Head Teacher's Letters

Prizegiving 2005: Head Teacher's Address

Good evening, Councillor Ross, Miss Alexander, ladies and gentlemen, staff and pupils of Musselburgh Grammar School. This year’s prizegiving is about one week later this year and the weather seems all the better for it – last year we were referring to the wet start to Wimbledon and the Glastonbury festival.

In preparing for this speech tonight, I found myself structuring it round 2 main themes – change and pride, and it is to the first of these I would like to turn.

It has been a year of marked changes for the school. We have had a number of staffing changes, changes to the promoted post structure, changes to the building, room changes for staff, changes to school uniform and homework diaries, and we have taken part in the Scottish Executive’s consultation on the Parental Involvement Bill, which is proposing changes to parental involvement in schools.

For this establishment, like other educational establishments, change would appear to be a constant and it is something we have to live with. Let me put forward to you the view that change is healthy, for it indicates that an organisation is not moribund and complacent, but recognises that there is still work to be done.

But change has to be managed if the institution does not whirl off into confusion, and I spent time in August last year outlining for school staff “The Way Ahead 2004-6.” Managing change includes allowing time for staff development, consulting with interested parties, allocating resources to effect the change, developing a timeline for action to be carried out, indicating which personnel will be involved and what responsibilities they have. The School Improvement Plan gathers up the priorities for the school and indicates how the changes will be managed. Difficulties do arise, however, when there is a multitude of initiatives from central and local government which compete for time with our own priorities at Musselburgh Grammar School.

Our priorities remain fixed on teaching and learning and on developing positive attitudes for adult life. They can be summed up very simply by the motto on the school crest  - “Striving for Excellence- Caring for All” and the motto for the town – “Honesty”.  Let us be clear that excellence does not only mean excellence in academic attainment – it also means excellence in other areas of achievement such as sports and cultural pursuits and creativity and enterprise and also in promoting positive attitudes and values. The second part of that motto “Caring for All” is a reminder that we have obligations to all pupils at the school – not all will collect the glittering prizes we see here tonight, not all will receive the congratulations of their peers. Many will need quite intensive support and specialist support for we are a very inclusive school, as is the authority.

I was at a retiral dinner last Wednesday for a Head Teacher John Mitchell with whom I worked 8 years ago and his words at that dinner struck a chord with me, for our schools are actually quite similar in their characteristics though not their size. He said “I am proud to have been the Head Teacher of a comprehensive comprehensive school.” – what he was alluding to was the fact that not all comprehensive schools are particularly comprehensive in their intake. This school, like his, has pupils from level A to level F in S1and from Intermediate 1 to Advanced Higher in S6 and I think we do a good job in dealing with them all - we are also a comprehensive comprehensive school.

Let me return to the theme of changes – staffing changes. When I do my monthly newsletter to parents, I find myself updating staffing almost every month, concerned that I am going to offend someone by omission. A number of staff arrive each year in August on a temporary contract as newly qualified teachers, then depart for pastures new in June: this year that group includes Mr Stanley in CDT, Miss Evans in Art and Design, Miss Gristwood in Home Economics, Mr Edgar in Chemistry and Miss Robert in Modern Languages. My thanks to you all for your work with us and our best wishes for the future.

Miss Leroux, however, remains with us following her successful interview for a vacancy in Modern Languages.

Mr Hewson leaves us from Physics in September and Miss Tyler leaves us from Modern Languages. Dr Burns leaves us from Biology on the return of Mrs Wilkinson. Miss Flanagan left during the year to be replaced by Mr Siday in Maths, Miss Lowe left to be replaced by Miss Walker in Art and Design – no relation to Mrs Walker who is PT. (We had this last year in CDT when Mr Shaw replaced Mr Shaw.)

Mrs Mackie, PT Chemistry, joined  the Senior Management Team to replace Mr Robertson and Miss Balmer joined the school in November as our Business Manager.

There are also a number of staff joining us on a permanent basis in August – Miss Walker is joined in Art and Design by Mrs Main, Mr McLaughlin in Home Economics, Miss Moonie in Chemistry, Mr Downey in Physics, and Miss Anderson joins us in History following the departure of one of our longest-serving members of staff – Miss Margot Alexander - I will say more on this at a later point in the evening.

There were two sad losses to the school over the course of the year. In the autumn, one of our janitorial staff, Ronnie Colquhoun, was given the news that he had cancer and that the prognosis was pessimistic. Ronnie and his wife did in fact manage to come to the Christmas Concert and he did look quite well. Sadly, there was a deterioration after Easter and Ronnie passed away in late May. A more obliging and cheerful person you could not find in any walk of life and the stoicism with which he accepted the hand which Fate dealt him was quite extraordinary. The school is a sadder place without him.

Our other loss was the death of one of our fifth year pupils Laura Womersley after a short and unexpected illness. Losing an adult colleague is difficult, but losing a pupil is devastating and one of the hardest things I have had to do in my teaching career is to break the news to the senior pupils at a special assembly and watch normally composed faces crumple at the news. Her cremation was attended by many staff and pupils from the school and I was intensely proud of the mature way our pupils conducted themselves at such a difficult occasion. Her parents are with us this evening, having donated a prize to the school in her memory – you are welcome and we share your sadness. I would also like to welcome Mr and Mrs Givan, who lost their daughter Debbie last year and who have also donated a prize to the school in Debbie’s memory.

Three members of our teaching staff are going on secondment – which means we lose them for a period of time between 12 and 23 months, then they return to us. Ms Bovill is going to Edinburgh University, Mr McNaught to the Scottish Executive, and Mr McIntosh to the Centre for Information in Language Teaching, a post part-funded by the Scottish Executive. We thus say au revoir but not farewell.

I also wish to pay tribute to three colleagues in East Lothian. David Cameron, the Head of Education, moves to Stirling to take over as Director of Education and Children’s Services. David has been a strong supporter of the school in his time in East Lothian and I will miss his knowledge and wisdom as well as his sense of humour. Closer to home, the Musselburgh cluster of schools sees Gordon Hall, Head Teacher of Wallyford PS, retire and Jennifer Ross, Head Teacher of Stoneyhill PS move to Costorphine PS in Edinburgh. We wish all these colleagues well in their new circumstances.

I now move to changes in the building. As you will be aware from my newsletters and the local press, building work continued in all six secondary schools over the year. The builders virtually took over the school during the summer holidays. Since July last year, the Science Laboratories have been refurbished, the Home Economics department transformed, PE area changed to include a dance studio, Social Subjects and Modern Languages upgraded, Learning Support expanded, Music upgraded. A new admin wing has been added, the Dining Hall refurbished, new lockers offered to all S5 and S6, new pupil toilets opened and we have a new front foyer and a refurbished Assembly Hall. There is hardly any area of the school which is untouched, and visitors and parents have been complimentary about the changes that they see. However, I am anxious that the process of snagging – identifying and remedying problems – is taking so long. Charming though the builders are, I would like to have the work complete and signed off to allow us to concentrate once more on education, our primary purpose.

It would be remiss of me not to compliment the staff and pupils who have remained focussed on their work over the last year through several trying episodes and the sustained low level irritations of the building work. In this regard, I should say I have the highest regard for the teaching union representatives Mr Burns, Mrs Dreon-Goold and Mr Wishart who are all inclined to talk problems through with Mr MacKinnon and me to reach satisfactory solutions.

As I said last year, I am indebted to Mr MacKinnon for his labours with PPP – he is a calm and soothing presence to any discussion, logical when it comes to planning, and imaginative when difficulties arise. He and I also owe thanks to officers of the council like the Director of Education and Children’s Services Alan Blackie and the Chief Executive John Lindsay for their stalwart support over the last two years. We also would like to pay tribute to the support shown by our local councillors, particularly Councillors Ross, Talac and Murray, who have visited the school on several occasions and helped to move matters along. We now have a school fit for the 21^st century thanks to their commitment to the project and I thank them for that.

