Tuesday 17th September 2024
Response to feedback submitted from HT Update week ending 12/09/24. Published today due to September Weekend holiday
| My Question | Comment | Suggestion related to the school this week is: | HT’s Response |
| Just as my children now feel confident with their language (French) they have been given Mandarin lessons which is now confusing them; especially since it’s immediately after French in effectively a double period. This means they also have one less period of French each week wherein learning languages is beneficial of repetition as regularly as possible. Is this absolutely necessary especially with such a complex additional language? | During the course of S1 and S2 we try and ‘expose’ our students to the range of Modern Languages that we have on offer. French is our principal language with tasters/inserts around German, Mandarin and Spanish. This helps inform the choices students make around languages as they move into S3 and work towards qualifications in the Senior Phase. Our experience is that on balance this model doesn’t disadvantage students over the medium term though we acknowledge that a switch to something new can be challenging. |
| How do students sign up for extra curriculum activities? | Essentially just head to the advertised session on the date/time/location set out in the timetable that I shared in the HTs post last Thursday. |
| Please can the girls rugby teams recent photos that were taken at school last week be posted on the schools socials. Thanks | Yes, you should see it this week. School and sports socials. |
| I am supportive of school uniform, however I feel the price (and price increase) of the items with the Lasswade logo is unreasonable and not value for money. It is now £35 for a quarter zip top and £51 for a girls blazer from Be Uniforms. | What we’ve tried to do with our uniform policy is extend the range of options for parents/carers as we’ve recognised the associated costs can be difficult to justify. We look for combinations of black and white with something that identifies the young person with the school. The quarter zip and/or blazer is one option at the more expensive end. Neither are compulsory. The school tie option with a non-branded shirt/jumper (albeit black or white) is the option at the lowest cost. We leave the choice to families. |
| Congratulations on a very successful and well-attended Senior Phase Awards Ceremony. It was pleasing to see there’s an award in memory of Gordon McLean. Chatting with several former pupils online, we reminisced over the German/ French school exchange visits we were able to go on. These were fantastic experiences for us in a time when the world was less connected. Our question is: are these student exchanges still available to current language students? We hope there’s still a strong twinning relationship with Kreis Heinsberg and St. Cyr to encourage these exchanges. | Thank you. Our SP Awards Ceremony is one of the highlights of our school calendar. Celebrating the achievements of young people is an important part of school.
School exchanges, as I think you recall, have become less of a feature of the student experience, not just here at LHS. We do not have large numbers of students on reciprocal visits, hosted by families, as we have had in the past. There are probably a range of reasons for this (economic, political and social) and certainly the pandemic didn’t help. In the last few months we do have students that have been on placement through competitions/applications and also a smallish number who visited our partner school in China. |
Whole School
10
Apr
2024
HT Update: Week-ending Friday 4th October 2024
This concise weekly HT Update is generally published every Friday afternoon.
Whole School
10
Feb
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P7 Information Evening 2024
On Thursday 24th October 6pm-7.30pm, we will be hosting our annual P7 Information Evening. The event will be held in the school building and we look forward to meeting as many families as possible.
Whole School
10
Feb
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Battlefields Trip 2024
An important part of our school curriculum is the value we place in overseas trips.
