February 2023

HEAD TEACHER'S UPDATE 24 FEBRUARY 2023
Published: 24 February 2023

Staffing

Meadowpark

Charlotte Goode started on 4 January 2023 as ASN School Auxiliary.

Lewis Bell started on 16 January 2023 as ASN School Auxiliary.

Paula Lackie was recently appointed as a School & Family Support Worker, on a permanent basis, as of 30 Jan 2023.

Knox Academy

Nick Ball is the preferred candidate for our ASN School Auxiliary subject to the usual pre-employment checks.

Parents’ and Pupils’ Information

Industrial Action – 28 February and I March 2023

I appreciate that the industrial action will cause significant disruption to the learning of all of our young people and that you will have had to make alternative childcare arrangements for these days. To help support your young person’s learning during these days there will be some work available on their subject Google Classrooms. Teachers who are not striking  (of which there are few at Knox Academy) will be putting work on their Google Classrooms, throughout the day, only for their classes. Pupils should check their Google Classrooms first for work in the first instance.

Further work can also be accessed via this link for S1-S3 and S4-S6 and all year groups here. Our senior pupils can also be using the time to revise for their forthcoming exams and use the SQA website to review their subjects and topics covered; to use past papers and also access the SQA Understanding Standards website to see sample answers and how marks are deployed (pupils just need to select their subject and level in the left hand box) – this will help them to answer questions to the best of their ability. If they haven’t already organised a study timetable the SQA timetable builder will help them do this and this will give them a programme right up until, and during, their exams.

S5/6 Parents’ Evening

Thank you to all parents/carers and young people who attended last night’s parents’ consultation. It was a good turnout and the staff I spoke to said the conversations were very engaging and young people and parents/carers very clear about next steps in learning prior to the SQA exams.

Don’t miss out: Education Maintenance Allowance

Young people aged between 16 and 19 who are currently in full-time education or undertaking an Activity Agreement may be entitled to a £30 per week payment. Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is a means-tested award providing financial support to eligible 16 to 19 year olds who want to continue learning. It also applies to those who are in Home Education.

Pupils who turned 16 on or after 1 October 2022 can now apply:

Apply before 28 February 2023 to have the payments backdated to the start of January term

Apply before 31 March 2023 to receive the allowance during the current academic year. Please note that any applications received between 1 March and 31 March will not be backdated; payments will be made from the date the application is received

Applications received after 31 March will not be processed and EMA will not be paid.

Find out more and apply online.

NATIONAL E-LEARNING OFFER: E-SGOIL EASTER STUDY SUPPORT

The e-Sgoil Senior Phase Easter Study Support programme for 2023 will run from 3 to 14 April 2023. The programme comprises live, interactive webinars delivered by experienced, GTCS registered teachers from across Scotland.

A total of 80 webinar groups are on offer this year, covering 30 subjects. Each group will meet for three separate webinar sessions. The service is free to all learners.

Registration for Easter Study Support opens on 1 March. The registration link will be live from 1 March and will give access to the Easter Study Support timetable, registration form, and a range of supporting documents.

This e-learning programme is also an excellent resource for any periods of school closure or if a young person is absent for any reason. Our senior pupils can start their learner journey with the National e-learning offer by clicking on this link.

Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2023

How to apply for a Scottish Apprenticeship

Tuesday 7 or Thursday 9 March, 6.30pm – 7.30pm

Free webinars for young people, parents and carers, with information on apprenticeships, where to find the latest vacancies on apprenticeships.scot and CV and interview tips from a Skills Development Scotland careers adviser. Apprentice employers will also be explaining what they look for in candidates when recruiting and an apprentice with share their apprenticeship experience.

Register to attend one of the webinars on the Eventbrite page

There are also DYW Live apprenticeship sessions taking place across the week too.

DYW Live Apprentice Showcase

School pupils can hear from a range of apprentices and their employers about what it’s like to take an apprenticeship. Choose from up to four 30min online sessions each day of Scottish Apprenticeship Week from 6 to 10 March. Apprentices and employers from a range of sectors will feature and some sessions will discuss current and future apprenticeship vacancies.

Register to attend any free session through the DYW Live website

We would also be keen to let young people know about a social media campaign we are running throughout Scottish Apprenticeship Week – encouraging them to follow the hashtag #ApprenticeShop.

#ApprenticeShop

During Scottish Apprenticeship Week, from 6 to 10 March, young people can follow the hashtag #ApprenticeShop on social media to get a better insight into what apprenticeships are like. Apprentices, employers and learning providers will share lots of information about apprenticeships across the country from a range of sectors including details about current and future vacancies, stories, films and more.