We introduced changes to the school uniform and changed from old-fashioned school diaries to more modern pupil planners. While it would be unrealistic to expect 100% change overnight, the Senior Management Team are pleased that so many pupils now wear school uniform virtually every day they come to school. When speaking to pupils out of uniform, I remain amused by the number of claims that “it’s in the wash” and more interestingly “the washing machine has broken down” – if anyone is looking to set up a business, can I recommend washing machine repairs? - though I’m still waiting for the old chestnut usually used about homework “The dog ate it”. The school appreciates the level of support most parents have given us on this issue – it sets the correct tone from the start.

The new planners have been very well received by pupils and parents. Giving pupils a planner means that we can now expect all pupils to carry a bag to school, to record homework set by staff and generally be more organised.

Finally, in this section referring to the theme of change, we come to the Parental Consultation Bill, which proposed making amendments to School Boards and replacing them with Parents’ Forums as a way of drawing more parents into becoming more involved in their children’s education. The Scottish Civic Forum held a number of meetings around Scotland including one in Musselburgh, which was in fact one of the best attended. I am grateful to the School Board, particular our Chairman Roger Knox, for organising an open meeting to discuss the proposals and for making a response to East Lothian and to the Executive on behalf of Musselburgh Grammar’s parents. The deadline for responses was 7^th June and we will find out the national tenor of responses in due course.

And so to the theme of pride. If pride is one of the seven deadly sins, then my colleague John Mitchell and I both stand accused – but this is one sin I will happily own up to, for I am intensely proud of the achievements – both individual and collective – of pupils and staff at Musselburgh Grammar School. I am also proud of the number of opportunities offered by the staff to broaden our pupils’ horizons – after-school clubs, visits out of school, competitions and the like. I wish to spend some time on these aspects of the school’s work in the second part of my speech.

Let me begin with examination results as a measure of achievement, since it is so often publicly discussed, often by a media with other agendas. I was enormously heartened when we received and then analysed the SQA examination results last year, for we continue to improve our level of attainment.

At Standard Grade, we have increased the number of pupils achieving 5 or more Credits in each of the last five years and now sit at 32% of the yeargroup, where we were at 21% 5 years ago. 4 pupils achieved 8 passes at grade 1 – Fiona Horne, Eve McDonald, Dean Mohammed and Rachel Sim – and we will look with interest at their results for Higher Grade this year in August. The absolute number of Credit passes has consistently grown year on year from 2000 – from 416 in 2000 to 739 last year.

Clearly, more and more pupils are choosing to work hard and realise the importance of good attendance and consistent application. Sadly, as a comprehensive school, we also have those whose attendance and application is lacking. The facts are plain: fall below 85% attendance and your chances of achieving a Credit pass fall to 1 in 13 as opposed to 1 in 3 for the school as a whole. Your chances of achieving 8 passes also reduce and this is unlikely to impress employers or colleges – you then start off your working life on the wrong foot.

At Higher level, the number of pupils achieving 3 or more Higher passes rose once more, this time to 20%, our highest level for at least 6 years. This benchmark is important, since it is the entry level to higher education. A number of pupils sat 5 Higher examinations and 12 achieved 5 passes. 1 pupil, Lynn Hryhorskyj, managed 5 Grade A passes.

At Advanced Higher, our pupils continue to challenge themselves and continue to do well – 16% achieving at least one Credit pass. We noted with great pleasure that Duncan McNicholl, our Dux from last year, gained a Grade A pass in each of his four Advanced Higher subjects.

Further down the school, we saw continuing progress in the number of pupils reaching level E in Reading and Writing and in Mathematics by the end of S2 –a tribute to the work of the English and Mathematics departments.

It is tempting to judge a school on the basis of its performance in national examinations – tempting, and wrong. School is about developing the whole child and remembering that the child will have to be prepared for adult life and work. Singapore recently admitted that its curriculum, heavy on rote learning of knowledge, was not serving it well in developing problem-solving skills and innovation, because its pupils were not being given the chance to develop those skills at an earlier stage of their education.

The Scottish Executive has set 5 national priorities in education – one of these is lifelong learning. I mentioned at the start that change is a constant and very few people can expect to be in one career all their lives. They will require to be adaptable, flexible, prepared to find new ways of doing things and prepared to expect to continue learning new skills and develop new knowledge areas. The danger is that we prepare pupils for life and for work for the last century, not for this.

Many of the achievements and events which I will shortly refer to make me proud because they illustrate people embracing learning in the broadest sense, using soft skills, trying out new things, being prepared to fail. Let me suggest that failure is paradoxically a good thing, because it asks you if there are alternative solutions to problems. In America, they expect their budding entrepreneurs to have failures and then to bounce back and learn from them: here, are we not often guilty of waiting for failure and then saying I told you so? Change in the form of restructuring is often common and superficially effective– change in the form of reculturing is harder. As a nation, we must learn to be more upbeat and optimistic – more half-full glasses rather than half-empty ones.

Let me begin by speaking about developments in the uses of Information Technology. Many of you will have been on the school website this year  - there have been 160,000 hits on the website in 9 months  - and I hope you have found it useful as a source of information. I am indebted to Mr McIntosh of the Modern Languages Department for the work he has done in establishing the site and encouraging others to use it. He tells me that most of the work for this is carried out by about a dozen S2 and S3 pupils, who deserve a great deal of credit for their hard work. The site has already been recognised for the John Dickie ICT Award from Learning and Teaching Scotland for using innovative technology, and has been shortlisted for the New Media Awards run by the “New Statesman” magazine. The Modern Languages Department are heavy users of this new technology and we were shortlisted as one of the best 12 language projects in the UK by the European Award for Languages –and were visited by the French Ambassador for Education earlier this year -  and discovered this afternoon that we have in fact won – a major feather in our cap as a school and I offer my congratulations to the department.

We used the site to make a podcast – using Apple Ipods to download information not just music – and were the first school in Europe to do so. We received national press coverage in the Sunday Express and from BBC Newsround as a result. Because we use Apple technology for this, we are on the front page of the Apple World-Wide Website today – a tremendous achievement for a school to be featured in an internationally renowned website.

We have also developed the use of weblogs – blogs for short – which provided a highly entertaining source of information about the Paris Normandy trip in May and we did two podcasts from France. Mr McIntosh intends to run 3 or 4 podcasts tomorrow during Gig on the Grass so you can hear the music and hear pupil interviews during the day if you log on to the school website and click on the correct section. 

The website also allows pupils to make posts about items of importance to them on the Pupil Council part of the site. We are also seeing departments starting to use the website for curricular purposes and some staff are even posting homework assignments on it.

Please do not underestimate the impact this site is having in spreading the good news about Musselburgh Grammar School – for example, several job applicants have recently referred to the website at their interviews and I hardly need to stress the importance of attracting high calibre applicants. The site is also generating some very interesting links with other schools – we have a Poland/ Scotland geography link and a school in America wrote plays about Auschwitz after reading about our visit there.

I look forward to seeing the website develop further over the next few years.

As a nation, we are often accused of being very insular and having little interest in the affairs of other countries or in their history. As a school, I beg to differ. As well as the Paris Normandy trip I referred to earlier, we have had a group of pupils visit the European Parliament in Brussels; had a group of pupils off on a Physics trip to France; and had a group of pupils visit Prague and Poland last year. The common denominator in all these trips was the excellent behaviour and attitude of all the pupils – they are a credit to themselves and to the school and are true ambassadors for us.

