Harlaw Academy

I had planned to develop on the theme of last week by speaking about meetings our pupils had with Angela Scott, Chief Executive of Aberdeen City Council, this week.  I was then going to speak a little about how much we had enjoyed welcoming S2 parents to meet their teachers during the week.  I was going to close by mentioning a few pupils achievements – including a group of S5s who have been trained by the Careers Service to be Ambassadors for ‘My World of Work’.

Sadly events over the weekend have resulted in me writing a rather different blog.  On Friday evening/Saturday morning the fire and police were called to a fire in the school.  Their response was prompt and effective and thankfully damage is limited to a small area.  I cannot say too much as the incident is part of an on-going criminal investigation.  We also have to await advice from H&S and building services on the integrity of our electrical and alarm systems and on any interim plans for opening the school to pupils.  People will be on site to advise us on Monday and I can update parents, pupils and staff more after we have made a full assessment.  We also need time to clear up (particularly the sooty deposits in some areas of he building) and brief staff on any interim arrangements.  What I can reassure people about is that pupil work has not been damaged and I am hopeful we can work around any short term inconvenience.

Schools all have business continuity plans which are intended to help us cope with such situations.  In addition, colleagues in fire, police and Aberdeen City Council have all offered prompt and valuable support.  The priority is to get the school up and running as soon as possible – we all know pupils and staff have important deadlines to meet and we will do all we can to help.

Alongside the efforts to get the school up and running there is also the criminal investigation.  We are working with the police in this regard and I would urge anyone with information which might help identify the person/persons responsible to let the police know.  They say Aberdeen is a village and I am sure there is information out there which will help the police with their investigations.

 

I was delighted to learn that Ferryhill Primary School had gained level 1 of the Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA).  RRSA has been developed by UNICEF UK to recognise work done by schools to promote the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC): UNCRC guide for children

At Harlaw Academy we are working on becoming a Rights Respecting School and in this blog I want to set out a little bit of detail around RRSA and UNCRC.

The 42 articles in the convention are universal – in other words they apply to every child in the world.

They are also all unconditional – in other words they cannot be given or taken away.

Children are ‘rights holders’ – in other words the rights are theirs.

Adults are ‘duty bearers’ – in other words adults have a duty to protect children and ensure they can enjoy all of their rights.

In schools which have gained the Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) children respect the rights of other children and the interaction between children and adults is also built on rights respecting behaviours.

Article 1 of the convention emphasises that all articles apply to all children up to age 18.

Article 42 highlights the need for Governments to make adults and children aware of the convention.

By emphasising the convention I hope all pupils attending Harlaw Academy will have:

• an education which will develop their talents to the full (articles 28 and 29)
• a voice on things which will impact upon them (articles 12 and 13)
• the opportunity to enjoy leisure, culture and to make friends (articles 15 and 21)
• their best interests put to the fore (article 3)
• the opportunity to enjoy all of their rights and the support and protection this provides

Sadly many children and young people in the world do not enjoy all of their rights all of the time.  We often think of war torn areas, places where disasters have struck etc when we think of children who are being denied their rights.  But even within our own City, indeed our own local area, there are children living in extreme poverty, there are children who are being exploited, there are children who are being victimised/bullied, there are children who do not have a voice and there are children who are not getting an education which will develop their talents to the full.

We need children to be aware of their rights and to be confident in the protection and support these rights should provide.  Well done to Ferryhill Primary School in achieving level 1 of the award – we hope to work with you to help Harlaw Academy to achieve level 1 before summer 2016.

Assemblies – the school chaplains deliver periodic assemblies and this week they were exploring the idea of ‘passion’.  Some time ago when we had been looking at the theme we had planned to speak of the need to work hard at things you are passionate about.  However with recent events around the world we adapted the focus to also include the idea of strong passions becoming destructive.  We are fortunate to have a group of chaplains who can communicate with youngsters in a way which helps them gain insight into the wider world.

Events in Paris – I have also been giving consideration to recent events as we are due to have a school trip going to Paris and Belgium in late May.  I have written to parents of all 3 excursions (Paris, London and Argeles Sur Mer) as there are deposits to be paid and decisions to be made.  Once I have heard back from parents and pupils we will reach decisions on how to proceed.

