HT Update: Week-ending Friday 1st November 2024

Friday 1st November 2024

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.  Feedback received, where appropriate, will be responded to and published on Monday afternoon on the school website.  

Key messages from this week  

Calendar:  Significant events week beginning 04/11/24;  our S4 Work Experience runs all week, on Monday through Thursday we have visitors from Edinburgh University, also on Monday we’ll hold our S2 Student Voice Year Council;  on Tuesday we begin our Remembrance Assembly programme with S1, S2 and S5 Assemblies, we’ll also hold our S6 Student Voice Year Council;  on Wednesday we’ll hold our Remembrance Assembly with S3, it’s also the S3 Student Voice Year Council and it’s our S4 Student Progress Consultation Evening, see below;  on Thursday it’s our S5 Student Voice Year Council; on Friday it’s the S1 Student Voice Year Council.  

Staffing:  No news, quiet week!  

Curriculum Survey:  Please take the time to complete this short survey.  We are working with our Associated Primary Groups, ASG, who ‘send’ primary pupils to LHS at the end of P7.  Our aim is to align and update our curriculum a wee bit more.  All ASG schools will ask our parents/carers the same short survey across November.  Click here for access.

S4 Student Progress Consultation Evening:  Our online Parents-Booking system has been set up and ready for the S4 consultation evening on Wednesday 6th November.  Please see a separate post on our website, click here.

School Captains:  Our School captains are proving to be excellent young leaders.  Yesterday they organised a S6/Staff Halloween related day.  This included dressing up, a bake-sale and raised a total of £270 for their S6 fund.   This fund subsidies future events. 

Multi-Faith Space:  This week we reminded students that we have a dedicated space for prayer over the course of lunch time. This is the Counselling Room located just off the back of the Atrium outside the Assembly Hall.  Any of our Youth Workers or Creative Learning staff can direct young people towards this space which is unlocked for the duration of lunch time. Miss Blair will also support students who wish to access any resources when using the space.

Parent Council 2: Our second Parent Council Meeting of the session scheduled for Tuesday 29th October had to be postponed.  Our new date is Tuesday 12th November, in-person at LHS from 7.00pm. Further details available next week on the website.

UCAS Staff References:  S6 students are now well under way with their UCAS applications. Staff support with references. Students have been asked to speak to staff face to face to request a reference. Thereafter they are expected to email staff to share a Google Form.  This is an important part of our work as we aim to secure a post-school positive destination for all our students.  My thanks to Mrs Sharp for her leadership of this work. 

Reminder, Midlothian Budget:  As you may be aware, Midlothian Council has a projected budget gap for 2025/26 estimated to be £9.406m and, moving forward, there will be difficult decisions to be taken to enable Midlothian to continue to deliver statutory and non-statutory services. At a Full Council meeting on Tuesday 8th October Elected Members agreed to commence a public consultation seeking to understand the impact savings proposals will have on you and inform their final decisions.  The proposals will potentially have a significant impact on all schools.  The public consultation is now live on the Council’s website and I encourage you to complete the survey in order that your views are considered.

Consultations – Tell us how our savings proposals would impact you | Midlothian Council

 

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

Feedback here

Take Care

Campbell Hornell,  Head Teacher

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