 

Parents’ Information

Knox Academy’s Inclusion Fund

As part of our bid to ensure that all Knox Academy pupils are able to access the opportunities their education provides we have an inclusion fund. This provides families with financial support if/when necessary. 

As part of our efforts to bolster this fund we use Easy Fundraising; this is a donation made to the school from a variety of different companies if you shop with them. We receive a quarterly cheque in the post which we add to our Inclusion Fund. A huge thank you to all parents/carers who have already signed up to this through Easy Fundraising. If you would like to support us, please sign up using this link. It doesn’t cost you anything to sign up but when you make a purchase, our school pupils benefit. Thank you (Mrs McBride, PT Equity).

School Payments

Parents and carers are reminded that online payment is the preferred option, as we can no longer accept cash or cheque payments.  SCHOOLPAY can be accessed here, and also via the SchoolPay tab in the Parent and Carers section of the website.  Users are required to register prior to use, and require a unique identifier to link your young person to your account – please contact the School Office if you require further information. (School Office)

Pupils’ Achievements

Congratulations to Boyd Fearnside (S1) who won two gold and four silver medals in last weekend’s Swim West Lothian 1M Tough Meet. He won the gold medals in the 200m back crawl and 100m butterfly. The silvers were in 200m front crawl, 200m breastroke, 100m front crawl and 100m breaststroke. Congratulations to Morven Kenny (S1) who swam a Scottish National Qualifying time in her 200M swim of 2m29secs. She also got a personal best time in her 100m butterfly. Being a multi-eventer Morven was also at the Scottish Athletics National Age Groups Championships at the Emirates (Glasgow) last weekend and got a personal best in her 60m Hurdles. Great performance! Aoife Swan-Ashe (S2) was also competing at these athletic championships and came 2nd in the U15 300m final in a personal best time of 43.12 and came 5th in the 60m final, also in a personal best time of 8.23 secs! What a great start to the season and showing how all that hard winter training is paying off!

Support

Please do not hesitate to contact our Pupil Support Team by emailing your young person’s House Team if you would like to discuss any support we can offer.

 

Dates for your diary:

Tuesday 28 February and Wednesday 1 March - School closed due to industrial action.

Wednesday 15 March – S1 Parent Consultation (in-person)

 

Our school calendar is updated regularly and should be used to access all information throughout the year and allows you to plan ahead too.

Sue Cook

Parent Council

The Parent Council has requested a footer on my HT’s update that remains there year round and which offers quick links to remote learning resources, course choices, supported study and careers news. Clicking on these headings takes you straight to these pages.

Please also look at our website for lots of other information. Please also follow us on Twitter for up-to-date news on a day to day basis.

Please also remember to follow us at: www.ka-net.org.uk 84CEAEA2  (link is external) (link is external) for the latest information and updates.

 

 

HEAD TEACHER'S UPDATE 10 FEBRUARY 2023
Published: 10 February 2023

Parents’ and Pupils’ Information

Diversity Evening

What an evening!! I am bursting with pride about how our community came together to put on such an amazing event at Knox Academy. The array of workshops were a huge success and all who took part said how much they had enjoyed them – learning something new and having fun. It was so nice to see families coming together to take part in these too. The Market Place had so many diverse aspects from charities such as Guide Dogs for the Blind, Sight Scotland, ELC Rangers looking at biodiversity and many local producers selling their produce. For those with energy the smoothie bike was a real winner! The food court offered an amazing array of Italian, Indian and Scottish cuisine and ice cream and cakes for the sweet toothed.

The culmination of the evening was our Diversity Show. This was absolutely stunning! Every single act had a diverse theme and added to the ambience of the evening. The Lion Dance raised the roof, and the guest speakers, Jamie Andrew and Professor Sir Geoff Palmer were inspirational. The primary school acts were so confidently presented and highly enjoyable. Knox Academy’s acts of jazz, our gospel choir, poetry and dance were equally brilliant! We were also privileged to host the premier of the ELC LGBT Film and this was very fitting given our recent award of our Silver Charter. The evening ended with Haddington Pipe Band playing La Baum, Highland Cathedral and Scotland the Brave – lifting the ceiling off in readiness for our departure!

This was truly a night to remember – celebrating our diversity with and across our community. These events don’t happen without a lot of work from many people. A massive thank you to parents/carers, staff, pupils, partners, charities and our local businesses who came together to put on last night’s event. To coin a phrase, team work really is the dream work!

Poppy Scotland

We can now confirm our total raised for this year was £6286.70. This is our highest ever total. Well done to all those involved in the Poppy Scotland Team.

