HT Update Week Ending 27th January 2023

Friday 27th January 2023

This concise weekly HT Update will be published every Friday afternoon with a simple opportunity for you to also feedback/ask questions via the link at the bottom of each Update.  Feedback received, where appropriate, will be responded to and published on Monday afternoons on the school website link. 

Key messages from this week

Calendar: Next week’s key events include:  our S6 and Staff Burns Supper on Thursday we also hope to conclude our S2 into S3 Course Choice by next Friday.

Staffing Update: This week we offer our best wishes to Sophie Histead, Biology Teacher,  who starts her maternity leave. Congratulations to Craig Dewar who has been appointed as DHT at Penicuik HS, we know he’ll do a fantastic job. We wish him all the best in his new role and thank him for all his hard work and commitment during his time at Lasswade. 

Former Staff:  Our school community may well be aware of recent sad news regarding two former members of our staff.  Both have died recently.   Ian Stewart worked in our Modern Languages team and Brandon Inglis in our Computing team.  Ian left several years ago and it’s unlikely that he’ll have taught many of our current students.  Brandon left last summer to move to a school in Scottish Borders.  Many of our current students will have known Brandon and may be affected by this news.  We put a message in Year Group Google Classrooms this morning.  As I hope you know we are here to help if your child is affected by this news.  In the first instance please contact Student Support click here

Midlothian Council Budget:  If you do have time please access and respond to the website post from Monday on the serious financial challenges facing Midlothian  click here  It is important that you take time to consider the options being considered, particularly as the impact on schools is likely to be significant. Lasswade’s share of proposed reduction in teacher numbers, outlined in the ‘pack’ as an option, could be up to 12.  That would have a huge impact on what we are able to offer as a school.   

Positive Referrals: We have asked all staff to send in positive referrals, using our internal system,  for students living and breathing our school values. In total, as of Wednesday,  there have been 880 positive referrals submitted.  Emails to parents/carers have/will be generated for your attention. Please pass on our congratulations and thank-you for your support.  As parents/carers you are doing the most difficult job fabulously.  We’ve asked our staff to keep noticing and recognising the positives.

Out of Class QR Code: Our use of this system has helped us identify students who are missing some significant learning time being out of class repeatedly throughout the day. Student Support teams are working on the data with some students and if necessary with parents/carers. It has also helped us to identify students who have conducted themselves in a poor manner and to take action to encourage more positive behaviours. Thank you for the ongoing support with this.

LHS Nursery: The Nursery was visited by an Inspector from The Care Commission on Thursday 19th January for a Quality Framework Inspection, which are always unannounced. Five Quality Indicators are reported upon and the initial feedback on this has been very positive. A full report will be published on The Care Commission website when it is finalised, however a big well done and thank you go to the staff in the Nursery for their hard work and provision of a very caring, nurturing and happy learning environment. 

SCQF Ambassador Programme Success: The SCQF Ambassadors joined us at the recent Senior Phase course choice info evening and also got their message out via our previous podcast. This caught the attention of SCQF and we have been invited to share our good practice at 2 upcoming events – one in February with SEIC colleagues and another in March as part of the SCQF week. Congratulations to all involved.

Lasswade Life Podcast: You can listen to our next episode and hear about the fantastic work of the Equalities group. Thanks to those involved.

If you have any feedback/questions relating to this update please submit them via the link below

Feedback here

Take Care

Campbell Hornell and Ali Mitchell,  Head Teachers

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