S1 Parents’ meetings – It was fantastic to welcome parents of S1 pupils to the school to meet with teachers.  We have been very pleased with how the S1s have settled into the school and I was really encouraged to see so many parents taking an active interest in how things are going.  On the evening we also took the opportunity to ask around 50 parents to give us some feedback on school improvement.

Parent Council and PTA – It was also really good to meet Carol Eddie (Chair of the Parent Council) and Carol Bremner (Chair of the PTA) this week.  These meetings are a way for us to keep challenging each other to find new ways to involve and inform parents.  Parents should have a very strong voice in improving your school and we will keep trying to help make this possible.  It was also great to hear that the recent PTA quiz night had raised just over £560 – thanks to all involved.

Pupil voice and participation – Pupils should also have a very strong voice in shaping school improvement and with this in mind we have been working with a group on a wider consultation on improving the school grounds.  Work is at an early stage but we want pupils to see that their views can lead to positive and meaningful improvements.  .  Over recent years pupils have reviewed the vision, values and behaviours of the school, they have also redesigned the school uniform.  I know many of the current extra curricular activities have arisen from pupil suggestions and some (eg Rock challenge, Harlaw Defenders) are being led by pupils.  We are also working with Skills Development Scotland to train a group of S5 pupils as ambassadors for “My World of Work” – this will allow them to train pupils, staff and parents in this powerful careers programme.  In many schools pupils can be passive recipients of what is dished out – I want Harlaw Academy pupils to be active participants in the life and work of their school.

Successes and events:  This week saw the S1 football team move into the next round of the Scottish cup with a big win away at Auchmuty.  The S3 team moved up to second in their league (with a game in hand).  Two of our senior players were at the trials for the International Squad – Seyon Kosheodo S5 and Lewis Liversedge S6 will hear soon how they got on.  On Friday a group of around 40 senior languages students visited the Belmont cinema for a screening of a French film.  Through the week we had activities running as part of ‘Book Week Scotland’.  We also had 5 pupils taking part in the Scottish Schools Swimming time Trials – Hannah Fenwick S4, Zoe Walker S4, Amy Allan S3, Rebecca Reid S2 and Hannah Holland s1.  We are hopeful a few will qualify for the nationals later in the school session. We also had 3 pupils taking part in a Scottish Schools Indoor Rowing event.  Daniel Lynch S3 was 1st, Christos Bardas S2 was 3rd and Jacub Zbikowski S2 was 5th.

In-service day:

Parents and pupils possibly wonder what staff do on in-service days.  On Monday we brought together all of the staff from the Academy and its 4 associated Primary schools.  We spent time together looking at feedback from some surveys into Health and discussing how we could support staff, pupils and families who have concerns over health and well being.  We also looked at highly acclaimed work which had been undertaken at Hanover Street.  It was agreed the approach which was working at Hanover Street was one all schools should be using and we discussed how this can be taken forward.  Teachers then returned to their own schools to address their own priorities.  In the academy this included a staff session on behaviour management/restorative approaches and one on Literacy before spending the rest of the day in subject areas.

Terrorist concerns:

I am aware parents and staff will be concerned by terrorist attacks – most recently in Paris but also in Beruit and over Egypt.  Each year we run a range of overseas excursions, one to Paris and Belgium, so we need to pay close attention to unfolding events.  I will be writing to parents of all pupils who have paid deposits and we will keep monitoring the situation.  We will continue to assess the risks and will do all we can to ensure the safety of our staff and pupils on school visits.

Parent Council meeting, ACC Parental evening and PTA event

The parent Council met on Wednesday evening and the minutes of this meeting should be on the web site soon. I am really keen to ensure we do all we can to help parents feel connected to the school as a whole and to the education of their child in particular.  As well as the twitter feeds and the blog we are planning to issue some short and informative leaflets about the school.  If any parent has a suggestion on a topic for such a leaflet please let me know.  I shall also keep trying to get a monthly newsletter to parents and make myself available on parent evenings and other parental events.

