Clean Safe Environment

Over this week we have been highlighting two areas where we are looking for
improvements and I wanted to share with parents what these changes are and why we
are making them.

The first relates to eating arrangements. I have for some time been concerned at
pupils eating their lunches off floors and in some cases in toilets. This is not hygienic
and it is not dignified. In addition we see a lot of food waste discarded in the corridors
and on stairs. This increases the risk of slips/accidents and creates work for janitors to
clean up the mess. In order to reduce the problem we are keeping the dining hall and
snack bar open through all of lunchtime and also creating an additional seating/eating
area at the back of the main hall. Anyone who wishes to eat should do so in one of
these areas and not in the corridors. We would prefer if food bought outside the school
was eaten outside the school and for litter do deposited in a bin prior to returning to the
building. We are going to trial this through to Easter to see if it improves things for our
pupils.

The second related to wearing outside jackets within the school. For some time we
have made clear to pupils that in order to keep them safe all staff/visitors wear and ID
badge and all pupils should have their uniform clearly visible. The vast majority of
pupils accept this and remove their outside jackets as they enter the building. There
are, however, some pupils who we regularly see with outside jackets on inside the
school and who are putting the safety of everyone else at risk. This is not something
which I can allow to happen as I have a duty to protect young people. We do get
intruders in the building from time to time and when this happens we need to be able to
identify them quickly. We shall continue to ask pupils to remove their jackets but when
this does not happen or when we come across the same person doing so time and
again we will take possession of the jacket during the time they are in the building and
return it at the end of the day. We do try to show a degree of understanding eg last
week when the heating had come on late and the building was cold we let pupils keep
jackets on until the building was warmer. I trust parents and pupils recognise that this
is not a step we will take lightly but it is based on a wish to keep everyone safe during
the school day.

I trust I have the support of both parents and pupils in these two areas as both are
intended to make the school experience better/safer for pupils. I will be seeking
feedback from pupils and I am happy to receive any feedback from parents on these or
other suggestions to improve the school.

Nescol Closure Information

Pupils who take courses at Nescol are asked to note the following information from Nescol:-

 

Wednesday 28 February 2018

Due to the weather conditions, the forecast for more snow, and Police Scotland ‘avoid travel’ advice in affected amber areas, the college (and therefore all campuses and centres) will close at lunchtime today.

All College classes are cancelled on Wednesday.

 

Thursday 1 March 2018

All campuses and centres will remain closed on Thursday.  All College classes are cancelled Wednesday and Thursday.

All College classes are cancelled on Thursday.

 

Friday 2 March 2018

A decision will be taken by 4pm on Thursday 1 March 2018  regarding opening the College on Friday.

We will advise of any updates as soon as possible and will be posted on the College website www.nescol.ac.uk

Bad Weather – getting to school safely

In spells of wintry weather, our janitors first priority is to make sure there are designated safe routes into Harlaw Academy for pupils at the front of the school.  Once safe routes are cleared at the front, our janitors then prioritise access to the school from the rear car park and the clearing of emergency exits.  It is not possible for our janitorial staff to clear the expanse of our car parks and playgrounds and so the focus is very much on safe access and safe exit.

Pupils are advised to walk on the paths that the janitors have cleared and to avoid  walking on untreated surfaces. By following this advice we can hopefully reduce the number of slips and trips and potential injury to ourselves.

 

 

Keeping Our Children Safe

Police Scotland and other local professionals will be hosting a further live Facebook event
on the North East Police Division page on Wednesday 21 March 2018 between 7 and 9 pm.

The topic on this occasion will be Social Media:

 

Thinking about buying a young person a mobile phone or computer but concerned how to keep them safe online?

 

Don’t feel up-to-speed on the latest social media trends and want to find out more?

 

Worried that a young person is at harm from a person online but don’t know where to start intervening to help?

 

We will be holding a LIVE Facebook chat on Wednesday March 21, 2018 from 7-9pm where officers and advisers who specialise in child protection will be on hand to answer any questions you might have on keeping young people safe while using the Internet.

 

We will also be posting advice and tips on the night to help young people be aware, stay alert and keep safe.

 

If you have a sensitive question to ask we will also have a private message function switched on during the evening so you can speak to us in confidence. No topic is off limits.

 

 

19th-23rd February 2018: Speaking up for rights

It was really frustrating to have to deal with a couple of instances this week where pupil deliberately set off our fire alarms.  We had a spate of this earlier in the session and I hoped we had seen the back of it.  It is an extremely dangerous thing to do and also extremely disruptive.

As a school we work hard to promote Children’s Rights.  Two fundamental rights are the right to a safe environment and the right to education.  Those who chose to set off the alarms deliberately put us all at risk and disrupted valuable class time at a crucial time of year.  Our pupils need to appreciate that in our school the people most likely to deny them their rights are other children.  By ensuring our pupils know their rights I hope it will empower the often silent majority to speak up in support of their rights.