The visit to Poland was preceded by a lot of preparatory work by Ms Bovill as part of the theme of the power of the human spirit under persecution, as the pupils were to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. We were privileged to have a Holocaust survivor, Ernest Levy, come to visit those pupils and the visit was featured by an article in “The Guardian” newspaper. The pupils wrote a series of essays about their experiences which are very intense, very personal and very moving and we have arranged to have these published in a book – the galley proofs have been returned to East Lothian Council today. The book is dedicated to Laura Womersley, for she is one of the featured writers in this collection of reflective essays.

This raising of personal horizons to an awareness of the plight of other people surely reached its zenith in the response of the school to the Tsunami appeal at the start of 2005, where we raised over £3200 in a single day through various events – primarily school bands giving a concert in the Hall. Young people are often accused of being self-centred and selfish – hard to pin that label on our pupils when you consider that they also raised £550 for AIDS victims, £200 for the Mysthenia Gravis charity, £547 for Red Nose Day, and £462 for World Vision in Bangladesh thanks to Miss Moore’s Christmas pantomime. They hope tomorrow to raise £2000 for local children’s charities through ticket sales and merchandising for Gig on the Green – an ambitious but achievable target. I am proud to be associated with pupils who demonstrate such citizenship. There are also plans for us to make links with Ogwin School in Durban in South Africa, which I hope to explain more fully in next year’s newsletters.

I am particularly keen for the school and the community to recognise the value of out-of-school education including sport. (Mind you, I will regard Scotland as a truly educated country when all the males of the population start reading the paper from the front rather than the back.) I appointed Mr Brown to the post of PT Outdoor Education at this time last year – another one of these changes I began my speech with – and we have participated in inter-schools problem solving challenges for S3, S4 and S6 – most of which appear to involve getting very wet and very muddy. The S2 Orienteering Challenge in February against the other East Lothian schools led us to take the Challenge Trophy and two pupils, Jamie McNamara and Peter Dery, took first and second place respectively in the field of 70 competitors.

A group of pupils and staff also attended Midlothian Ski Centre from October to June and are making rapid progress in gaining certificates from level 4 to level 7, just below the level of Ski Leader. Another group of pupils and staff enjoyed a weekend away in Ardnamurchan recently examining rural life over 300 years ago. Mr Brown and a group of pupils also had the pleasure – if that is the right word – in talking to one of the Inspectors of Schools about outdoor education, and he was very impressed by the enthusiasm of the pupils and the range of activities on offer.

We also arranged for a group of S3 pupils to go on an outdoor education drawing trip out and about in April, which despite the atrocious weather, was voted a huge success by staff and pupils and is a trip we will arrange again for next year.

Out of school learning also includes our sporting achievements, both individual and collective. Craig Owenson now in S4 is currently captain of the east Lothian Falcons Rugby union team, and playing for the Scotland Rugby league team was man of the match against Wales. He will in fact be going to Russia in September to play in the Rugby League World Cup.  John Hamilton, now in S3, gained a bronze medal at judo in the Scottish School Championships and then went one better gaining a silver medal at the British Schools Championships. Rachel Livingstone now in S5 continues to perform at representative level for Scottish Ladies Junior Golf.

Members of our Hockey Club have been selected as the East Lothian Hockey Squad, the girls S1/S2 team won the East Lothian Basketball Championship, fixtures were arranged against other schools for badminton, S1-6 boys participated in league fixtures against other schools and the girls’ S1/2 football team got to the semi-finals of the Coca Cola Cup and won at the East Lothian Youth Games in May. There are also athletics and rugby clubs running supported by parents and local sports associations, and girls’ programme of events run after school including pilates, yoga and tae kwon do. We also had a number of in-school visits by dance coach Donna Hartley as a way of broadening pupil interests into other sports, not just team games.

We came third in the County Sports held last week.

The under 16 football team reached the final of the Scottish Cup this year and lost 2-1 to Bellahoustoun Academy with the final played at Firhill, home of Partick Thistle. Those of us at the game enjoyed a good match played in a very sporting way and our pupils were very gracious in defeat – again a credit to the school.

The core of that team also won the Scottish section of the Sony Playstation 5-a-sides in Glasgow and represented Scotland at the national event in England. Mr Fruish tells me the team have clocked up 1500 miles of travel this year. We are of course grateful to our parents who offer support in all these events.

I was also very pleased to note the number of cultural events in Music, Drama and the Arts. (Someone once said that you can regarded yourself as a highly cultured person when you hear the first few bars of Rossini’s “William Tell” overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger…..) As ever in Music, we were represented at the authority’s Music Showcase organised by Peter Antonelli which took place in the Assembly Hall this year rather than the Brunton Hall. Mr Paterson offered us a Christmas Concert and then outdid himself last week in the Summer Concert where we heard some superb playing across a variety of demanding pieces – and I was very pleased to see a rise in the number of pupils involved in the orchestra and the choir.

We also saw an increase in the number of pupils involved in the Live Music Club co-ordinated by Mr Gallagher, and it is these pupils who come forward to play at our various charity concerts such as Gig On the Grass. Two of these bands in fact were playing at last Friday’s Brunton Theatre’s Annual Ball. Our rehearsal facilities are in use 5 days a week and we will have a recording studio at our disposal next year. We are also looking to run DJ courses and to certificate pupils on their technical skills. 

Mr McNaught has arranged visits to local theatres over the course of the year and is arranging to take a group of pupils to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Our S1 pupils participated in drama workshops led by East Lothian drama workers based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s  “Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde.”  A group of S1-S3 pupils, writing in French, won a prize for the funniest play in the National Play competition at the French Institute. Miss Moore is busy rehearsing with a group of pupils who will be performing at the Brunton Theatre on Sunday evening. This is part of the BBC One Day of Shakespeare where 400 invited schools in 100 locations across Britain will perform a 30 minute version of a different Shakespeare play. We are performing the Scottish play – thespians will know it is unlucky to mention the actual name of the play. Given our PPP saga, Henrik Ibsen’s  “The Master Builder” would have been more appropriate … Ms Bovill and a group of Advanced Higher English pupils will shortly be involved in the Scottish Class Act Project at the Traverse Theatre involving actors and writers to produce their own plays –leading to a public performance in November at the Traverse.

We had a textile artist-in-residence working with various yeargroups in the spring and an exhibition of that work has just opened at the Brunton Theatre, and a number of pupils attended workshops run by John Bellany and Elizabeth Blackadder.

There were a host of visits out of school – to the Scottish Parliament, to Prestongrange Industrial Museum, to the Science Centre – many as part of our Activities Days. Pupils entered various competitions – we always participate in the United Kingdom Mathematical Challenge and our pupils received 2 Gold, 20 Silver and 33 Bronze awards. Gold means a performance within the top 6% of the country. Deborah Cain achieved a silver award in the Scottish Mathematical Council Maths Challenge and we took part in the Enterprising Mathematics Team Competition for Lothian secondary schools.

It is my intention to draw these experiences and others into a booklet for the forthcoming mailshot entitled “More than Chalk and Talk”.

It is time for me to draw my speech to a close. As Head Teacher, I can draw upon the experience and enthusiasm of all the staff in the school, both teaching and non-teaching. I can also draw upon the support of a community, not just our parents, which values the education on offer to its children.

At the end of my second year in post, I am enormously encouraged by the way the school is progressing and developing – it is an exciting time to be Head Teacher of Musselburgh Grammar School and I feel very privileged to be here. I hope you enjoy the remainder of the evening’s ceremony and I wish everyone an enjoyable holiday.

Ronnie Summers                                                  29^th June 2005

Newsletter June 2005

 

23 June 2005

Dear Parent

Parental Newsletter June 2005

SQA Results and Appeals

The SQA diet of examinations for 2005 is now complete and S4 and S5 pupils have returned to their new timetable. The results should reach pupils by post on the morning of Tuesday 9^th August – please make sure SQA and the school have your current address or the certificate of results will go astray. If your child’s results do not reach you on that date, please do not contact the school - as a matter of policy we do not release exam results to pupils and parents. If your child’s results have not arrived by Wednesday’s post, please then contact the school and we will contact the SQA helpline.

