HT Weekly Update: Week-ending Friday 22nd March 2024

Friday 22nd March 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 each Monday on the school website link.   

Key messages from this week  

Calendar:  Events next week include:  on Monday and Tuesday S3 students are involved with Live n’ Learn, an external organisation, working on Entrepreneurial Attitudes;  on Tuesday we’ll hold our 5th Parent Council Meeting of the session from 7.00pm, see below;  we’ll hold a series of SQA Assemblies on Wednesday for S4/S5/S6 students, our Industry Insights events continue on Wednesday afternoon for Senior Phase students, we’ll also issue a Senior Phase Alert 2 Report via email to parents/carers;  on Thursday will hold our Student Parliament, have a extended break, see below, and finally break-up for Easter.  Students and staff return to school on Tuesday 16th April 2024.    

Staffing:   Recruitment continues next week with our aim to make appointments in Mathematics and English.  We’ll also continue with the back-fill arrangements resulting from Mrs Brown’s maternity and appointments to date, (it’s complicated, recruitment, not Mrs Brown’s maternity!). 

Quality Improvement Parent Carer Survey:  We send out a general survey to parents/carers every two years.  The link was sent as a text message to the main parent/carer contact of all our students last Friday.  Thank you to those that have managed to complete the survey.  A reminder text will be sent to all parents later today (please ignore it if you’ve already completed the survey).  Please take the time to fill it in if you’ve not yet managed to do so.  Your response helps us to confirm what we do well and gives us a basis to think about improvements to our work.  We’ll look at the feedback to date at our Parent Council Meeting on Tuesday.

Parent Council 5:  Our 5th Parent Council Meeting of the session is on Tuesday 26th March form 7.00pm.  Please note this meeting is in-person and will be held in Room 113/114 on the first floor.  All parent/carers are welcome,  please click here for more details, including the agenda. 

Free School Meals:  Midlothian have asked us to share the following, click here, in relation to free meal payments over the holiday period.  

School Uniform:  Please click here for information from Borders regarding their upcoming 20% discount off school uniform.  This opens Monday 22nd April and closes Sunday 19th May.  

S6 Car Wash: Thank you and well done to those in S6 who helped out with the car wash last Friday.  Over £300.00 was raised to go towards the S6 Events Fund. 

Read&Write Free for Families: You may be aware of the literacy toolbar Read&Write. We use this toolbar in school to support learning and it is installed on all Chromebooks. Midlothian Council was part of a video case study on the positive impact of Read&Write. You can watch the videos and find out more here. The exciting news is that Midlothian has negotiated a world-first deal that means you can now download the Read&Write toolbar at home, on up to 5 devices for free! Please use this link to download. You will be asked for the school’s postcode and then be given instructions on what to do next.  Have a look at this feature tour to see all the things Read&Write. 

Easter School: We’ve posted a website story on Study Leave and Easter School click here.  This builds on information communicated via the HT Update last week, including Study Leave dates and arrangements.

Midlothian Council:  Please click here for information on the proposal to relocate Beeslack Community High School and realign the associated catchment areas.  This does affect Lasswade High School.  This consultation opened on Monday 19th February and closes on Tuesday 16th April.  Midlothian Council are seeking your views.  To assist there is an in-person Public Consultation in school on Monday 25th March from 7.00pm to 9.00pm.   

Extended Break, Thursday 28th March: To allow our staff to come together at the end of term, we will have a joint and extended break for students next Thursday. The timings for Thursday morning for all classes S1-6 will be adjusted to the following:

• Period 2 – 9.20am until 10.10am
• Period 3 – 10.10am until 10.50am
• Break:  10.50am until 11.20am
• Period 4 – 11.20am until 12.05pm

IT/ Communication : As part of our ongoing efforts to optimise our communication tools, we will be moving from Zoom to Microsoft Teams for our virtual meetings.  This means Information Evenings and Parent Council Meetings (winter of 2024/25) will be held via Teams.  Microsoft Teams offers a comprehensive suite of features that align with our requirements, including robust security measures. In addition, it is included in our Microsoft Office 365 subscription, which means we no longer need to pay for an additional Zoom subscription.  Every little helps!

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

Tweet  Share on Facebook