Parents Booking’ (see website https://www.parents-booking.co.uk/lasswade).
Dates for your diary – the booking system opens at 6pm on Thursday 18th December and will close at 10am on Tuesday 6th January.
You will not be able to log in to your account before this time.
Our Parents’ Evenings are fully online (video call), so if you have not taken part in an online Parents’ Evening at Lasswade HS before, please read the Parent/Carer User Guide ahead of the evening or watch this useful video Video Meetings Demo, with Troubleshooting.
Each appointment lasts for 4 minutes (on screen timer) and will be automatically end when the 4 minutes is up.
The curricular S2 Parent/Carer Consultation Evenings will be taking place on Wednesday 22nd of April . During these evenings you will have the opportunity to speak with your young persons subject teachers, also using the online meeting system (video call). This will be available to book during April, more information will follow.
If more than one parent/carer wishes to join the video call, the identified ‘main carer’ (person who makes the appointments) must be the person to share the joining details with the other parent/carer. The link to share will be available by logging in on the day of the consultation.
If you have any issues logging in or making appointments please contact the school admin team lasswadehsoffice@midlothian.education who are happy to support.
Response to feedback submitted from HT Update week ending 12/12/25. There was a lovely thank-you directed towards a teacher in Creative Learning who has provided support to a student.
| My Question | Comment | Suggestion related to the school this week is: | HT’s Response |
| Thank you for the regular updates you send and for the numerous and exciting initiatives that the school organizes for the students and the wider community. I would like to make a suggestion for the school lunch menu to be circulated through your communication channels if possible. Or if it is already publicized, could you please let us know where to find it? My son missed out on the Christmas lunch as he wasn’t sure what was available. Thank you. | Thank you. Good idea. Information is held on the Midlothian Website, click here.
We’ll also make a note to issue the special menus such as Christmas in the future. |
This concise weekly HT Update is generally published every Friday afternoon. It’s a simple opportunity for you to also feedback/ask questions via the link at the bottom of each Update. Any feedback received will be responded to and published on Monday afternoon on the school website.
No Feedback from last HT Update
Key messages from this week
Calendar: Significant events week beginning 15/12/25; on Tuesday our S1 School of Modern Languages students are on a cinema trip, other students will visit Springfield Bank care home; on Wednesday our Global Infrastructure students are off to Heriot Watt University, our P7 Course Choice process concludes, our P7s visit to see the final panto Dress Rehearsal and in the evening it’s the first of a two night run for our Sold-Out 2025 Panto; Thursday is the final night of our Panto; on Friday it’s our December Dress Down Day, the S2 Full Report is available via ParentsPortal, we’ll have an extended break and school closes for 2025 as we break up at 12.15pm for the Christmas Holiday
Students return to school on Tuesday 6th January 2026.
Staffing: Congratulations to Linda Gillespie, teacher in The Pod, who ‘escapes’ from LHS next Thursday. We thank Linda for her service and work with our young people. We wish her well in her retirement. Our PT Learning & Teaching Mathematics, Learning Assistant and Teacher of Biology posts are all live on myjobscotland. All will close next week.
SQA Exam Diet Changes: A few changes have been made to the 2026 SQA diet. These affect Health & Food Technology and Music. The start and end dates of the diet remain 22nd April – 1st June. The updated timetable is available via the SQA website, click here.
Christmas Concert: Our 2025 Christmas Concerts was held last night. It was, as always, an example of our community coming together. School staff, our Instrumental Music Service colleagues, current and former students all performed brilliantly to a sold-out audience of parents/carers and family members. My thanks to Miss Hume for her leadership in the ‘build-up’ towards the concert and on the evening itself.
ParentsPortal: Thank you to our recent sign-ups. We’ve added almost 5% to the percentage of parents/carers who’ve signed-up. Uptake is now 83.44% overall with 33% of daily student absences reported by parents/carers via parentsportal. In 2026 our admin team will begin targeted work with the 15% still to sign up. Details on how to sign up are available on the website, click here.
P7 Course Choice: This week Miss Petrie and I held our first P7 ‘School Of’ Roadshows. We visited 8 of our associated primary schools to explain and discuss with P7s the ‘School ofs’ they can opt into when they join us next August. There has been a fantastic response with some very excited P7s. It was wonderful to see. If you are interested in seeing what the 2026/27 offer for S1 is click here.