Details from the SQA Appeals booklet will be posted on noticeboards by Miss McIntosh. Parents should realise that the school must have evidence from preliminary examination performance and coursework to support an appeal in any subject – asking the school to consider if an appeal can be made does not mean that an automatic appeal will be made on your child’s behalf. Even where we do decide that an appeal is justified and submit an appeal, not all our appeals are granted by the SQA.

Uniform

In general terms, the vast majority of our pupils have responded to the move to school uniform from August last year and regular visitors to the school have commented on the change. As Head Teacher, I still expect all pupils to be in school uniform every day of the  school week – and this includes Fridays. We are introducing one small change to the uniform following an earlier consultation - girls in S3 and S4 will be allowed to wear plain black cardigans instead of school sweatshirts. A copy of the amended school uniform is enclosed with this letter and the same details are listed on the school website. Senior pupils are expected to be in uniform every day as part of their senior school contract, moreover: we expect them to act as role models for younger pupils.

School transport

All pupils living in Whitecraig and Wallyford have to apply to the Transport Department each year for a pass for the new session. If you live in these areas, an application form should have been sent out to your home by Transport and the deadline for return was 9^th May. If you have not returned a form, please have your child collect one from the school office and return it to us at the school by the end of this term.  Where no form is completed, a bus pass cannot be issued by the Transport Department and you will have to pay the bus company for transport each day. The school is not responsible for these arrangements and cannot intervene on your behalf either with the bus company or with Transport. We distribute bus passes on the first day of the new term.

Primary 7 visits

These took place on Tuesday 7^th and Wednesday 8^th June to familiarise our new S1 intake with the layout of the Grammar School, the structure of the school day, arrangements for Smartcards and cashless catering, to meet some of their teachers and to meet their Guidance teacher.  Mrs Mackie received very good feedback from the P7 pupils. The new S1 roll is capped at 260 by the authority and we are getting very close to that figure now.

PPP

You will be pleased to know that all the major renovations have been completed, with all departments now settled into their new areas. Mr MacKinnon will receive a plan of building works which will be carried out over the summer sometime this week, including completion of work in the Library. I am rather disappointed that so little snagging work has taken place since Easter. The progress of the remaining snagging and work in the Library will be regularly monitored during the holiday period by Mr MacKinnon and myself and by the authority.

Citizenship

I spoke to the new senior school on Friday 17^th June at assembly and I have posed them a challenge – to work with the school on ways to develop local citizenship through supporting different local charities each year and on ways to develop global citizenship to one charity location in South Africa for a number of years – to do our part in making poverty history.

I have been greatly touched by the generosity of our pupils in various appeals this year and we have presented cheques at our Christmas and Easter services to the Sick Kids’ Foundation in Edinburgh (£676), to the Mysthenia Gravis Association (£200), through Action on Aids to the Waverley Trust (£400), and to Christian Aid (£50). We raised £3102 in a single day for the Tsunami Appeal – a tremendous effort.  Finally, Miss Moore’s Christmas Pantomime raised £462 for World Vision – and we have received back letters and photographs from the Karkokandi community in Bangladesh who used the money to build a kitchen house for their church community centre – and we may seek to make links to the school there in future years.

End of term events

Our final fund-raising event of the year is “Gig on the Grass” on the final day of term organised by Mr Gallagher of CDT and other staff and pupils – let’s hope the weather stays fairer than last year!

Before we get to the final day, we have the Honest Lad and Lass visit and the Summer Concert on Thursday 24^th June, Merit Award ceremonies on Monday and Tuesday 27^th and 28^th June, and the Prizegiving on 29^th June.

Staffing

A number of staff will leave us at the end of this term for a variety of reasons.

Foremost of these is Miss Alexander, who retires at the end of June after spending all bar one year of her teaching career at Musselburgh Grammar School – her loyalty to the school is unquestionable and I am sure many parents who attended the school themselves remember her with affection and gratitude. Her dry sense of humour will be much missed and we wish her a long and happy retirement.

Two members of staff leave us after several years here - Mr Hewson in Physics, Miss Tyler in Modern Languages. Dr Burns has been with us this year as cover for Mrs Wilkinson, who returns in August. A number of staff joined us temporarily for a single year as NQTs and now move on to other schools - Mr Edgar in Chemistry, Mr Stanley in CDT, Miss Robert in Modern Languages, Miss Evans in Art and Design and Miss Gristwood in Home Economics. To all these members of staff, I would offer thanks for their service to the school and hope that they have enjoyed and benefited from their time here.

Mrs Bovill (PT English) and Mr McNaught leave on 23 month secondments to Edinburgh University and the Scottish Executive respectively, and Mr McIntosh of Modern Languages leaves on a 12 month secondment to CILT in Stirling.

Miss Leroux remains with us following her success at interview for the post of teacher in Modern Languages. Mrs Fraser (now job sharing with Mr Mainds), Mrs Brooks, and Mrs McSherry have all returned from maternity leave recently.

Other appointments following interview, with staff arriving in August, are:

Ms Walker and Mrs Main in Art and Design; Ms Anderson in History; Mr McLoughlin in Home Economics, Ms Moonie in Chemistry, and Ms Cairns in Modern Languages.

As Head Teacher, I would like to thank and compliment all my staff for their hard work and commitment to the school over the last session - they go far beyond their minimal contractual commitment and contribute greatly to the positive ethos of the school. I intend producing a booklet for the mailshot in August called “More than Chalk and Talk” to illustrate the number of activities which occur outwith the formal classroom curriculum at Musselburgh Grammar School.

I noted in my last newsletter that David Cameron, Head of Schools, was moving to Stirling Council. David has been a superb supporter of Musselburgh Grammar School in his time in post. On a personal note, he has been a first-class source of advice and encouragement.  The authority has appointed Don Ledingham, Head Teacher of Dunbar Grammar School as Acting Head of Schools for one year as David’s temporary replacement and I look forward to working with him.

The cluster of schools in Musselburgh also loses two of our primary colleagues – Gordon Hall who is retiring as Head Teacher of Wallyford Primary and Jennifer Ross, Head Teacher of Stoneyhill PS who is moving to Costorphine Primary in Edinburgh – and I thank them for their links to the Grammar over the years and wish them both well.

And finally..

The school closes at 3.45 pm on Thursday 30^th June and reopens to pupils on Monday 22nd August at 8.45. I wish a good holiday to parents, pupils and staff alike.

Yours sincerely

R I SUMMERS

Head Teacher

May 2005 Newsletter

27^th May 2005

Dear Parent/Guardian,

Newsletter May 2005

Consultation on Draft Bill “Making the Difference – improving parents’ involvement in schools”

The School Board Open Evening to discuss the above took place last Monday in the Library and the School Board met on Thursday 26^th May to finalise its response to the draft bill. I would remind all parents that individual responses are welcomed by the Scottish Executive and these can be made using the Parentzone website (www.parentzonescotland.gov.uk/questionnaire.asp).

Truancy Call

All parents should have received by mail a letter from myself regarding this and asking for an update of all contact telephone numbers on the form which was enclosed with the letter. Can I ask that these be returned as soon as possible, please?

SQA Examinations

We are approaching the end of the SQA diet of examinations now and I would like to congratulate the vast majority of our pupils who arrived in good time, in uniform, were well organised with the necessary materials, and who seemed well prepared for the trials and tribulations of the next few hours. 

My thanks also go to Miss McIntosh for her painstaking and conscientious work in organising the examinations in association with our invigilators, whose helpful and unflustered approach creates the required orderly examination atmosphere.