One such event was a Senior Phase information evening organised by Aberdeen City council.  Harlaw was the venue used for the event and we tried to ensure we had good representation fro Harlaw parents.  Over 60 people turned up on the evening and most seemed to find it a helpful and informative event.  As with our own events there is a great deal of emphasis placed on the importance of meaningful parental involvement.  We need to move beyond the school simply telling parents what we do and reach a point where parents are active participants in the learning process and actively engaged in school improvement.

Another aspect of parental involvement is as members of the school community.  In a diverse and multicultural community such as ours we have a key role in helping new families to integrate into our community.  PTA events such as the Fright night a few weeks back and the Quiz on Friday 20th are great ways for people to mix.  At each event we welcomed some new families and some P6 and P7 parents/pupils along.  I hope more will join us for the next event – a Ceilidh on 29 January.  thanks to all staff, pupils and parents who helped organise the Quiz and the Fright Night.

P7 Health Morning:

It was fantastic to welcome our P7s through for a visit for the Health Morning.  This is the first of several transition visits to help pupils to get to know each other, get to know some secondary school staff and find their way around the building.  The pupils were fantastic and it was really good to involve S3 sports leaders as ‘buddies’ for the day.  we look forward to your next visit – numeracy in December.

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC):

We are doing a great deal to seek to promote UNCRC with pupils and this week I have also put a copy of the Convention up on the information page of the website for parents to refer to.  There is a framework, called the Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA), for helping us teach about children’s rights and global citizenship.  Last session we audited our work and were awarded a recognition of commitment from UICEF UK (see logo below).  We are now working towards achieving level 1 of the award by summer.  Crucial to this work is an increased emphasis on pupil voice and participation in all aspects of school life. I have noted in previous blogs the extent to which we are increasing opportunities for pupil participation.  This is an area we will keep trying to increase when we can – for example pupils have been asking for a parkor (freestyle running) group and one started this week.  We are also now starting to involve pupils in meaningful consultation on the school and wider community.  This week Mr O’Neill met a group who will be at the heart of working with parents and staff to bring about improvements to the school grounds.  Early in the new year Harlaw Learning Partnership will consult with pupils about the area covered by Kaimhill, Broomhill, Ferryhill and Hanover Street.  We want to work together and work with young people to help improve local services for youngsters and families.

Winter festival

I have been asked to help promote the winter festival taking place in Aberdeen City Centre 26 November – 3 January.  For further details of all the events and venues go to www.aberdeenchristmas.co.uk

 

 

 

Developing our Young Workforce (DYW):

You may have seen in the local newspaper a focus on recruiting apprentices.  This is part of a bigger piece of work, sometimes referred to as DYW, aimed at ensuring that all our school leavers are work ready and can leave for positive and sustained destinations.  It is a National initiative and will involve businesses, schools, colleges and many others.  We are likely to see a significant push on this work over the next few months and over the next few years.  This work will go well beyond anything we currently do as it is essential that our young people leave school able to compete in a global jobs market.  The employment situation for young people in NE Scotland is a matter for some concern and we will be putting a great deal more focus on ensuring pupils not only achieve good qualifications but also are equipped with the skills and experiences needed for working life.

Wider Activities and learning from defeat:

It has been a busy week for staff and pupils.  On Monday we held an information for Global Rock challenge – a very big dance/performance event we are taking part in.  Through the week we hosted an inter schools Dodgeball event and an inter schools Netball event.  It was great to see so many other schools from the City and Aberdeenshire using the Harlaw facilities and competing with each other.  Unlike some people I do see benefit in competition – all the successful people I have met speak of the most valuable learning being when they lost.  Most also mention that they have lost far more times than they have won.  The main message is that failure or defeat can be a really good thing – it can spur us on, it can focus our attention on what we need to improve and it can make the eventual success more meaningful.  I encourage us all to push each other on and to fail more often.

On the subject of trying and failing I want congratulate the 4 pupils who represented Harlaw Academy in the Regional final of the UK Maths Trust – Senior team Final.  We finished 3rd but to put that in context the winners were the international School and the second placed team were a private school.  Our team finished ahead of several other private schools and were the best from the NE Scotland state sector.  they should be really pleased with their achievement.

