Currently, Morrison Construction is working on a co-located primary school, incorporating Haddington Infant School and Nursery and St. Mary’s RC Primary School and Nursery. Last week the Design and Technology Department worked with Morrison Construction to run a “School for the Future” project involving 14 pupils from S3 – S5. The project involved the pupils working as a team, using the actual design brief given to Morrison Construction, to design their own primary school. The pupils worked extremely hard and produced a fantastic project that they presented to Mr W Gray, a representative from Morrison Construction. Mr Gray was impressed with the work produced, and five work experience placements have been awarded to the pupils taking part. Next week, one of the pupils, Angus Riddell, will be undertaking a work experience placement with an architect.
On Monday evening, we hosted a well-attended P7 Information Evening. This was an opportunity for parents and carers to order items of dress code, find out about the school’s progress with the Curriculum for Excellence initiative and, most importantly, to be re-assured about their youngster’s visit to the school on Tuesday and Wednesday. The two-day visit proved to be very successful, the feedback from the P7 pupils was positive, they enjoyed everything! Some comments: "Knox is awesome"; "Knox is huge"; "the 6th years are really friendly" and "it's fun to burn stuff in science". We look forward to them joining Knox in August. Many thanks to all staff involved in the evening and the visit, and a big thank you to the S6 ‘buddies’ who provided such excellent support for our visitors.
Knox Academy is the only school taking part in the National Theatre of Scotland's Exchange Festival 2012 in Stirling in July. Yesterday evening, the group performed their play: ‘Hansel House of Horror’ at Telford College’s PASS Theatre. The audience was a mix of parents, friends, Knox staff and the general public. We all enjoyed the performance and the feedback was excellent. The group is a real credit to the school. Best wishes to the group, Mr Campbell and Ms Moffat for a successful ‘run’ in Stirling.
Two, very different trips, set off today; pre-dawn, the two groups of pupils and their intrepid leaders (Mr Woolley, Ms Ward, Ms Bulloch and Mr Wren) left for their expedition to Nicaragua and Honduras. This follows hectic fund-raising and intensive training and I am sure they will have an amazing adventure and I look forward to hearing all about it.
At the start of school, a very different trip set off for the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, as a group of senior pupils travelled to see the Dalai Lama. This should prove to be very interesting, thanks to Mrs Baird for organising the event.
During the week, the Head Boy and Girl and their Deputes for session 2012-2013, were appointed. This year the roles were filled using a scoring system. Candidates were scored on their hustings performance, their manifesto, their interview and the election result. This gave each candidate a score out of 120. In the event of a tie the election result was used to separate the candidates. The result of the process is as follows.
Head Boy: Ben Nisbet; 5G1 Head Girl: Erin Lowe; 5G1
Depute Head Boy: Jack Thomson; 5G1 Depute Head Girl: Anya Singh; 5L2
The unsuccessful candidates were of such a universally high standard that we have decided to create the new position of 'Senior Prefect'. Congratulations to everyone who took part and I wish Ben, Erin, Jack and Anya every success next year.
Best wishes.
JB Craig