Paris Normandy trip

A group of pupils and staff have been abroad for 9 days and return today. Many of you may have been following their adventures on the school website via the daily weblog and podcast and may have sent messages to those on the trip – you’ll gather that while the two centre trip is highly educational, it is very far from being serious all the time! It has been interesting to see that other people in France have left messages too.

Podcast

You may have seen the article in the “Sunday Express” about the school – we are the first school in Europe to make a podcast, which is essentially DIY Radio and can be downloaded onto an IPod. You can also read it off a computer, as many of us have done in following the podcasts from the French trip.  My congratulations to Mr McIntosh and his team of pupil helpers for an interesting technological innovation which has a great deal of potential.

New timetable

S1 to S3 pupils begin their new timetables on Monday 30^th May: they will be given new individual timetables that morning. Pupils should note that rooms have been renumbered recently as part of the PPP project – we have a lot of new rooms and renumbering made sense – and we have used the new room numbers throughout. We will issue new pupil planners in August, so the old ones continue to be used and they are dated until the end of June. S4 and S5 pupils will commence their new timetable on Monday 6^th June.

Scottish Schools Under-16 Football Final

Our Under-16 Boys’ football team reached the final of the Scottish Cup which was played in Glasgow at Firhill, the home of Partick Thistle, against Bellahoustoun Academy. While we narrowly lost 2-1 (with the game very evenly balanced in the second half), the team distinguished themselves by the sporting manner in which they accepted defeat at the end. Nonetheless, it was a great achievement to get to the final and the experience of playing at a senior football ground will not be forgotten by the members of the team.

Cashless Catering

I am delighted to report that cashless catering has been introduced very smoothly – pupils have had little difficulty in learning how to load up their smartcards and service at the tills has speeded up as the catering staff have become more familiar with the system too. The Meal Deal on offer is now a healthier option than before and the recent redecoration and refurbishment of tables and chairs makes the Dining Hall a very pleasant place. A representative of Elite Catering will talk to the School Board about the initiative called “Hungry for Success” in the new term.

S1 Parents Evening

S1 reports were recently issued, with many pupils maintaining their good start to secondary school. Our thanks to parents for the comments in the reply slips – these are always very helpful to us. The S1 Parents Evening was held on Tuesday, with the Art and Design Department putting on a display of work from 6-7p.m. which was very well received by visiting parents. Once again, our attendance rate for this evening was high, and we are delighted to see so many parents.

End of term events

This point of the school year is always very busy as we prepare for various events – we have organised some Activities Days this year for pupils, our P7 pupils visit us on the 7^th and 8^th of June, a lot of staff attend the Senior Prom on 10^th June, the Summer Concert takes place on Thursday 23^rd June – tickets £1  starting at 7.30 p.m.

In the final week, we have our merit ceremonies on Monday 27^th and Tuesday 28^th June and the Annual Prizegiving on Wednesday 29^th June, where our Guest Speaker will be Councillor Maureen Talac. The final event of the year will be “Gig on the Grass” on the final day of term Thursday 30^th June when we finish at 3.45 p.m.

My final newsletter of the year will reach you in the last week of this term.

Yours sincerely,

R I Summers

Head Teacher

April 2005 Newsletter

 

27 April 2005

Dear Parent/Guardian

Newsletter April 2005

PPP

The school opened as planned on Monday 18 April after the Easter holiday. As ever, there was a great deal of work carried out during the holiday and I am very pleased to report that the major works in the Music Department and on C Floor were completed on time. The school’s major refurbishment and new build is now virtually complete, although some work will take place in the Library over the summer holidays.  The final stage of the building works, called “snagging”, now occurs, where the work is assessed for quality, match to the job specification, and fitness for purpose.

Consultation on Draft Bill “Making the Difference – improving parents’ involvement in schools”

A leaflet was given to all pupils on Friday 15 April alerting parents to the consultation. The School Board wishes to hold an Open Evening to discuss the draft bill on Monday 16 May – a separate letter will follow in due course.

PTA Quiz Night

This event will take place at Musselburgh Rugby Club (for over 18s only) on Friday 27 May at 7.30 with tickets priced £6. Tickets can be bought from Mrs Slight on 665-4070 or money can be sent in to Mrs Campbell in Business Studies.

Easter Revision classes and national examinations

Thanks to the pupils and staff who gave up time during the Easter holidays to work together in preparing for the national examinations which are now imminent, with the first examination in Standard Grade Art and Design taking place on Thursday 28 April. 

Miss McIntosh has issued individual timetables to S4-6 along with the SQA booklet of examination guidance. Pupils should check their timetable carefully and approach Miss McIntosh if they think there are any errors or omissions in it. We advise that pupils make sure parents are aware of the days they have examinations so that they are up and ready to leave for school in good time – the examination time is set and the invigilator does not wait for latecomers.

Please note that the SQA regulations are very strict and quite absolute regarding electronic devices – none must be present in the examination room, even if switched off – so mobile phones and electronic music players or PDAs must not be brought to school on examination days. Two of our candidates disregarded this warning last year, were caught by the invigilator, and the examination grade for that subject was cancelled for that candidate. The SQA reserve the right to cancel all examinations for a candidate, moreover.

The school wishes all candidates well in the forthcoming examinations.

Family holidays during term-time

We have received the following information from East Lothian Council clarifying the procedure for recording family holidays during term-time:

All family holidays taken during term-time should be categorised as unauthorised absence unless a request is accompanied by sufficient evidence to merit authorisation.

A family holiday classified as “unauthorised absence” includes such reasons as:

·        the availability of cheap flights or the availability of desired accommodation,

·        poor weather during school holidays,

·        holidays which overlap the beginning or end of term,

·        parental difficulty obtaining leave where evidence has not been provided by the employer that leave taken during school holidays would have serious consequences.

Exceptional circumstances may merit authorisation of a term-time family holiday :

·        A family holiday judged to be important to the well-being and cohesion of the family following serious or terminal illness, bereavement or other traumatic event.

·        Parental difficulty obtaining leave where the employer has provided written evidence that it cannot accommodate leave during school holidays without serious consequences to the service provided.

It is the responsibility of the school to make the decision on authorisation of family holidays during term-time. Parents are required to submit their requests for authorisation, in writing, to the Head Teacher in advance of the absence, along with the supporting evidence. The Head Teacher will then consider the information presented and write to the parents with his or her decision. If a parent does not submit their request in writing with supporting evidence from the employer, it should automatically be categorised as unauthorised and the parent informed of this. Schools should ensure that parents are fully aware of the rules.

I would simply add two further points – it should be very unusual for any parent of a child in S4-6 to take their child on holiday during term-time during these years at school, and it should be inconceivable for a parent to take a child on holiday during the SQA examination period so that a child misses the national examination in May and June and throws away one or two year’s work at a stroke.

Cashless Catering

The Dining Hall has recently been redecorated and refitted with new tables and chairs to coincide with the launch of cashless catering.  Pupils find it straightforward to load money and cheques into the 4 machines available in the Transit Area and the Dining Hall to get credit on their Smartcard.  Elite Catering are implementing the national initiative “Hungry for Success” which encourages healthier eating. The new graphics in the Dining Hall complement that initiative, linking sporting activities to healthy food. We also have a new logo for the Hall, chosen by the pupil body, which is “Olympic Mussels” – a neat pun.  Pupils on free school meals have their cards automatically updated each day.

Yours sincerely

R I Summers

Head Teacher

Newsletter March 2005

 

18 March  2005

Dear Parent/Guardian

Newsletter March 2005

Laura Womersley

It is with great sadness that I inform you of the sudden bereavement of one of our S5 pupils, Laura Womersley on 28^th February after a short illness. Over 50 pupils and staff from the school attended her funeral where Mrs Bovill read a tribute to Laura.  Everyone who knew her is greatly affected by her departure from this life and our thoughts and feelings are with her family at this time.

