A Word from Miss Cook, Head Teacher

HEAD TEACHER'S UPDATE 19 SEPTEMBER 2025

Staffing

Steven Illingworth will be seconded as DHT to Preston Lodge High School until next Easter. We are currently advertising for this vacancy and interviews will take place on 8 October 2025.   

Jamie Balfour, will move to Dunbar Grammar School to take up a computing post there. He will start there on 20 October 2025.

Acting Curriculum Leader Health and Wellbeing – Mrs Leighton will be absent for a period of 8 weeks and Mrs Borwick will be leading this faculty in the interim.

Music – part-time temporary post advertised – Friday mornings. This closes on Sunday 21 September.

Calum Archibald is our preferred candidate for our part-time permanent maths post (previously Alicia Coyle). He will start at Knox on 23 October.   

Support for Learning teacher – Kayleigh Lamond is our preferred candidate for the temporary post and will start with us in the next few weeks (to cover for Sophie Shorthouse who is acting DHT at Meadowpark).

Meadowpark - Rosie Brougham and Claire Gillan have been appointed to full-time permanent and full time Support Assistants. Ruby Ranu has been appointed on a temporary contract.

Information for all parents/carers

Assemblies

There have been assemblies on the Scottish Youth Parliament, and Maya Borkowski (S6) has been leading these as she is running for a position as a SYP Ambassador. Pupils will vote later on this month. There have also been assemblies on Reading Schools and promoting reading to all of our young people. Our brilliant Librarian lead these assemblies.

European Day of Languages Activities

The 26th September marks the European Day of Languages, a day for celebrating linguistic and cultural diversity. This year the MFL department is running a variety of activities within language classes and also for the whole school. S1s will be participating in our annual EuroQuiz, S2s will have a European Day of Languages lesson, and S3s will be involved in our competitive EuroOlympics. The whole school will be able to get involved in a registration guessing game where they need to guess the teacher and the language spoken. There will also be a language scavenger hunt for words around the school. Finally, students can enter a poster competition with a deadline of 30 September. We're looking forward to celebrating with everyone!

Rights Respecting Schools

The Right of the Week is Article 6 - Life, Survival and Development

We will be discussing this right during registration time this week. Every child has the Right to be alive.  Governments must make sure that children survive and develop in the best possible way.

Attendance

This year we are having a real focus on attendance – being at school is the biggest influencer on both attainment and achievement – and much more than that. Please can we ask parent/carers to support your young person to attend every day – aim for 100% attendance across the year as this gives young people the maximum chance of achieving their potential as well as developing their social skills, resilience and promoting wellbeing. This video explains why attendance is so important and great of parents/carers could watch this with their young people and discuss it. Together we can make a difference to our young people’s futures. Parent and Carer Attendance Video

School Essentials Hub and Breakfast Club

The Essentials Hub is open to anyone and everyone that needs items for school.

We have uniform (shirts, trousers, blazers and more!), classroom equipment, hygiene products and a selection of textbooks and SQA materials!

We also have a variety of dresses and kilts, for pupils to borrow for attending school functions!

You can contact the PT Equity, Mr Elder-Smith (eeldersmith@edubuzz.org), to arrange a time to view the hub or to organise pick up from the school office.

Please get in touch if you have any questions. We will do our best to get you what you need!

Breakfast Club is up and running!

All pupils are free to help themselves to juice and breakfast bars in the morning to help them prepare for the day! The Breakfast Clubs run every morning from 8:10 - 8:30 at the social area.

Please contact Mr Elder-Smith (eeldersmith@edubuzz.org) if you have any questions!

Appointments

Please can parents/carers make an appointment if they wish to speak to a member of Pupil Support or the Senior Leadership Team. By making an appointment with us via the office, or email, we can ensure a time and date where we can meet to support you and your young person. When arriving at the school please sign in with our office team and wait in the foyer until the member of staff collects you. This is an important aspect of our safety procedures at the school – which also applies before/after school and break and lunchtimes. Thank you.

Please also 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 for your young person or to arrange an appointment to come in to speak to someone. The House team should be the first port of call for anything you wish to discuss.

Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Annual General Meeting – You're Invited! 

This takes place this coming Tuesday at 6.30pm in the school library.

Join us for our PTA AGM - just 15 minutes of formalities before we jump into planning exciting events for the year ahead. Whether you're bursting with ideas or simply curious to learn more, your presence makes a difference!

There’s no pressure to join the committee—just come along, meet other parents and carers, and help us support the school through fun and meaningful fundraising. We typically meet once a term, so it’s a small time commitment. We’d love to see as many of you as possible. 

Saturday Rugby

It’s great so many parents/carers go along to watch our teams play at the weekend. If you do travel to the matches by car and drive down Meadowpark (the road that accesses our playfields) please can you keep your speed down as we have had concerns raised with us about the speed cars are travelling down this road (and enter/exit the playfields area). This road and playfield path has a high foot traffic of children at this time and a considerable number of pedestrians, cyclists and dog walkers at all times, so there is a real need to drive slowly to prevent a serious accident happening. Thank you for supporting this.

Trips

Pupils’ Success Stories

Duke of Edinburgh Gold

Congratulations to Jamie Towler and Murray Calder (S6) on completing their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Qualifying Expedition. They set off from Aviemore on Thursday morning, carrying everything they needed, navigating their way to arrive at the Spittal of Glenshee on Sunday afternoon. Around 80km in some very tricky conditions. Well done – that’s some hike and what an achievement!

Tennis

Poppy Davidson-Kelly has retained her trophy and position for the second year as Haddington Tennis Club’s under 16”s Girls Champion. 

Celebrating Knox Academy's Pipers and Drummers at Fêtes Franco-Écossaises

This summer, as members of the Haddington Pipe Band, Jamie Towler, Tara Murray, Fraser Wells and Ruaridh Mainstone proudly represented Scotland at the Fêtes Franco-Écossaises in Aubigny-sur-Nère, France.

The small French village, usually home to about 5,000 people, truly transformed into a 'mini-Scotland,' hosting 35,000 visitors a day. Among pipe and drum bands from Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland, Jamie, Tara, and Ruaridh were constantly busy. They were either parading through the streets or playing to a packed, 8,000-strong audience at a stadium concert alongside a well-known musician.

Jamie, Tara, Fraser and Ruaridh, and the band, were absolutely brilliant. They also gained so much from conversing with people from across the world.  

All four young people have shown incredible determination in developing their skills. They've now represented the band at countless community events, the Edinburgh Torchlight Parade, the Usher Hall, and now, internationally. They've done all this off their own back, powerfully demonstrating Knox Academy's values and really embodied respect, ambition and community.

Dates for your diary:

Tuesday 23 September – PTA (all welcome) – School Library 6.30pm

9 October – P7 Information Evening – 5-7pm

13-20 0ctober – Pupils’ holiday (13-17 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

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