On Friday we had over 100 pupils taking part in a streamed language lesson as part of an attempt to break the record for the worlds largest lesson.  Thanks to all who took part and helped organise the event.  Numbers and evidence needs to be sent off and processed before we know if we were a small part of a world record or not.  Will let you know when we hear any more.

On Friday we also had 8 pupils in Edinburgh on Friday visiting the Scottish Parliament at a “Language in Parliament” event.  I followed their progress on our new Harlaw English twitter page and as well as being delighted on how they did non the day I was also proud to hear how they had supported a fellow train passenger who had fallen unwell on the journey home.  I received a message from members of the public to say how proud we should be of our pupils – I want to share that sense of pride with all who read this blog.

We also had around 70 pupils from S1 and S2 to see a film called ‘the scorch trials’ at Vue in Aberdeen.  The group were all pupils who had been successful ‘star readers’ and this had been a reward for their participation on our reading scheme.  It was a busy week for some of these pupils as four of them were also taking part on a STEM (Science, Technology, engineering and Maths) event at the start of the week.  In midweek 8 pupils from S3 visited the Childrens’ Book Awards at the Beach ballroom.

Happy 10th birthday Harlaw Leos:

The week ended with an evening event to mark 10 years of Harlaw Leos.  Senioor officials from Lions International attended the event and made special awards to the club, the school and some staff who had given the club service over that time.  Pupils, staff and visitors enjoyed a night of cake, ceilidh dancing and the occasional ‘selfie’

On Monday we had a session for senior pupils called ‘Safe Drive’.  Every school, including Harlaw Academy, has had pupils who have been killed or injured in road traffic incidents involving young drivers. ‘Safe Drive’ is a hard hitting, high impact event aimed at trying to reduce the danger.

As the week went on we also had pupils taking part in Basketball (boys and girls) and football matches.  In a previous blog and in my October newsletter I provided information on the extensive range of opportunities for pupils.  It is great to see large numbers of pupils taking up these opportunities.

In order to better ensure that we link pupils to opportunities and continue to gain recognition for the time pupils spend on extra curricular activities etc we have created a new promoted post of Principal Teacher of Wider Achievement.  After an extensive process we undertook interviews this week and I am delighted to report that Mr Whyte, one of our present staff, has been appointed to this new post.  He will take up his duties in January but I hope it really will offer ‘added value’ for pupils who are taking advantage of the opportunities on offer.

We also held interviews for vacancies we had in the English Department.  Several schools in the City are short of English teachers and I was not hopeful of filling our two posts.  I was therefore delighted to secure two teachers one who will start in November and a second who will join us in January.  I cannot stress enough the key part pupils play in ensuring we can recruit good staff to Harlaw Academy.  If the school has a good reputation we will attract staff and a significant part of that reputation comes down to ‘are the pupils positive, hard working and well behaved’.  I ask all parents to reinforce this message at home as I will always want to attract good staff to the school.

 

Events this week were dominated by the tragic events at Cults Academy.  We have been in contact with the Head Teacher at Cults to pass on our thoughts to all in their community and to offer any support which may be required.  Such events impact on us all to a greater or lesser extent and anyone in our school community who feels they need support should let us know.

As far as the first week back at Harlaw was concerned it has been a very busy week.  The chaplains have been taking assembly and delivered a very thought provoking presentation on the around social media.  I followed this up by highlighting the safety issues around autumn (dark evenings, slippery pavements, trick/treat and fireworks).  I do not imagine for a moment that every pupil will heed all of my words but hopefully some will give it a little more thought than they may otherwise have done.

The highlight of the week was to welcome 14 students and 2 staff from Von Muller Gymnasium in Regensburg to Harlaw.  They have been fantastic ambassadors for their school and have had a very busy few days.  We let them appreciate butteries for breakfast and Haggis for lunch on Thursday between this they were in classes before spending the afternoon seeing round Aberdeen and spending time in the shops.  In the evening we were welcomed to the Town House for a Civic reception.

                

On Friday there was time in classes in the morning before going rock scrambling near Cove in the afternoon.  After tea with their host families the group came along to the PTA fright night at the school.  On Saturday they are heading to Fraserburgh lighthouse and the north sea beaches before a farewell teat the Ashvale.

