HT Update: Week-ending Friday 30th May 2025

Friday 30th May 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.  

Feedback from last week’s HT Update:  click here

Key messages from this week  

Calendar:  Significant events week beginning 02/06/25;  on Monday we’ll move our timetable forward,  we’ll have Assemblies for our new S5 and S6 and it’s our wider S6 Induction Day;  on Tuesday our Bronze Level Duke of Edinburgh Award Group are out on a trip,  we’re interviewing candidates for our 2025/26 School and House Captains and we’ll also hold new S2, S3 and S4 Assemblies;  on Wednesday, selected S5 and S6 will visit the Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show and it’s our YPI final; on Thursday our second Bronze Level Duke of Edinburgh Award Group are out on a trip, it’s also our third, and final, on-line P7/S1 Transition Evening – ‘My Support’.    

Staffing:  No news of note.   We have no posts currently live on myjobscotland. 

SQA 2025:  It was the last day today of the 2025 Diet, with RMPS headlining.   My thanks to all of our Senior Phase students and their parents/carers and wider family.  You can do no more.   We acknowledge there is a pressure on everyone around attainment at this time of year.  We, as a school, start again on Monday with a new school session and look forward to results analysis in August and September.  At school level I want to pay tribute to a few individuals and teams;  Sandra Ingram has been our Chief Invigilator for a few years,  she and her Team do a superb job.   Thanks also to Lynsey Struthers, our DHT and SQA Coordinator.  Her organisational skills are a marvel to see.  David Hunter and Team Creative Learning do a phenomenal job coordinating alternative arrangements for a significant number of our candidates.   Finally, the administrative load in the lead up to, and through, the Exam Diet is huge.  Our School Office staff have completed a shift! Thank you to you all. 

Edinburgh Celebration of STEM:  Our Science Club, supported by Mrs Kroeske,  have been running the Climate Smarter project this year where the students designed a sustainable school; thinking about electricity generation and storage, growing food, increasing biodiversity and much more.  The students took their design to the Celebration of STEM event at Heriot-Watt University on Thursday 22nd May along with 26 other schools. Their design managed to secure 3rd place, earning them a trophy, Young STEM leader awards and £75 for STEM resources in school.  Congratulations to all involved.  

Summer Show: Ticket sales for ‘Charlie and The Chocolate Factory’ open to staff and all students on Monday 2nd of June.These tickets cost £8 each and are limited to 3 per person per night. Tickets are sold via Parent Pay.

Reporting Pattern:   At our Parent Council Meeting on Tuesday I gathered feedback from those able to attend on our thinking around a LHS Reporting Pattern for next session.  We view Reporting as a combination of written reports, our on-line evenings with teachers (Student Progress Consultation Evenings) and also the on-going communication that parents/carers have with our Teams in Student Support, Creative Learning and The Pod.  To gather further information as we shape our offer please take the time to respond to this short survey, click here. The survey will close on Monday 9th June 2025.

The National Careers Event for Scotland – Skills Scotland Show:  Advanced notice, but this event takes place on Thursday 4 September 2025 at Murrayfield Stadium.  There’s a lot to discover!  All visitors attend for FREE and get the opportunity to engage with both national and regional businesses to find out more about the career options and pathways available to them.  Talks by businesses, interactive engagement like competitions, virtual reality and have a go sessions to get involved with.  It’s an opportunity to find career options with Colleges, Universities, Employers and Training Providers from the region for those in our Senior Phase

This year we are recognising that parents/carers often want to support their ‘child’ at such events.  This means you can collect your young person at lunch time from school and attend the event which finishes at 3pm.  Link in with the relevant House and we’ll sort the attendance codes.    Here is the event brite link to book a free ticket.  

To alert the school your ‘child’ won’t be at school use the relevant email below; 

• MEWellbeing.Lasswade@mgfl.net
• MKWellbeing.Lasswade@mgfl.net
• SAWellbeing.Lasswade@mgfl.net
• SLWellbeing.Lasswade@mgfl.net

Chromebook Clinic:  To ensure that students’ Chromebooks are ready for the Senior Phase, new S4s are invited to a one to one clinic to check their device, take it back to factory settings, make some small repairs, and show students how to maximise its use.  Appointments will take approximately 25 minutes. The clinic will run Tuesday – Friday next week, and our hope is that all S4 students will have their device serviced. These appointments have been allocated and students can access these via Google Classroom. We are just asking that they arrive with their device at the assigned time.  Please ask them to check if your child is moving from S3 to S4 on Monday. 

Please note no major damages will be fixed, or new devices issued. But if a device is broken then this should be reported so that we can begin the process of repairing it.

S2 Student Progress Consultation Evening:  Please complete the following short survey, if you booked and/or attended appointments for the S2 Student Consultation Evening held on 22/05/25. Your feedback is valued and it will help shape future Student Progress Consultation Evenings. The survey will remain open until Friday 6th June.

S2 Student Consultation Evening Feedback May 2025

Local Host Families for International Students:  All 6 Midlothian Secondary Schools offer one term placements to international students, who wish to study abroad. In order for international students to live and study in our schools, they require to live with a local host family. If you are interested in finding out more about becoming a host family for an international student, please see the list of companies that Midlothian Secondary Schools currently work with.  Reach out through the contact column if you are interested.  

Company Name	Website	Contact
Educatius	https://www.educatius.org/	marc.elles@educatius.org
My Education	https://myeducationuk.co.uk/host-a-student/	info@myeducationuk.co.uk
English Conversation Club	https://www.englishconversationclub.info/	enquiry@englishconversationclub.info
InterStudies	https://www.interstudies.com/	fraser.w@interstudies.uk
Edinburgh Guardian Angels	http://www.edinburghguardianangels.co.uk/	agnesgregor49@btinternet.com

 

School Leavers, Chromebook Returns:  Reminder, Students leaving school this summer,  usually a few S4/S5 and all of S6, are expected to return their Chromebooks. It’s a simple process with devices handed into Room 112 or Student Support.  Click here for an infographic

School Improvement Planning:  Last Week. This term we bring together lots of evidence;  data, peoples views, what we see as staff to see ‘where we are’ as a school against expected standards and also to help inform our work next session.  Our school is performing very well but we are not complacent.  Every two years we seek the views of parents/carers and this is the ‘off-year’ as we gathered your views last March/April.  Nevertheless,  there are three things we do plan to do to gather your thoughts

• A specific survey on Reporting, that will come your way via this Update next Friday (apologies, I goat ahead of myself last week,  we’ll go through our parent Council first, that’s why it’s not this week)
• Our final Parent Council Meeting on Tuesday 27th May;  this will be held in-person and is an opportunity to contribute
• Finally, please use the link at the bottom of this weekly post to offer your feedback;  I’d ask you to think about the school as a whole and in two ways;  things that are our strengths and our ‘even better if’, ie, things that would improve what we do.  For this purpose we’ll take your views throughout May. 

 

Feedback here

Take Care

Campbell Hornell,  Head Teacher

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