HEAD TEACHER'S UPDATE 14 SEPTEMBER 2023

Parents’ and Pupils’ Information

Assemblies

Thank you to our Pupil Leadership Team who took a series of assemblies this week to introduce themselves to the S1-S3 year groups. These assemblies were to encourage them to join the Pupil Council to have their voices heard and to be instrumental at leading change and improvement at the school. 

Volunteering Fayre

Our annual Volunteering Fayre took place on Friday 8 September. All S3 – S6 pupils had an opportunity to hear from our local partners and from S6 pupils who currently volunteer. They then spent some time visiting all the stalls and signing up for volunteering opportunities within the school and in the local community. Thanks to all of our partners for attending (Oxfam Haddington, Can-Do, Lower Impact Living (LiL), Co-op, East Coast FM, Beyond Boundaries East Lothian, Haddington Primary, Sport and Physical Activity Co-ordinators Laurie and Thomas, Eco Committee pupils and LGBT+ pupils) and to the S6 pupils who spoke on the day: Colin Riley, Rudie Shearer, Emma McArthur, Ruby Pirie and Melody Pilkington. Thanks also to Sheila Noble from the Co-op who provided refreshments. If you are interested in attending next year, please contact Mr Flood at the school.

S6 Dalguise

Last weekend fifty-nine pupils were joined by eight members of staff for our annual S6 trip to Dalguise, Dunkeld. The weekend involved us all working together through a variety of activities that include axe throwing, paddle boarding and rock climbing. We arrived on Friday afternoon to be greeted by members of PGL staff, before having dinner and our evening quiz, hosted by our very own Mr Edwards before settling down for the first evening. Saturday and Sunday saw us partake in two full days of activities before returning to the school on Sunday evening. In such a beautiful part of the country, it was only made better by the weather, and the pupils seemed thankful that the staff brought water balloons to help cool them down! We all thoroughly enjoyed our weekend, stepping out of our comfort zones and challenging ourselves and helping S6 bond as a year group, ahead of a busy year! (By Lana Borwick, PE)

Haddington Cross Fit

Local CrossFit Haddington is organising a huge community fundraiser ‘A million Metres for Meals’ to support Our Community Kitchen (OCK). This will take place on Saturday 23 September at Haddington Rugby Club from 12.00 pm until 3.00 p.m. People can walk, run or cycle around the pitch to raise funds for OCK or even just join in if people don’t wish to be sponsored as it’s a family day out. The challenge will be to raise £10,000 in three hours and the more people who can participate in this the more chance of raising this amount. It would be great if Knox Academy pupils/parents/carers /staff could get involved with this as a challenge and support one of our local charities. On the day there will be a pizza van, and other food vans, North Berwick beach wheelchairs, a bouncy castle, a bake sale, tea, coffee, John Muir Alpacas and Beattie Ponies. There will also be an opportunity to win great raffle prizes. In the meantime, if you would like to donate to this great cause you can do so here.

Guardian Summaries – Google Classroom

You may be aware of an additional feature of Google Classroom which is designed to help Parents/Carers gain an overview of the set tasks and assignments your young people are issued with (home learning). This feature is called Guardian Summaries and it enables Parents/Carers to receive e-mail updates about:

  • Missing work — Work not turned in when the summary was sent.
  • Upcoming work — Work that’s due today and tomorrow (for daily emails) or that’s due in the upcoming week (for weekly emails).
  • Class activities — Announcements, assignments, and questions recently posted by teachers.

As a parent/carer you will be able to control the frequency of these updates or decide to opt-out of receiving them at a later date.

Setting up Guardian Summaries
To setup Guardian Summaries your young person will need to follow these steps. This must be done by each young person in your household for whom you wish to receive e-mail updates.

With your young person use this link. This requires your young person to log in via Edubuzz.

We will use the main contact email we have on record but there is an option in the form to add a second email address. It is therefore essential that the pupil record is accurate so please contact the office team via knoxacademy@knox.elcschool.org.uk  if you wish to make any changes to your stored information.

Please also note that, due to GDPR regulations, your young person may choose to opt out of sharing information with you and if they decline permission we will not be able to set up the summaries for you.

Activating Guardian Summaries is a manual process which needs to be carried out by the school once the form is completed.

Absence Reporting

Parents/Carers should report pupil absences and appointments as early as possible on the morning of the absence.  Please do this through the Parentsportal.  In addition, absence notifications can be e-mailed to attendance@knox.elcschool.org.uk, stating your young person’s details and reason for absence.  The school office should only be called to report an absence if you do not have either of the previous options.

If you have not already signed up to the Parentsportal, please consider doing so as additional features will continue to be added.  If you encounter any issues registering, please contact the Knox Academy’s School Office for assistance.

Pupils’ Achievements

Success Stories/Good news

Glorney Cup

Congratulations to Ross Blackford (S6) who was a member of the Scotland U18s team playing against teams from England, Ireland and Wales, at Stirling University back in August.   His five player team performed brilliantly to win the Glorney Cup.

Squash

The first weekend in September saw a number of our pupils compete in the Scottish Squash Junior Inter-Regional Teams Championships (the first major event in the 2023/24 Junior calendar). The teams were made up of 4 players from each of the 6 Regions and compete in the U11 / U13 / U15 / U17 & U19's. From Knox Academy, we had Phoebe Hamilton, Fraser Westgarth, Jamie Pearman, Isla Hamilton and Dylan Pearman (who left S6 in May 2023).

Emily Westgarth (S1) represented Central Region in the Girls U13 competition and their team came 3rd.

In the U15's Fraser Westgarth represented Central Region and the team came fourth. Phoebe Hamilton & Jamie Pearman represented East and the team came second. In the U19's Isla Hamilton and Dylan Pearman represented East and the team managed to win!! Great results and representation for all of our Knox Academy players. 

Piping (bagpipes)

Congratulations to William Gold (S2) who recently passed his SQA level 4 piping and theory.

Community

I was delighted to be contacted by a member of Haddington Community Council to say that our Pupil Leadership Team who were attending the first meeting of the year (Tuesday) were a credit to the school and contributed well to discussions. Great news to receive.

On another theme, a further member of the community contacted me to say that five young people at the school had shown great kindness to a group of primary pupils, on Friday afternoon, when they had been playing tennis at Neilson Park. Our young people had taken them some ice for their water to keep them cool and parents/carers had been very touched by their thoughtfulness.

A Proud Head Teacher moment with our young people living out our values of ambition, respect and community.

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 for your young person or to arrange an appointment to come in to speak to someone.

 

Dates for your diary:

Friday 15 – Monday 18 September (inclusive) – holiday

Wednesday 20 September – S2 Parents’ Consultation – 4.30-6.30pm (in school)

Monday 25 September – Flu Vaccinations

 

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

 

Enjoy your long weekend and we look forward to seeing pupils back on Tuesday morning.

 

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.

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