Easter Revision classes

Mrs Mackie has distributed information to S4-6 pupils about free revision classes which are run in the school by our own staff during the Easter holidays. This is an excellent opportunity for any pupil to prepare well for the forthcoming examinations and I would urge as many pupils as possible to apply for places.

Pupils in S4-6 should now be ensuring that all their notes are organised effectively in the first instance. They should be putting in place a revision plan for all subjects which should include study at home over the Easter holidays – examination pupils cannot afford to walk away from their studies for two weeks! A balance needs to be struck between recharging batteries and this steady preparation. Some pupils find that planning to work at a particular time of day helps to keep them ticking over during the holiday.

Staffing

Welcome to Mrs Deas who joins us as one of our job-share Librarians.

School website

Our website www.mgsonline.org is Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Website of the Month for February. My congratulations to Mr McIntosh who maintains and develops the site and to the staff and pupils who have contributed articles and material.

School successes

We are on a roll at present – a group of S1-3 pupils won the prize for the best comedy play at the National Competition at the French Institute last week; our 2S team won this year’s East Lothian Orienteering Competition; Mr Fruish’s under-16 football team won their Scottish Cup quarter-final tie 4-3 against Milne’s High School on Friday.

UK Intermediate Mathematical Challenge

Congratulations to a number of our S3 and S4 pupils who participated in this year’s  Mathematical Challenge -  which attracted a total of 188,000 entrants – gaining 12 silver and 18 bronze awards.

Scottish Executive Consultation

The Scottish Executive have issued a consultation paper on a draft bill called “Making the Difference – Improving Parents’ Involvement in Schools” which deals with School Boards and other matters of parental involvement in schools. The consultation period does not close until 7^th June and I will return to this issue in my next newsletter. In the meantime, the document can be read in full on the Scottish Executive website www.scotland.gov.uk

PPP

The project is proceeding very well at present with work on C Floor and in Music scheduled to finish at Easter. Similarly, five Mathematics classrooms will be upgraded by the end of the Easter holidays. This will mark the completion of the refurbishment of all teaching areas in the school. Some work will continue to complete the corridors and stairwells. Additional refurbishment work will take place in the Library during the summer holidays.

Cashless Catering

From Wednesday 20^th April the school will be operating a cashless cafeteria system. Pupils and staff will only be able to provide food or drink by loading money onto their Smartcard. Loading machines (that take notes or coins) are being positioned in the school social areas. Pupils can bring a cheque into school but there is no guarantee that the card can be validated that day – but the credit will certainly be added to the card for the following day.

New telephone system

Our new telephone system has been installed, giving us more lines in and out – I hope this has made it easier to get in touch with the school. I know it has often been difficult to phone the school to notify us of pupil absence. The switchboard is manned from 8.15 a.m. each day until 4.30 p.m.

Make It in Scotland

Our S2 yeargroup attended the Make It in Scotland Day at Brunton Hall last Wednesday as part of their preparation for choosing subjects in S3 and thinking ahead to their future careers. The manufacturing sector in Scotland is big business and there are many vocational opportunities for pupils. My thanks to Mr Dewar for his organisation of the event.

Easter Holidays

The school closes at 3.45 on Wednesday 23^rd March for staff and pupils. There will be a service on the morning and a fund-raising concert in the afternoon. I hope everyone has an enjoyable holiday. We resume on Monday 11^th April at 8.45 a.m.

Yours sincerely

R I SUMMERS

Head Teacher

February 2005 - Newsletter

We are now at one of the most critical times of the year for many of our pupils: S2 pupils make their course choice for S3 fairly soon; S3 pupils are preparing for examinations; S4 are completing coursework for submission to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and S5/6 commenced their preliminary examinations last Wednesday and will be sitting National Assessment Bank tests for the different units in their course throughout the term.

All S1-S4 parents and guardians should also have received a letter from the school relating to discipline and organisation. School staff feel that some pupils’ behaviour and adherence to school rules and procedures has slipped and we want to remind all pupils of what is expected of them when they come to school.

Staffing

Mrs Mackie has been appointed to the Senior Management Team as Depute Head Teacher following her success at interview. Previously PT Chemistry, she has been Acting Head of Grange House since Mr Robertson retired. Mrs Capon has joined the Chemistry Department, Mr Horton has joined the Art and Design department to replace Mrs Brooks on maternity leave, and Mr Siday will join the Mathematics department later this year. Two auxiliary staff, Mrs Harkess and Mrs Kilby, have also been appointed.

School Board

4 parents have been co-opted to the School Board – Malcolm Schaffer, Ruth Hollands, Ken Ruickbie, and Ruth Loggie – they are very welcome and we look forward to seeing them at our meetings.

Litter in the school and the community is a concern of the School Board and the topic was extensively discussed at a recent meeting. Members have made various suggestions on how the situation can be improved: Mr MacKinnon and the 2 pupil members of the School Board have therefore been in contact with local fast food outlets to see how litter bins can be deployed to reduce litter at lunchtimes. They have had a positive response from all the shops. More litter bins are to be provided in the roads leading back to the school. The school will keep emphasising to pupils their responsibility not to leave litter in the community.

PPP

We recently took back a number of refurbished classrooms and offices on B Floor, including a new suite of Guidance rooms, Learning Support rooms and various classrooms, notably in Modern Languages. On A Floor, we have a new ICT room, RME room and new reprographics office.

Various building works commenced during the February holiday as we are in a new phase where the Music Department and RE room is being extensively reconfigured. Work also started on rooms on C Floor and in the Small Dining Hall. We have also restored part of the front playground back to pupil use. The bulk of the major refurbishment should be completed by the end of April.

Examinations

The S5/6 Preliminary Examinations have been relocated to one of the gymnasiums rather than have examinations possibly disrupted by noise from the building work in the adjacent Music Department as indicated in the previous paragraph.

The builders are on a very tight schedule to complete work in the Music area. In order to give them an uninterrupted run at the refurbishment, we have decided to delay the S3 examinations until after the Easter holiday. (Principal Teachers of departments generally preferred to delay the examinations until then so that pupils could experience sitting examinations in the Assembly Hall rather than classrooms.) An examination programme will be issued to all S3 pupils before the Easter holiday.

This means that the Assembly Hall will be ready for use for the SQA examinations in May absolutely clear of any neighbouring building work .

S1 Parental Questionnaire

At the S1 Parents’ Evening earlier this session, Mr MacKinnon and the prefects were busy asking parents to fill in a questionnaire. My thanks to the 145 parents who did so between appointments or at the end of the evening.

Generally, the vast majority of parents appeared very satisfied with most aspects of the school and felt that their child had settled in well. 31 parents did say that they would like more regular information from the school – I suspect that in some cases my monthly newsletters are staying in bags! Each newsletter is also now placed on the school website – www.mgsonline.org - in the Infozone section, Head Teacher letters.

The concept of the questionnaire seemed to be well received by parents and I think it is an exercise that we would like to repeat on other evenings.

Parents’ Events

We have also run two events this term which may be of interest to parents. Mrs Mackie arranged for the Tree of Knowledge organisation to work with our S4 pupils at the start of this month and they also ran a parental workshop in the evening, focusing on how pupils learn and how we can help them to learn better with increased motivation.

Mrs Graham also arranged for the East Lothian Drugs Awareness Team to run an interactive parental workshop to increase parental awareness of the issues surrounding drugs. It is our intention to run this workshop every two years as it clearly is an issue which worries many parents.

Pupil Events

My last newsletter spoke about the arrangements for 21^st January when we intended to raise funds for the Tsunami Appeal – we did in fact raise £3000 and I would like to thank and congratulate everyone who organised, participated and contributed.

