18th-22nd February 2018: Respect Community

Over the course of this week I have being leading assemblies with a focus on one of our 3 behaviour statements: Respect Community.

The slides I used at the assembly can be accessed here Assembly February 2019 alongside the slides were some key messages which I will summarise here:

  • we have a fantastic community which we should be proud of and which we need to look after
  • we need to recognise the incredible opportunities which are on our doorstep
  • we also need to appreciate the importance of young people and Harlaw Academy having a good reputation in their community
  • the vast majority of our pupils do a great deal to enhance the reputation of young people and of Harlaw Academy
  • a small number of individuals act in ways which damage that reputation and because we are in such a public location this can have a very negative impact

We needed all our pupils to act in ways which had a positive impact in the community  This would help them not only in their own future but also help future generations to enjoy all of the advantages of our city centre location.

 

DYW 6th March Apprenticeship event #BigParentsEve

Harlaw parents of pupils in S4-S6 are invited to attend the next DYW event which will focus on the Apprenticeship family.  This is on Wednesday the 6th March and is being held at the Chamber office from 5.30 – 8pm. You can see the detail of the event and book on for free on EventBrite here https://www.dyw.org.uk/events/scottish-apprenticeship-week-scotlands-biggest-parents-evening

 

This is part of the wider national DYW regional groups & SDS initiative to hold the Biggest Parents Evening across Scotland focussed on the apprenticeship family during Scottish Apprenticeship Week (SAW).  We are working in collaboration with SDS, NESCol, the 2 Local Authorities, RGU, Aberdeen University and other training providers to deliver this event.  It is targeted primarily at parents of pupils in S4-S6 but also employers who want to come and understand more about the 3 types of apprenticeships and pathways.

 

Steve Petrie, Chair of DYWNE, will be doing some opening remarks and then we will have short presentations from 3 apprentices from each of Foundation, Modern and Graduate.  It will be very informal and then the focus will be on networking with the ‘providers’ who will all have a stand with details on support and provision and be able to answer questions about pathways.  There will also be a range of material focussed on parents and employers (these are also downloadable on the above link to the event).

Please book a place and come along to the event with your child to find out more about these opportunities.

 

28th January – 1 February 2019: Senior phase information evening

At the senior phase information evening I indicated we would try to help parents access the links to the main things they need to access when helping their children make choices in the senior school.  With this in mind this blog is very short and gives the links you need.  In addition, I shall “tweet” and “group call” a link to this blog so parents can find it easily and on any device.  I hope all of this is of help to parents, families and young people.

I also want to signpost parents to a very helpful series of resources written by parents and for parents.  This series known as “in a nutshell” cover a range of things; from course outlines to career options, to apprenticeships, additional support and almost anything else have been developed by the National Parent Forum of Scotland and can be accessed via this link –  https://www.npfs.org.uk/downloads/

 

21st – 25th January 2019: Listening to parents

On Thursday of this week we had a meeting of the Parent Council.  At these meetings I normally provide a Head Teacher update and the one I gave this week is attached here:  PC Jan 19

The notes cover a range areas including; building/property, staffing, budgets and pupil experiences.  At the meeting which was attended by around 12 parents, 2 local Councillors, a former pupils rep and 2 members of senior staff we discussed each of these items and looked at how the parent council could support the work of the school.

The meeting also raised a few questions through the Parent Council from Parents.  One of these related to how the school supports the issue of mental health.  As we had advance notice of this question we were able to give Parents a fairly full response to the question and this will be posted along with the minutes of the meeting:

We really value the opportunity to meet with the parent council and to respond to the questions parents have.

Next week, on Wednesday, we have our senior school information evening which is always a good opportunity to explain the senior school options and listen to the issues which are important to parents.

