HT Update: Week-ending Friday 12th December 2025

Friday 12th 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 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. 

 

Feedback here

Take Care

Campbell Hornell,  Head Teacher

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