Food Bank Visit

On the 7th of February, 24 Knox academy pupils from Mr Miller's Modern Studies class visited and volunteered at the Lighthouse Community Hub, a local food bank in Prestonpans. Our visit was a great way to learn more about food banks as part of our current topic in Modern Studies is poverty. 

While at the centre we saw first-hand how they help families in need. Since this time last year the number of people using the food bank has doubled due to the cost of living crisis.

Miss Lewis, who is a member of the church and a support teacher within the school, was delighted to introduce us to the staff and service users.

At the food bank we met Rev Hannah Montgomery, and also heard an unbelievably touching and emotional first hand story from Zoe, a person with lived experience from using foodbanks – now a volunteer. We then helped around the foodbank and were able to visit the storage room where they keep the food that they give out to those in need.

As we have been learning about poverty, part of this topic has been learning about food banks and why people rely on them. Food banks have distributed approximately over 2.1 million food parcels in 2021-22, and this is why we felt compelled to raise donations from our whole school community by giving presentations, that were created as part of our topic, to classes to encourage donations. 

This was an invaluable experience because it gave us a different perspective on the work of food banks and made us think about how this is a reality for a lot of people in poverty.

(Grace Scott, Poppy Reid, Katie Docherty, Kaiden Cockburn and Finlay Paterson)

All Years – Litter Pick Results

On Monday 6 February, the ECO-Committee carried out a litter pick around Haddington.  In a single period we collected 3.05kg of litter!  We noticed that the most common littered items around town were: cigarettes, small bits of paper, plastic wrappers, chocolate wrappers, crisp packets, bottle caps and chewing gum. We are asking everyone in town, including Knox students, to do their part and to bin their litter as this would, undoubtedly, make Haddington a cleaner place. (By The Eco Team)

Parents’ Information

School Payments

Parents and carers are reminded that online payment is the preferred option, as we can no longer accept cash or cheque payments.  SCHOOLPAY can be accessed via https://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/schoolpay (external link), and also via the SchoolPay tab in the Parent and Carers section of the website.  Users are required to register prior to use, and require a unique identifier to link your young person to your account – please contact the School Office if you require further information. (School Office)

Pupils’ Achievements

Squash

Congratulations to Phoebe Hamilton who won all her matches last weekend and has now become the U13 Scottish Squash Champion. Isla, her sister, came 4th in the U15 Scottish Squash event – a huge congratulations to her too.  

Golf

Ben Austin and Adam MacDonald, both S5, have both been selected to go to Pinehurst - North Carolina for 10 nights, along with 18 other junior golfers, to represent East Lothian Junior Golf League. They will leave for North Carolina on Thursday 9 February and return on Sunday 19 February. 

The first competition they will play in is Pinehurst Winternational 7,and they will be competing against players from the USA.  They will also play a competitive match against Pinecrest High School on Wednesday 15 February. The other Winternational event is on the following weekend at the Longleaf course.  In total the boys will play 10 rounds of golf in the competitions mentioned above plus other championship courses in the area. We wish them luck and look forward to hearing about their experiences.

Support

Please do not hesitate to contact our Pupil Support Team by emailing your young person’s House Team if you would like to discuss any support we can offer.

 

Dates for your diary:

Friday 10 February – half term – school resumes on Tuesday 21 February for pupils and Monday 20 for staff.

Thursday 23 February – S5/6 Parents’ Evening (online)

Our school calendar is updated regularly and should be used to access all information throughout the year and allows you to plan ahead too.

Sue Cook

Parent Council

The Parent Council has requested a footer on my HT’s update that remains there year round and which offers quick links to remote learning resources, course choices, supported study and careers news. Clicking on these headings takes you straight to these pages.

Please also look at our website for lots of other information. Please also follow us on Twitter for up-to-date news on a day to day basis.

Please also remember to follow us at: www.ka-net.org.uk 84CEAEA2  (link is external) (link is external) for the latest information and updates.

 

HEAD TEACHER'S UPDATE 3 FEBRUARY 2023
Published: 03 February 2023

Parents’ and Pupils’ Information

SQA

In order to support parents/carers SQA have produced a parents’ blog post you may wish to read, which is full of lots of useful information for you.

SQA Appeals 2023    

Following careful consideration of the views of learners, parents, carers, teachers, lecturers and other stakeholders, the Appeals 2023 service will be different to the service used last year and will be more aligned with the service used before the pandemic, with some important enhancements. Alternative assessment evidence will not be required for this service. Instead, learners will be able to request a review of their SQA-marked assessment components. The service will be free and available to all learners regardless of their estimate. Learners will be able to appeal directly to SQA. 

