My last blog mentioned 3 events which were happening over the weekend:<\/p>\n
I am delighted to report that the football team won the play off 3-1 adding the league title to two cup trophies won this session and an appearance in the semi final of the Scottish cup for this team.\u00a0 Well done to them.<\/p>\n
Our performers put on a fantastic show in the Rock challenge at AECC.\u00a0 Their theme, based on children in conflict,\u00a0was linked to work the school have been doing around the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.\u00a0 Our group won 4 awards for; inclusion,\u00a0concept,\u00a0video editing\u00a0and lighting.\u00a0\u00a0It was a delight to see\u00a0Harlaw\u00a0pupils take centre stage at AECC and perform to such a high standard.<\/p>\n
The Bronze D of E pupils (and staff) faced some of the\u00a0coldest conditions of the winter\/spring when they took to the hills at the weekend.\u00a0 I am certain that the challenging conditions will have\u00a0tested the resolve of those involved.\u00a0\u00a0I am also sure\u00a0it will help them prepare future challenges with greater belief in themselves.\u00a0 I have huge respect for all who take part in D of E and know\u00a0it provides participants with a real sense of challenge and achievement.<\/p>\n
This was the last week of formal classes before the SQA exams start.\u00a0 I know staff and pupils were working hard to complete coursework and prepare for exams.\u00a0 Staff are offering additional revision sessions through study leave and we hope pupils will take advantage of all the help on offer.\u00a0 The new qualifications are challenging and require pupils to complete a large number of on-going assessments as well as a final exam.\u00a0 It places significant strain on children, families and staff.\u00a0 We continue to argue for the burden of assessment to be addressed\u00a0so that\u00a0we can\u00a0have time to provide a full\/rounded education rather than feel we are\u00a0simply jumping through assessment hoops.<\/p>\n
It is no coincidence that we are seeing increasing rates of stress and mental health issues in young people.\u00a0\u00a0Society\u00a0places\u00a0huge expectations on young people and they also place great expectations on themselves.\u00a0\u00a0Over the last 12 months we have been working with the 4 local Primary schools, NHS,\u00a0Social Work and other partners on a Mental Health project.\u00a0 We have had 3 sessions with\u00a0staff from all partners working together and are now running twilight training sessions for staff on issues such as self harm, eating disorders, internet safety, resilience etc.\u00a0 Specific work is also taking place with the young people in their schools and\u00a0we are also looking at sessions and information for parents.<\/p>\n
I want to close this blog by wishing every\u00a0youngster about to take their exams every success.\u00a0 But at the same time\u00a0I want them to\u00a0know that education is about more than\u00a0exams.\u00a0 Passing them is always good but failing them is not the end of the world.\u00a0 Education is about\u00a0developing you as a person – your talents, your ability to work with others, to face challenges and overcome setbacks, to bounce back from setbacks and to show character and resilience.\u00a0\u00a0I have seen these qualities in abundance in the senior pupils who are away to sit their exams\u00a0and whatever the results say in August I am confident they have the qualities which will enable them to do\u00a0well when the time comes to move on from school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My last blog mentioned 3 events which were happening over the weekend: A league play off decider for our der […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}