Monday 25th November 2024
Response to feedback submitted from HT Update week ending 22/11/24.
| My Question | Comment | Suggestion related to the school this week is: | HT’s Response |
| When are the children getting their flu vaccines? | Scheduled for next week, Wednesday and Thursday, as per the school calendar. |
| Why are the parent consultations still online? When other Midlothian High Schools are face to face | In Midlothian the decision around the format of parent consultation evenings is devolved to school level. This means that not all schools do the same thing. On balance when we last consulted with parents/carers and staff on our format, looking at positives and negatives of online v in-person, it was agreed to stick with our online platform. |
| In relation to to S1 reports issued this week, I don’t think these are all that helpful in giving an indication of how my child is actually getting on and in places seemed pretty impersonal. The report we received was very basic and in some subjects only my child’s comments were given, rather than any comment from the teacher. Also, February seems late in the year to have the first teacher consultation. | Thanks for the feedback. Our reporting format reflects our aim of embedding Learner Conversations. This is why it appears at times that the comment is written from the young person’s ‘voice’. Our school calendar is agreed with staff in May/June each year. It is to some extent a compromise and is partly designed to spread teacher workload. The challenge is that teachers generally report on students from each year group and in a ideal world would do it at broadly the same times. From a workload perspective this would be overwhelming. At any time parents/carer who are concerned about their child’s progress can contact the relevant member of staff in Student Support. |
| Will there be a chance to speak with teachers to help inform the S2 into S3 course choices? I notice that the course choices need to be submitted in Jan but the S2 consultations appear to be in May 2025 which is too late to discuss coursing options and leaves a gap of 15 months since our previous consultations! | There is a S2 Report issued to parents/carers in the last week of this term. That should help inform the process in January. In addition, the choice is ‘guided’ at this stage and students are expected to choose courses that cover all curricular areas to keep their options open as they head towards the Senior Phase. Part of the ‘gap’ in consultation is due to the previous response and as always parents/carers should contact the relevant member of student support if they have concerns. We expect the Information Evening on Wednesday should help explain the S2 to S3 Course Choice process further. |
Thanks
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