School Uniform Change of Supplier

As of the 12th February 2019 Harlaw Academy will have a new online uniform supplier – My Clothing which parents can access using the link 

www.myclothing.com

My Clothing will now provide our online service to parents instead of Tesco UES and further information on our new supplier is

provided in this leaflet

My Clothing have price matched to our current Tesco prices and a full price list of their services are listed for parents:

 

 

 

Parents are also reminded of the alternatives to this online service:

1  Stevensons School Uniform Store will be opening from 9am on Monday the 4th February, at 429 Union Street.  This is a new store replacing Aitken & Niven on Bridge Street.  Parents and pupils can drop in to the store to try on uniform as well as ordering online

2  The school office sell school badges at a cost of £4.50 which can be stuck onto any plain blazer

3 The school has a store of recycled uniform items that can be provided to pupils.  Any parent or pupil interested in this should contact their Guidance teacher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

S3 Parents’ Evening

S3 Parents’ Evening Thursday 7th February 2019 from 4.15pm – 6.45pm

S3 Parents and guardians are invited to attend the S3 Parents’ Evening in Harlaw Academy on Thursday 7th February 2019 to meet their child’s subject teachers. Our Guidance Teachers will be available to discuss pupils overall progress at school and also present on the evening will be Mrs Rennie the Year Head for S3 and Mr Mitchell our Principal Teacher of Support for Learning.

Please note that there is no parking in the school grounds and you are asked to use on street parking available in the surrounding area.

Harlaw Academy uses an online booking system for parents through our Groupcall Messenger system.  This allows you to book appointments at times that suits your availability.

In order to login you will need the following information:-

 

 

The Parent’s title and Parent’s surname must match the information we hold in our system for your child’s main contact and we will send a Groupcall message to let you know the Parent’s title and Parent’s Surname to use when logging in.

Full details of how to book appointments is available on the website homepage and booking is open from Wednesday 30th January at 12am until Tuesday 5th February at 10am.

On the evening we ask that your child attends with you to take part in the conversations with their teachers.  We also ask that you bring your list of appointments with you.

We look forward to meeting you on Thursday 7th February.

14th – 18th January: Learners, teachers, families and community

We often think of school in terms of the interaction of pupils and teachers within classrooms.  If I reflect on the past week it is clear school is about much more than this.

I want to start with a diagram of a jigsaw.  At the centre are the two pieces – student and teacher.  The way in which they interact each day is at the core of any school.  but they do not interact in isolation and in the notes below I want to say a little about each of the outside pieces – using real examples from this week.

Student:  On Friday I met with the pupil representatives from S1-S3.  There are 6 form classes in each year group and each form class has 4 reps – class, rights, charity and sports.  So that was so that was just over 70 of our S1-S3 pupils.  The purpose of the meetings was to get the pupil views on what we were doing well and what we needed to improve.  Class reps looked at learning, Rights reps looked at relationships, Charity reps looked at community and sports reps looked at Health and Wellbeing.  Involving students in this type of activity offers them meaningful involvement in school improvement.  It places their voice front and centre of things and should ensure they are fully committed to their school and their learning.

Teacher:  On Tuesday last week we had a staff meeting after school.  Similar to the pupil meeting later in the week we used this to ask staff how we could improve the learning and teaching experience for pupils.  Once again the idea is that the more involved staff are in agreeing how this is improved the more support and committment there is to moving it forward.

Parents: Over recent weeks parents have been receiving reports about their children.  These reports not only outline the progress a pupil has made they also highlight next steps for the pupil and how parents can help.  We have also places a set of guides and information up on the website for parents to reference and I am regularly updating the school twitter feed with ideas for parents.   We also met with Catriona Allen who is chair of the Parent Council to plan the next Parent Council meeting which takes place next week.  Strong links with parents is a key to pupil success and that is why we invest a lot of time listening to parents and building bridges between home and school.

Community:  Families have lives away from school and so we also seek to build bridges to our community.  These sometimes take the form of links with businesses and 3rd sector organisations to find work placements for pupils.  On Wednesday it took the form of a meeting with our 4 local Primary Schools.  We have developed very positive relationships with our Associate Schools Group (ASG) and this is certainly helping support pupils as they move to Harlaw Academy and also in ensuring what they learn and how they learn is joined up.  As well as this we have really good support from community and youth workers in the school and this helps pupils to build confidence to make a contribution beyond school.  This was demonstrated on Friday eventing when the Youth Club re-opened at Inchgarth Community Centre.  It was fantastic to see not only the younger children getting the opportunity but also to see the activity was supported by volunteers from Harlaw Academy.