There were also two significant sporting adventures for our pupils.  On Thursday our sports ambassadors spent time in Inchgarth community centre with Judy Murray.  They returned full of stories and excitement and there are photos and more detail PE twitter page.  On Thursday we also had our S1 football team head off to their Scottish Cup match in Stornoway.  This was an epic (and costly) trip but well worth it when they came back with a 5-0 victory and tales of their trip.  Their reward is another away tie this time in Glenrothes!

On Friday we hosted the NE heat of the Kids Literature Quiz at the school.  Teams from several Secondary and Primary schools took part – we finished 2nd between St Margarets who were 3rd and the International school who will go on to represent NE Scotland in the national event in Oxford.  The week ended with the PTA Fright Night – a first for the PTA this was a very well attended event which involved a tour round the dark lower corridors of the school.  Drama pupils had prepared a script and characters designed to entertain and scare during the tours.   Everyone entered into the spirit of the event and I want to thank everyone who helped make the night such a great success.

 

The main ‘event’ this week was our Keeping in Touch (KIT) visit.

This is where senior officers come in to speak with us about our exam results and the improvement plans for the session.  It is a mixture of support and challenge ie they are keen to hear what we have been doing well but they also look for areas where we can do better.  It is a demanding session which lasts a full morning.

I am always keen to learn from others and the opportunity for someone external to come in and look at things is always very helpful.  It forces us to look at our own practices before the visit, it allows us to tell our story and it also reveals areas where we have work to do.

Arising from the visit are two items – one is our standards and quality report from 2014/15 and the other is an updated version of our school improvement plans for session 2015/16 (copies of both are attached to this blog).  I realise not every reader will want to read 15 pages and will arrange for a summary leaflet to be issues early in the new term.

At the KIT visit we were praised for the things we were doing well but we were also challenged to do even better where we could.  I want to praise everyone for the start made to this school session but when we return on Monday 26 October we will be emphasising ‘heightened expectations’ for ourselves and our pupils.

 

Standards and Quality Report 2014-15 final

Harlaw whole school action plans 2015-16

This week I want to reflect on 4 ‘events’ from the week – the first is a concern the other 3 are all positive:

1) On Wednesday there was a big meeting between Government and the northern local authorities to discuss issues around recruiting and retaining teachers in areas such as Aberdeen.  With the high cost of housing and limited training opportunities in Aberdeen it can often prove difficult securing staff in NE Scotland.  We have tended to do well at Harlaw but in the last few weeks we have had particular difficulties in some subject areas.  Indeed in English at the present time we are trying to recruit two teachers and there are several other schools in the city who are also looking for teachers of English.  We are doing all we can to address this issue and to provide continuity for our pupils and to find suitably qualified staff – if you know of anyone please let me know.

2) Over this week we have had a groups of 3 staff over in Poland with a group of senior pupils.  This is an annual visit and includes time in Krakow as well as visits to Auswitch/Birkenau and opportunities to learn more about the holocaust and hear from survivors. It is always an emotional and significant visit but one which really does allow young people to develop a deep appreciation of such significant events.  The group, as ever, conducted themselves in a very mature way and gained a great deal from the visit.

3) On Thursday evening I attended the annual Children Services Young People Awards at the Beach Ballroom.  One of the main categories on the night is the schools award and Harlaw Academy was one of two schools short listed for the award (the other being a Primary school).  Our nomination was linked to the work undertaken by Harlaw Defenders – the group who are leading on anti-bullying activities in the school.  Although we did not win the award it was fantastic to see the work being recognised at such a high profile event.

             

4) The week finished with the school forest walk on Friday.  We were unable to do the walk last year and the break allowed us to think about a different approach – we got rid of the ‘sponsor’ aspect and although we invited donations in advance we really wanted to promote this as an opportunity to get city pupils out into the country for a healthy activity which the school community could enjoy.  It is a major undertaking to get all those people out to Durris forest, round a 3-4 hour walk and back safely and I am grateful to the team of staff who planned the event.  The pupils and staff on the day were fantastic and the weather could not have been better.  I am sure all who went on the walk will have gone home delighted with the day.