Appeals 2023 will include a priority service for learners with conditional offers for further education, training or employment.  We are working closely with UCAS to ensure the outcome of priority appeals will be released ahead of their deadline.

S3 Parents’ Evening

It was great to see so many parents/carers back in school and speaking face to face again, with staff, about their young person’s progress. Having spoken to many parents on the night it was a very informative evening and both the parents/carers and young people are clearer on next steps for improvement. These conversations have also helped in advising appropriate learner pathway choices for S4. If you were unable to make the parents’ consultation and wish an update on your young person’s progress, please email their House Team. Thank you.

Diversity Evening – 9 February from 5-9pm

This is a really exciting event for our community as Knox Academy comes together with our associated primary schools to put on a huge event to celebrate our diversity and inclusion. As well as a show from 7-9pm with lots of diverse acts and our guest speakers Jamie Andrew and Professor Sir Geoff Palmer OBE , both whom I have heard speak on a number of occasions are inspirational. (Tickets should be purchased in advance are now available from the School Office at any time during the school day and up until 4.15pm. Please phone the school to reserve them and arrange payment - £5 for adults and £3 for concessions and pupils). There will be an international market place (with fun games e.g. our Chinese chopstick challenge; raffles and challenges as well as businesses and charities with diverse themes such as Show Racism the Red Card – with former Scottish Footballer Michael Weir (Mickey), who is SRRC Ambassador, leading this stall), workshops (booking for these has now closed) and a food court on the evening too (these run from 5-6.45pm and no ticket is required for them). All in our community will be warmly welcomed so please do invite friends and family along too. This letter gives all the detailed information. The food court will have haggis, neeps and tatties for sale and there will also be curries, calzone and lasagne (all of these meals will be £4 each). There will also be hummus, quiches, salads and ice creams (prices will vary for these). There will also be foods for you to sample at the food court too and a smoothie making bike for you to pedal and make your own tasty concoction. Please bring cash/change for food court purchases as these are cash only; however some of our vendors selling goods in the market place will be able to accept cards for larger purchases. We will look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the night and celebrating our diversity and inclusion at Knox Academy and in our wider community.

Parents’ Information

Parent Council

Thank you to all parents/carers who attended our Parent Council meeting on Tuesday evening and so good to meet again in person. It was great talk around our forthcoming review, which takes place next week, and will focus on our approaches to Child Protection and Safeguarding (2.1) and also Personalised Support (2.4). Thank you also to all parents/carers who completed the questionnaires. At the Parent Council we also discussed prelim attainment; fund-raising and our draft policy on positive relationships and promoting positive behaviour, ‘The Knox Academy Way.’ Mrs McBride also talked about the planned opportunities for S1-S3 pupils as part of our Activities Week in May.

Our next Parent Council Meeting takes place on Wednesday 22 March 2023, to which all parents/carers are invited.

School Payments

Parents and carers are reminded that online payment is the preferred option, as we can no longer accept cash or cheque payments.  SCHOOLPAY can be accessed via https://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/schoolpay (external link), and also via the SchoolPay tab in the Parent and Carers section of the website.  Users are required to register prior to use, and require a unique identifier to link your young person to your account – please contact the School Office if you require further information. (School Office)

S1 School Ties

The school ties have been despatched and are expected to be delivered next week.  Hopefully this will allow our S1’s to have these prior to the February holiday and they can use the February break to practise tying them. I would like to thank parents/carers and pupils for their patience.

Pupils’ Achievements

Athletics

Huge congratulations to Morven Kenny, S1, who won a silver medal in the Pentathlon at the Scottish National Combined Events last weekend at the Emirates Stadium in Glasgow.  A massive well done also to Aoife Swan-Ashe (S2) who came fourth in the 200m at the Scottish Schools Indoor Championships.

Support

Please do not hesitate to contact our Pupil Support Team by emailing your young person’s House Team if you would like to discuss any support we can offer.

 

Dates for your diary:

Thursday 9 February – Diversity Evening – 5-9pm – at Knox Academy (tickets for show £5/£3)

Friday 10 February – half term – school resumes on Tuesday 21 February for pupils and Monday 20 for staff.

Our school calendar is updated regularly and should be used to access all information throughout the year and allows you to plan ahead too.

Sue Cook

Parent Council

The Parent Council has requested a footer on my HT’s update that remains there year round and which offers quick links to remote learning resources, course choices, supported study and careers news. Clicking on these headings takes you straight to these pages.

Please also look at our website for lots of other information. Please also follow us on Twitter for up-to-date news on a day to day basis.

Please also remember to follow us at: www.ka-net.org.uk 84CEAEA2  (link is external) (link is external) for the latest information and updates.