Staffing
Following a successful interview, Zara Machen has been appointed as the acting Depute Head Teacher for Session 2024-25. She replaces Steven Illingworth who goes to Dalkeith HS to be acting HT for that session. An advert for the Curriculum Leader of Communications will go out on 31 may 2024 on My Job Scotland.
Activities Week (13-17 May)
S1 enjoyed a varied programme of events at the school during our annual activities week (film production; dance; laser cutting; multi-sports etc.). S2 enjoyed trips to Dundee’s waterpark; Edinburgh Zoo and Blair Drummond Safari Park, whilst most of our S3 pupils headed off to Yorkshire for a fun filled week of outdoors sports and activities. The week culminated on the Friday for our S1/2s with inflatables on our playing fields (picture gladiator type games). Our S3 finished their week by helping out in the community with a litter pick and cutting back weeds along the Tyne.
A huge thank you to all staff for their organisation of this week as it takes a lot of preparation and wouldn’t happen without them all going above and beyond to do this. From chatting to the pupils they all seemed to have had a great week learning and trying out new things and developing great working relationships with their peers and staff.
SQA
Exams have gone very well so far and pupils’ attendance at these has been excellent. A reminder that although it is a holiday on Monday, those pupils sitting an exam on that day should attend at school.
Evening of Celebration
This will take place on Thursday, 20 June 2024. The S1-S2 ceremony will take place from 6-7.15pm and the S3-S6 from 8-9.15pm. All award winners will be notified over the coming weeks. These awards are based around academic excellence for S1 and S2 pupils are completely separate from our diligence awards which are based around commitment and effort on a day to day basis. S3-S6 are subject awards. There will also be some special awards on the evening too. As spaces are limited at both ceremonies only two guests, per award winner, will be able to attend. In S1 and S2, again due to limited space, we will be presenting merit awards to those who have attained 3 or more merits in their subjects. Those who achieved one or two merits awards will be presented with their certificates at House assemblies in the last week of term.
Diligence Awards
Due to IT issues last term (which parents/carers were aware of) this meant a slight delay in processing the diligence awards that should have gone out late March/early April. These will be now be issued to S1-S3 pupils at the end of May. Diligence award recognise hard work and commitment to learning, on a day to day basis, which we believe is the biggest factor in young people achieving their best. Pupils will receive nominations from their teachers where they feel that they show this attribute. Where no nomination is received for a subject this means that the young person needs to commit more to their learning (effort/application) going forward. Although most pupils will get merit certificates they will differ in the number of nominations they receive. We would be grateful to parents/carers for discussing these diligence awards when they come home and identifying subjects your young person is doing well in and where that ‘extra push/effort’ is required. Thank you. These awards do not link to the Merit Awards, which are presented at the Evening of Celebration, and are based on academic attainment in subject areas.
S2 Careers Day 29 May 2024
As part of our approaches to Developing the Young Workforce we are introducing an event for S2 that we hope will become an annual event. On 29 May we will have 6/7 businesses come into school and the S2 House classes will rotate around these during the day (a period at each business).
The aim of the day is for the businesses to highlight some of the key meta-skills that their line of work utilises and relate these to what our young people do in school. This will help many of our young people make the link to their learning and life skill for the work place.
Love Oliver – 10km run fundraiser
A number of staff and pupils are running the Edinburgh 10km race on Saturday 25 May to raise funds for LoveOliver, our winning charity in this year’s Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) programme.
LoveOliver is a charity based in Edinburgh set up by Andy and Jennifer Gill after their son, Oliver, died at of a Malignant Rhabdoid Tumour. Their vision is to strive for a country in which every family with a child diagnosed with cancer knows there is hope of a cure and that they will have appropriate financial and emotional support on their cancer journey.
This charity has helped people across Scotland and even in Knox Academy itself! LoveOliver was the winner of Knox Academy's Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) Programme in 2023/2024, and has a personal connection to one of the team.
We are hoping to raise as much money as possible to support this great charity. Participants are:
Ryan Pirie, Anya Boardman, Freya Maycock, Alice Kirkland, Lucy Darling, Matthew Davison, Helen Stoddart, Ava Middlemiss, Sam Palmer, Euan Farquhar, Emilis Vaicaitis, Fergus Allan, Rory Burns, Ms Borwick, Mr Flood.
If you would like to donate, please click on this link. Thank you (By Mr Flood)
Edward Scissorhands
We had a fabulous time at the Ballet on Wednesday evening - all students representing our school perfectly. They were mannerly and polite whilst watching the show, at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre. The choreography was both funny and technical. Leads and cast were brilliant, costumes and scenery stunning, as you can see in the photo above, there were even moving hedges !!! All supposed to have been cut by Edward, with his scissorhands! (By Mrs McSherry)
Successes
European Mixed Team U15 & U17 Squash Championships 2024 in Portugal.
The U15 team finished 6th out of 15 Countries and the U17 team finished 10th out of 20 Countries. Congratulations to Jamie Pearman (S3) and Phoebe Hamilton (S2) who played for the U15 team and also to Isla Hamilton (S4) who played for the U17 team.
Athletics
Congratulations to Aoife Swan-Ashe who won a silver medal in the 300m at the East District Championships last weekend.
Dates for your diary:
22 April – Friday 31 May - SQA exam leave for S4/5/6 pupils
20 May – holiday for pupils only (staff in-service training)
24 May – S3 BGE Graduation (Pupils only)
27-31 May – S3 Work Experience
3 June – start of new timetable for all year groups
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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