I have started and finished this blog with diagrams.  The initial diagram shows how we should work in theory, the blog and the final picture take a snapshot of a typical week to show how we take the theory and put it into practice.

7th-11th January 2019 – Support and challenge

Welcome back to a new year and a new school term.  Next week our seniors sit their prelim exams and this will help add to the picture we are building up about their progress.  Back in August I spoke of increased expectations and we have worked hard to keep revisiting this over the session.  I have not only been asking this of the pupils I have also been asking it of our staff and of myself.

From the start of this session I have asked an Attainment Adviser from Education Scotland to come in and provide  support and challenge to our leadership team.  As well as 3 visits from the Attainment Adviser we also asked the Local Authority to come in to monitor our progress and identify strengths and areas for further improvement.  This week, in my role as Convener of General Teaching Council Scotland, I shall be in Stavanger at an International Conference for School Evaluation and Improvement.  This will be a chance to meet with leading experts in education and I am sure there will be a great deal which will benefit Harlaw Academy from my involvement.

The point I want those reading this blog to take from this is the importance of support/challenge and indeed the approach we all take to support/challenge.  I think this is particularly important when we are thinking of young people in the modern world.  Do we surround ourselves with people who we ‘like’ or who give us positive feedback (support) or do we look for people who are more critical or take a different view?  Do we attend revision sessions or join friends in a revision group or do we retreat into a shell and rely on our own devices.

I can demand increased expectations all I like but it will not make a bit of difference unless people decide to do some work.  Every single pupil can have a resolution to work harder this session but unless they do it then nothing will change.  My way of making sure I actually do something is to hold myself accountable eg to the Attainment Adviser or the Local Authority. As a pupil I was great at writing revision plans and rubbish at sticking to them.  As an adult I am great at setting new year resolutions but not as good seeing them through.

In order for us to deliver increased expectations we need to reach out to support each other and we also need to challenge each other to be the best we can be and perhaps to be even a little better than that.

 

17th -21st December 2018 – Into the holidays

Incident on Thursday:  At lunchtime on Thursday one of our pupils let an intruder into the school and this resulted in a potentially serious event taking place.  I am unable to comment on what took place as it is part of an on-going police investigation.  What I will say is that our staff and pupils really stepped up to respond to the incident and identify those responsible.  As a result of what happened I issued the following reminder to our pupils on Friday:

  • on no account should they let an intruder into the building – if they do they will be viewed as an accomplice
  • if they become aware of an intruder or anything of concern they need to report it immediately
  • within the school outside jackets must be removed (on Thursday we ‘swept’ the building and it helps if our pupils are in uniform and visitors are wearing an ID badge)

End of term:  Apart from Thursday we had a really good run up to the holidays.  Classes remained very purposeful up until 3.00 on Friday.  Alongside this we had a number of things tied to an overall theme of “Christmas Kindness”.  These included:

  • Christmas Jumper day last Friday which raised £600 for Save the Children
  • A lunch and a Christmas Fair which raised just over £300 for Friends of Anchor
  • Foodbank collections which filled 3 trolley loads of food for Inchgarth Community Centre to pass on to Tillydrone Flat.
  • Christmas Concert which had a packed programme of talented performers
  • Christmas Turkey and trimmings lunch
  • Showing the film Polar Express over the final few lunchtimes of term
  • Festive assemblies at which I spoke of the fantastic things our pupils do to support others and also highlight some things they do that are unkind and should be avoided
  • Junior choir singing at the assemblies

The slides I used at the assembly are shown here Christmas assembly 2018

The song sung by our Junior choir is a Kelly Clarkson song called “My grown up Christmas list”.  The lyrics of the song are all about the hopes for a peaceful and kind world and you can read the lyrics and hear the Kelly Clarkson version of the song here https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Grown+Up+Christmas+List+Kelly+Clarkson&&view=detail&mid=8E9175100F9A71006AA48E9175100F9A71006AA4&&FORM=VRDGAR

It was a very appropriate song to finish our assemblies and to sum up the last few weeks of Christmas Kindness.

All that is left is for me to thank our staff, pupils and parents for all their fantastic work in 2018.  I look forward to welcoming you all back on Monday 7th January 2019.  Have a fantastic festive break.