HT Weekly Update: Week-ending Friday 8th March 2024

Friday 8th 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 include:  on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday we’ll hold a series of year group assemblies on our Sports Personality of the Year event;  on Wednesday our Industry Insights sessions continue;  on Thursday we’ll issue our S3 Full Report and our Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award students will undertake a practice expedition.   

Staffing:   Recruitment for August 2024 has gathered pace with staff offered and verbally accepting posts in Art & Design, Computing, English, Mathematics (x2) and PE.  We’ll release names when all the associated administration around recruitment is complete.  On Monday we’ll appoint a temporary Depute Head Teacher who’ll act as Mrs Brown’s backfill as she leaves soon to have her baby and begin her maternity. 

Learning, Teaching and Assessment Student Survey: Over the next two weeks students will be asked to complete a Lasswade Student Learning Survey. This survey will ensure that students’ views are part of our improvement planning process. 

Easter School: We are pleased to confirm that we will be running an Easter School aimed at those undertaking SQA Exams in the summer term.  Unsurprisingly this will take place throughout the Easter Break!  We are currently confirming with our staff their availability and involvement.  We’re aiming to advertise the programme towards the end of next week.  

S6 Spirit Week: The School Captain team is pleased to announce the return of Spirit Week.  This is organised for S6 students only and is part of their ‘leavers arrangements’.  The week will run from Monday 25th March. S6 students are permitted to ignore our school dress code that week but will be expected to continue with their studies as normal.  The themes are as follows:

• Monday 25th March – Pyjamas/Anything but a bag – S6 to wear their favourite PJs and bring anything but a school bag to carry all of their things.
• Tuesday 26th March – Decades Day – S6 to dress up as their favourite decade, whether it’s the roaring twenties or the swinging sixties!
• Wednesday 27th March – White Lies – S6 to customise a white t-shirt and write a funny/creative white lie about themselves.
• Thursday 28th March – Rhyme without Reason – S6 to dress up in pairs/groups as different characters or items that have rhyming names but nothing to do with one another e.g. James Bond and Legally Blonde.

As this sounds so good, we’ll allow staff to join in that week too.  Look out for pictures on our socials.

Active Schools:  Active Schools staff and volunteers do an excellent job and work closely with schools across Midlothian, including ours, to support opportunities for young people.   They are on a ‘recruitment drive’.  Please click here for further information.

Student Wellbeing Survey:  Next week all Lasswade High School students will complete the Glasgow Motivation and Wellbeing Profile in their Personal and Social Education classes. We do this twice a year.  The survey is a 20 item questionnaire that explores motivation and sense of wellbeing in the learning context. It encourages young people to reflect on views of themselves and their emotions and gives them an opportunity to reflect on their feelings and current experiences. It also encourages them to consider how they can increase their own determination, motivation and sense of wellbeing.   We use the survey to help fulfil our wellbeing responsibilities and plan for improvement.  The trends we are building up helps us gauge whether the supports we put in place are having a positive impact.  

Child Poverty Request:  Midlothian Sure Start and Midlothian Council have a joint project to capture the lived experience of child poverty. Tim Porteous the storyteller is recruiting parents to become peer researchers.  For additional details click here.  

EfL Parent/Carer Survey:  Wee reminder that the Equipped for Learning Team would love to hear your views on what has gone well and what has not gone well around the issuing of Chromebooks to all students.  This helps prioritise planned actions to best support learning as the project moves forward. The survey will take no more than ten minutes to complete.  Please click here to complete the survey.  

School Day Consultation:  A reminder that our Midlothian wide consultation on aligning the school day across all 6 secondary schools closes later today, Friday 8th March.  Details are available via our website, click here.  I am recommending that you support the proposal and am asking for as many parent’s carers to respond, click here, as possible.

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.   

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

Feedback here

Take Care and have a lovely weekend.

Campbell Hornell,  Head Teacher

 

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