HT Weekly Update: Week-ending Thursday 28th March 2024

Thursday 28th March 2024

This concise weekly HT Update is generally published every Friday afternoon.   Given the holiday, it’s a Thursday edition this week!  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.  Again,  given the holiday the response will be upon our return.  

Key messages from this week  

Calendar:  School breaks up today and we welcome back all students and staff on Tuesday 16th April;  please note our Easter School will run during the break,  see below.   Events on our first week back are fairly light:  on Thursday we’ll hold HPV vaccinations and work with primary pupils on a P7 Maths Challenge; on Friday we’ll allow our S6 to be off-timetable prior to the SQA Exam Diet beginning, our School Captains are working on a special programme of events.

Staffing:   The long awaited maternity for Mrs Brown began today. I’m pleased to say she was working right to the end, chairing a meeting with the Head Teacher’s of our associated primary schools.  We’ve had the hot water and towels on standby for a wee while but thankfully they were not required.  However, our Early Education and Child Care students are disappointed that an anticipated practical assessment opportunity did not transpire. It should not affect their overall qualification.  This week Claire Main was appointed 0.4 full time equivalent Depute Head Teacher until the end of June 2024.  Mrs Sharp and Miss MacDonald will step up roles and involvement in St Leonards House.  Carly Heywood has been appointed full time Principal Teacher Humanities on an acting basis until March 2025.  We also appointed Matt Dryden as a Principal Teacher within our Mathematics Team.  Matt will join us in August.  Today we also said thanks and farewell to two members of our Science Team, Rachel Paul and Jennifer Richmond, who are moving onto new schools after Easter.  Rachel to Newbattle CHS and Jennifer to Whitburn Academy.   

Quality Improvement Parent Carer Survey:  We send out a general survey to parents/carers every two years.  The link was sent initially on 15/03/24  as a text message to the main parent/carer contact of all our students.  Last Friday we sent a reminder.  Thank you to those, over 230 parents/carers,  that have managed to complete the survey.  We are getting close to a statistically valid sample.  A final reminder text will be sent to all parents/carers later today (please ignore it if you’ve already completed the survey).  Please take the time to fill it in if you’ve not.  Your response helps us to confirm what we do well and gives us a basis to think about improvements to our work.  We’ll close the survey on Tuesday 16th April. 

SPOTY:  Lasswade High School, in partnership with Active Schools, hosted the Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) awards last week. Teachers, parents/carers, VIPs and guests came along to celebrate and promote sporting success within the school. LHS PE staff, Sarah McKay, and Lasswade Active Schools Coordinator, Katie McPherson, organised the event with students from our Sports Council offering help and support. We are grateful to our Parent Council for supplying teas and coffees at ‘half time’. Mark Martin, hosted the evening superbly.  Over 1600 votes for the finalists of the main award, Sports Personality of the Year, were cast with Harry Jackaman taking home the main award, for his achievements in rugby.  This includes breaking into the Scotland U18s squad.  He’s got a truly phenomenal sidestep.  

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

School Uniform:  Reminder, please click here to access a leaflet from Borders regarding their upcoming 20% discount off uniform.  The offer opens on Monday 22nd April and closes Sunday 19th May.  

HPV Vaccinations:  Please click here to see the attached schedule for Thursday 18th April.  Information will be shared with students first week back.  

SQA 2024:  We posted an important story on our website today regarding the SQA Examination Diet, please click here.

Easter School: During the Easter Holiday Lasswade teachers are offering Easter School to help support revision for SQA Exams. An updated timetable has been placed in Year Group Google Classrooms.  Today students, and parent/carers, should receive an email confirming allocated sessions.   Some subject sessions have been oversubscribed and my thanks to Miss Whittingham and colleagues who’ve been working to resolve issues.  It has not been possible in all cases I’m afraid.  

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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