There will be a fundraising concert on the final day of term, Wednesday 23^rd March 2005, in the afternoon.

Cashless Catering

The school will be moving to a cashless catering system some time next term. Parents will be issued with more detailed information about this nearer the time. Pupils and staff who wish to purchase food or drink in the school will have to obtain a Smartcard with their photograph on it – no cash will be taken at tills or vending machines.

John Dickie ICT Award

My congratulations to Mr McIntosh in the Modern Languages Department: he is one of only 4 teachers in Scotland to receive this award from Learning and Teaching Scotland to support his project on Assessing the Impact of ICT in Modern Languages.

Yours sincerely

R I Summers

Head Teacher

Download a copy in MS Word: feb05v2.doc

Behaviour and Organisation

 

Dear Parent/ Guardian

Striving for Excellence, Caring for All

Many of you will recognise our school motto – it emphasises our determination to help our pupils achieve all they are capable of and our determination to value all our pupils.

On the in-service day on 10^th February, we spent time as a staff talking about how we feel a number of pupils are letting themselves down through repeated low-level indiscipline and disorganisation. I am reading through the S2 reports at present and I can see how this low-level disruption is affecting pupil progress.

This letter summarises the points made at a series of special assemblies for S1-S4 pupils today where I set out our expectations for pupils at school – it covers the fundamental points about behaviour, organisation and respect for others so that all pupils at the school thrive.

Can I please ask you to continue reading through to the end of this letter overleaf, then sign it and have your child return the tear-off slip to their register teacher on Tuesday?

Attendance – our attendance rate as a school is below the national average and we feel too many pupils have more days off than they need to. Absenteeism is no preparation for working life as an adult. Please ensure your child comes to school unless they are seriously unwell. An absence note should be provided on the day they return to school. Our unexplained category of absence is too high because notes are not being supplied.

 Latecoming – pupils should be in school by the warning bells at 8.40 and 1.25. If a pupil misses registration, they must sign in on the latecoming sheets in the front foyer – we need to know who is in the school if there is a fire. Guidance staff will set detention for pupils who are persistently late.   

Organisation – we expect all pupils to carry a bag and their pupil planner to school every day and to bring writing materials. We expect all pupils to be carrying jotters to do homework as required. We expect all pupils to bring PE kit to school on the day concerned, change for PE and then change back into school uniform.

Arriving in class – having moved promptly between classes, pupils should sit down and get organised for the start of the lesson by taking off their outdoor jacket, placing planner, jotter, books and writing materials on the desk. Pupils do not eat in class, do not chew gum and can only drink water.

Behaviour in class – pupils should listen to the instructions given by the teacher and stay focussed on the work to be done. If the work is difficult, do not give up, but try their hardest to do it before asking for help – be prepared to wait quietly if the teacher is busy helping other pupils. Pupils should always try their best in every class.

Sanctions for misbehaviour – there is a code of conduct in every room reminding pupils of what will happen if they misbehave – from verbal warning, to moving seat, to being sent outside, to punishment exercise or detention and finally being sent to the assignment room. Being sent to the assignment room is very serious because it means they have persistently refused to behave and have disrupted the education of their classmates. We are going to take a hard line with misbehaving pupils who further misbehave by not doing punishment exercises or who do not appear for detention. We are about to introduce a centralised detention system after school to deal with such defaulters.

All parents will recall these expectations from their own schooldays and realise effective teaching and learning can only take place in the correct conditions. By stating our expectations so explicitly, we hope more pupils will realise how to help themselves learn.

Finally, I would wish to stress that the school attempts to promote positive behaviour at all times by verbal praise in the classroom and written praise in jotters. Positive referrals are issued by staff throughout the year and we have merit award ceremonies every June.

Yours sincerely,

R I Summers

Head Teacher

________________________________________________________________________

Tear off slip to be returned to register teacher on Tuesday 22^nd February 2005

I have received the Head Teacher’s letter about the school’s expectations of pupils.

Pupil’s name ___________________________  Class ____________

Parent/ guardian signature ____________________________________

Download disciplinev2.doc

Newsletter - January 2005

 

I wish everyone connected with the school – staff, pupils and parents – a happy and prosperous New Year in 2005. A list of the main events this term has been enclosed at the end of the newsletter, drawn from the mailshot issued at the beginning of the year.

End of term 2004

Once again we had a very busy schedule in the final weeks of term. A group of S1 students were taken to the Brunton Theatre to see “Jack and the Beanstalk”. We ran two well-attended dances for S1-3 and S4-6 on Monday and Wednesday of the last full week and I would like to express my thanks to the staff for their attendance at these evening events and to the PTA for providing catering for the senior dance. Miss Moore and a number of other teachers organised a pantomime based on “A Christmas Carol”. We had a performance on Tuesday afternoon when we invited primary school pupils and adults from local old people’s homes to attend. We followed this with an evening performance on the Monday for pupils and parents. Out traditional musical offering, the Christmas Concert, took place on the Thursday evening, ably led by Mr. Paterson of the Music Department, and presented a varied programme of music both contemporary and familiar. Mr. Gallagher of the CDT department was instrumental in organising “Fund the Fight Against Aids”, a charity event held on the final Friday, with the funds raised going to Aids appeal. Our final event of the year was our Christmas Service, led by Reverend Moira McDonald. We had two guests at this ceremony receiving cheques for £620 and £200 for the Teenage Cancer Ward at Edinburgh Sick Children’s Hospital and for the Myasthenia Gravis Trust.

Tsunami Earthquake Disaster

Like many other people, my own Christmas celebrations this year were dampened after the events in Asia involving such tragic loss of life in so many poor countries. Like other schools, we will hold a Non-Uniform Day for staff and pupils on Friday 21^st January to raise funds for the Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal Fund and I would encourage everyone to be as generous as possible. Further details will follow in a separate parental letter as we are just beginning to make arrangements. We will explore with the Pupil Council other fund-raising events this coming term. East Lothian Council has donated £5000 already to the Fund and is looking for ways of encouraging local businesses and communities to respond.

School reports and mentoring

S5/6 reports were issued just before the holiday and we will soon be issuing S4 reports which will take account of preliminary examination performance as well as progress in classwork and homework. As ever, we welcome parental comments on the format and content of reports and have a specific page for that purpose at the back of the collated reports.

S5 pupils sitting 3 or more Higher Grades have been allocated mentors once again this session and initial meetings will soon take place. The school recognises the jump in difficulty from Standard Grade to Higher Grade and wishes to offer pupils support in managing their time, managing coursework, and ensuring revision occurs regularly, not in a rush before preliminary examinations and the final national examinations in May. Such support in previous years has been a contributory factor in improved pass rates.

S1 Parental Questionnaire

At the S1 Parents’ Evening in December, our senior pupils distributed questionnaires devised by Mr. MacKinnon. Our thanks to parents who spent time filling in the questionnaire that evening: we are currently collating the responses and I will report back on this in the next newsletter in February.

PPP Update

Work continued in the school until 24^th December with cleaning occurring over the holiday in readiness for staff and pupils returning on 6^th January. Much of the work at present involves reconfiguring existing rooms and offices to new classrooms on A and B Floors, with much of the noisy work occurring outside school hours to minimise disruption.

School website

Since we won Learning and Teaching Scotland’s ICT Enhancement Award, www.mgsonline.org.uk continues to go from strength to strength with over 14,000 visits since last May. Mr. McIntosh of the Modern Languages Department informs me that we now have 19 exchanges with 12 schools across the globe and we will have visitors from France at the end of January as a result of our links. Many parents will have been online to follow our weblogs for school trips abroad, and our visit to Auschwitz has led to links with South Cobb High School in Georgia USA. Reading about our visit stimulated their own interest and led to the production of a CD and a play – we intend to stage a performance of the play ourselves. The website allows pupils to access homework tasks and revision help as well as keeping you informed about the school and I would encourage anyone with internet access to pay us a visit.