Phone Replacement – All of our school phones will be upgraded over the Christmas break, which will include a change of our main external phone line. The new main number will be shared with all parental contacts via text on Monday 5th January. Please save the new number to your phone. We’ll adjust all our ‘public’ contact details and there will also be a 90-day overlap period where the old external number will be redirected.
Christmas Appeal: Reminder. Each year our staff and students come together to support young people and families. We still need your help. Please click here for more information.
Take Care
Campbell Hornell, Head Teacher
No feedback was received from the HT Update posted on Friday 5th December 2025.
This concise weekly HT Update is generally published every Friday afternoon. It’s a simple opportunity for you to also feedback/ask questions via the link at the bottom of each Update. Any feedback received will be responded to and published on Monday afternoon on the school website.
No Feedback from last HT Update
Key messages from this week
Calendar: Significant events week beginning 08/12/25; on Monday we’ll begin our School of Road Show visits to our associated primary schools, they run through until Wednesday, we also have a School of Course Choice for P7 parents/carers held online, S3 Mandarin students are out on a trip and we’ll hold S2, S4 and S6 Christmas Assemblies; on Tuesday LS Productions will work with our Media students, there’s a CYP Meeting and in the evening it’s our Parent Council 3, see below; on Wednesday, and Thursday, it’s Christmas Lunch; Thursday is Christmas Jumper Day for staff and students, we’ll do an online P7 School of Drop-in session for parents/carers and in the evening it’s our Christmas Concert; on Friday it’s our Santa Dash
Staffing: Our PT Learning & Teaching Mathematics, Learning Assistant, Teacher of Biology and IMS Guitar Instructor posts are all live on myjobscotland.
Parent Council 3: Our next Parent Council Meeting will be held via Teams on Tuesday 9th December from 7.00pm. Further detail on the website, click here.
QI 3.1 Evaluation Visit: Our visit on Wednesday and Thursday of this week went well. The team looked at our work, and our impact, in ensuring Wellbeing, Equality and Inclusion across the school. Our provisional feedback is that the team have validated our evaluation of the QI as ‘Very Good’, and have highlighted significant strengths in a wide range of aspects of our work. This is deserved recognition for all of the commitment and hard-work by all members of our staff and student teams at Lasswade. More detailed feedback on strengths and next steps will be provided once the full report from the team is received.
Team Home Economics: My thanks to all the students from HE, and the colleagues who teach them. Yesterday they catered for our visiting group of HTs and national officials. Phenomenal work. Particular thanks, from a student perspective, to our S1 School of Cookery and Heath students and our Senior Phase Barista students.
S2 Chromebook Clinic: The Digital Learning team have been in school today running a Chromebook Clinic for S2 students. Appointments will also be available on Wednesday 10th, Thursday 11th of December and Tuesday 16th December. Learning Technologists will work 1:1 with students for a 25 minute slot to make small repairs to Chromebooks and ‘powerwash’ older devices, improving their efficacy. Appointments last 25 minutes and students will also be given some tips and tools for managing common device issues. Students have been allocated a slot via their year group Google Classroom, this has been shared as an assignment.
ParentsPortal Reminder: We ask all parents and carers who haven’t yet completed their Annual Data Check on ParentsPortal to do so as soon as possible. We would also like to remind parents and carers that reporting absences is quick, simple and can be done at any time on Parentsportal, without needing to call the school, you will also receive confirmation when the absence has been recorded. Thank you for your continued support.
Midlothian Education Appeals Panel: A recruitment campaign has launched to find new volunteers for Midlothian’s Education Appeals Panel. If you’re keen you need to register your interest by the deadline of 5th January 2026. A dedicated webpage, with more information, is now live and can be found here: Midlothian Appeals Panel.
Christmas Appeal: Reminder. Each year our staff and students come together to support young people and families. We launched this earlier this week and need your help. Please click here for more information.
Take Care
Campbell Hornell, Head Teacher
Our third planned Parent Council Meeting of the session will be held on Tuesday 9th December, 2025. This follows for our recent Extraordinary Meeting. The meeting on 09/12/25 will be held on-line, via Teams. Parents/carers will be sent the link to the meeting, to their phones, on Tuesday morning. The meeting begins at 7.00pm and should last just over an hour, and certainly finish no later than 8.30pm.
At the meeting we plan discussions on
All parents/carers are welcome to ‘attend’. As stated, we’d love to see some new folk!
Please send in any questions, via email and with ‘FAO Parent Council’ at the top of message by lunchtime on Tuesday 9th December, to
Or, post a question to the Parent Council Facebook page
No feedback received from HT Update posted on 28/11/25.