School dates for term

S3 Parents’ Evening
Wednesday 26^th January 7.00-9.00

February inset and holiday
Pupils not in school Thursday 10^th till Tuesday 15^th February – resume Wednesday 16^th February

S5/6 Prelims
Start Wednesday 16^th February, end Thursday 3^rd March

S2 Parents’ Evening
Wednesday 9^th March 7.00 – 9.00

End of term
Last day of term -Wednesday 23rd March

School restarts
Monday April 11^th

Yours sincerely,

R I Summers

Head Teacher

Download newsjan05.doc

November 2004 Newsletter

Dear Parent / Guardian,

S4 Parents’ Evening

This evening was held much earlier this year, on 4^th November, rather than in February after the preliminary examinations and the issue of the S4 reports. We felt a lot of parents would welcome the chance to talk to teachers about their child’s progress before the preliminary examinations – and so it proved, with our highest attendance for a number of years. Many thanks to S4 parents for their response to the change of date.

S4 Preliminary Examinations

These will take place from Thursday 18^th November to Friday 3^rd December inclusive. Pupils were issued with their timetables last week. S4 pupils have been granted study leave from Monday 22^nd November to Friday 26^th November to prepare for these examinations. As the results of the examinations can be used to support appeals later in the year, good preparation for them is important, and we would expect S4 pupils to have started their revision by now.

Pupils should come in school uniform for their examinations and no mobile phones should be brought into the examination area in accordance with SQA instructions for national examinations in May and June. Pupils should aim to arrive outside the examination room at least 5 minutes before the examination paper is due to start.

School Board Elections

A reminder that Richard Parker, Principal Officer School Support Division, needs to have 30 letters from parents by 6^th December in order to call an election for the School Board, and both Roger Knox, Acting Chair of the School Board, and I are keen that this happens. Writing to request an election takes place does not mean that you have to stand as a candidate yourself! Mr. Knox and I are very happy to talk to any parent about the election process.

PTA Quiz Night/ Disco

The PTA is organising the above event which will take place (for adults only) on Friday 4^th February at the Masonic Hall in Musselburgh from 7.30 – 12.30. Supper will be provided and the cost per ticket is £7.50. Mrs. Slight can be contacted for tickets on 665- 4070.

Playstation Football Tournament

Mr. Fruish took a squad of S3 pupils to Glasgow on Monday 1^st November for the above tournament and his players did very well, only being beaten in the final by St. Andrews High School of Paisley. Both schools will now be invited to represent Scotland in the national finals, which take place in London later this year.

School trip to Poland and Prague

Recent visitors to the school website www.mgsonline.org.uk will have seen references to our trip to Krakow and Prague during October, including a visit to Auschwitz concentration camp. The trip went very smoothly, although we were unable to develop the interactive feature of our website because of technical difficulties. The pupils knew a great deal about Auschwitz because of the preparatory work of the last 12 months (including a visit to the school by Ernest Levy, a survivor of the camp, who now lives in Scotland). The visit to Auschwitz itself will live long in the memory of all who were there. Our own pupils also met Polish pupils with whom they have corresponded over the last year.

Scottish Parent Teacher Council

Richard Parker has asked that I pass on details of this organization – telephone number 0131 226 4378/1917, and their website address is [email protected].

Timekeeping and registration

I notice from our daily attendance printout that the number of pupils arriving late for school has been higher than usual this session, with a number of pupils adopting a very casual attitude. I expect all pupils to be in school before the warning bell is rung at 8.40 and present for registration which runs from 8.45 to 8.55. Similarly, pupils should be in school by 1.25, the time of the warning bell and starting to move to classes for arrival at 1.30. Any future employer will expect his or her staff to arrive for work on time – this is an important life skill.

Pupils who are persistently late are given detention by Guidance staff who have the task of tracking latecoming.

Several pupils have also been reprimanded for arriving in school late and not signing in on the sheets outside the reception area. This is a serious health and safety matter since we must be able to account for everyone in the building in case of fire. Anyone arriving late must sign in.

Pupil car parking

A note has gone out to S6 pupils reminding them that school policy is unchanged – they are not permitted to park in the school car park, which is for the use of staff and visitors to the school. There is a car park nearby at the Sports Centre.

Debbie Givan memorial

On Friday 29^th October, we unveiled a memorial, following a short ceremony in the central courtyard, to Debbie Givan, one of our pupils who was taken from us by cancer last May. The central courtyard will be returned as a social area to pupils at the end of the building works, so pupils will have the opportunity to inspect the memorial more closely in due course, though it can be clearly seen from the corridors.

Restructuring of promoted posts

A number of whole school appointments have been made in the last 6 months, with the final two interviews held on Tuesday 9^th November. The successful candidates are Mr. Gallagher – PT Performing Arts; Mr. Connolly – PT Mentoring; Mr. Brown- PT Outdoor Education;

Ms Atkinson – PT Health Education; and Ms Park - PT Partnership with Parents and Pupils. The other PT Subject appointments are: Mrs Craigie – English; Mrs Lyall – Mathematics; Mr Plimer – CDT; Mr Barclay – Learning Support.

Yours sincerely

R I SUMMERS

Head Teacher

Download newsnov04.doc

October 2004 PPP Newsletter

Dear Parent/ Guardian

PPP Update

As you will be aware from previous newsletters, a large amount of work was planned for the October holiday period. I thought it would be worthwhile notifying you of progress and our return to school this week.

Mr MacKinnon and I along with Mr Lawson, East Lothian’s Health and Safety Officer came in to school on Friday afternoon to inspect the school along with representatives from Balfour Beatty and FES. Mr Lawson saw nothing that gave him cause for concern and we agreed that the school would be ready to open on Monday for staff.

Pupil toilets

We planned to open the new toilets for pupils on Tuesday: we have been unable to do so as asbestos was found beneath the concrete floor slab and this needs to be removed by a specialist company before all the plumbing connections can be made. Pupils continue to use the portakabins and existing toilets in the meantime.

Asbestos is removed according to standard industrial practice using an accredited specialist company, Chamic. Areas are sealed off, debris is carefully stored in the proper bags, and removed from site outwith school hours. An air test is carried out before the location is returned to the builders. Neither pupils or staff should therefore be in contact with asbestos during its removal.

Administration Block

The office staff and senior management moved into new offices on Monday. The reception office has now been restored to the front of the school beside the reconfigured car park.

PE facilities

The Dance Studio and a gym opened for use on Tuesday. Work continues in the other gym.

Link Corridor and CDT/ Science corridor

A new link corridor has been constructed leading from the Transit Area to the Dining Hall and is now open to pupils relieving pressure on other corridors. A corridor also now links the north end of CDT to Science.

We have had a couple of gremlins since we came back, unfortunately.

We had a burst pipe under the ground floor on Monday which affected our ability to supply hot and cold water for staff on the inservice day, and this continued into Tuesday. Services to the main staffroom are now restored.

A heating problem has emerged on part of C floor where the air-blown heating system appears to be malfunctioning. Temporary heaters have been brought in to heat the rooms and we intend to monitor this area carefully to ensure it continues to be fit for staff and pupils to use.

A major cleaning operation took place last Sunday night. However, there were many workers in the building on Monday and the same level of cleaning did not occur on Monday evening. We were therefore very disappointed with the volume and standard of cleaning in the school for Tuesday morning. Several areas were not satisfactory, including several classrooms. Extra cleaners were brought in during the day on Tuesday, on Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday morning to restore us to an acceptable standard. We intend to monitor the cleaning of the school for the rest of this week.

I look forward to notifying you of our PPP progress in later newsletters.

Yours sincerely,

 

Ronnie Summers

Head Teacher

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