The same point is true of litter in the corridors and damage to toilets/building.  This is not being caused by teachers or other adults, it is being done to children and done by children.  We also want to highlight the need for people to be identifiable as pupils, staff or visitors within the school.  We have made new posters which highlight the expectations in a positive and rights respecting way.  Door signs 2018   Toilet sign 2018

I have noted in previous blogs that we were the first, and for a while the only, Secondary School in Aberdeen to gain level 1 (Silver) of the UNICEF Rights Respecting School Award.  I sent out to all families a leaflet about what being a rights respecting school means in Harlaw  (Recognising and realising Childrens Rights at Harlaw Academy).  It was fantastic to see that Ferryhill Primary School gained the Gold Award earlier this month, even better to note that they were actually the first school in the UK to gain this particular award.

I started this blog by expressing my frustration with one aspect of the week.  I want to end it by highlighting three areas which gave me a great deal of satisfaction this week:

  • welcoming our P7s to Haralw for a Health and Well Being visit where they visited PE, Home Economics and PE
  • being part of an annual visit from the Blood Transfusion Service where staff and senior pupils (first time donors) donated over 40 pints
  • seeing my S3 team play and win two matches within 24 hours – the results bring us to a cup final and a league decider in March.

We have many fantastic pupils and staff at Harlaw Academy and their achievements and successes more than compensate for the occasional frustrations which arise. I close this blog with one other poster we will be putting up around the school.  It contains a strong message about both our diversity and about our common purpose (One school poster).  The message it contains says:

  • Harlaw Academy
  • 900 pupils
  • 50 National identities
  • 33 Languages
  • 1 rights respecting school

12th-16th February 2018: Short week for our pupils

Pupils enjoyed the mid term break with having Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off.  Staff on the other hand were able to get a well deserved break on the Monday but were hard at work on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Parents, and possibly pupils, may wonder what staff actually do during in-service days and the purpose of this blog is to share with you some of what we have being doing.

Firstly it is a chance for staff to collaborate in their departments/faculties – this is particularly important as we are bringing forward significant revisions to the the National 5 qualifications this session as well as looking at proposed revisions to the Higher qualifications.  The in-service days gave departments/faculties much needed time to meet together in order to take stock and to plan ahead for these significant changes.

Secondly it is an opportunity for me to meet with staff as a whole and to meet with sub groups of staff.  In our whole school sessions this year we have been looking at how we can improve the learning experiences for pupils.  staff have been trying out a range of new approaches and I was keen to get them to share with each other what had worked well and why.  There is a lot of research which indicates that the best schools are those which encourage teachers to learn from each other.

Thirdly is the opportunity for staff to develop their skills in a range of new areas eg how to work with youngsters with particular difficulties, how to more effectively use google classrooms, how to use our ICT systems to produce clear reports, how to develop numeracy/literacy across the school, opening up new business links for pupils.  Each teacher identifies where they need to develop and the in-service days offers a chance to groups to work together to learn new things.  We need our teachers to be innovative and to make learning inspiring to young people.  This requires teachers to constantly learn new skills and look for new approaches.

The in-service days are a much needed chance to ensure our teachers take forward their career long development, to look beyond the immediate priorities and to ensure we are doing all we can to help the young people to “be the best they can be”.

I hope the young people took the opportunity over the long weekend to enjoy their rights to:

  • meet other people (article 15)
  • relax, play and taken part in activities (article 31)

I also hope they are back refreshed and ready to enjoy their rights to:

  • an education (article 28)
  • develop their talents to the full (article 29)

 

 

5th – 9th February 2018: Refreshing our vision

In spring 2015 we undertook a fairly significant review of our vision, values and behaviour statements.

Prior to this there had not been a review for many years and even then I think the statements had largely been undertaken by senior staff at the school and passed on to pupils to follow.  Certainly none of the pupils in the school had been involved in the construction or the review of the statements which we had in place.

In Spring 2015 we not only decided to review the statements we also decided to involve pupils, parents and staff in the process.  We also indicated that we would review the statements every 3 years.  The thinking behind this was to ensure that the statements would better relate to (and belong to) the people who were in the school at any given time.  Pupils for example would have the chance to review them once when they were in the junior school and once in the senior school.

So here we are in the Spring of 2018 ready to refresh our vision etc statements.  I have prepared a brief presentation which sets out our current statements, offers one possible alternative and invites you to make comments or suggestions.  The presentation can be viewed here Vision 2018 to 2021

I have sent this to all staff, to parents (via group call) and pupils will have a chance to come up with their thoughts in form time and through their representatives.  I am also looking to involve each of our local P7 classes.  You have between now and mid March to pass in your views.  These will be considered by a group of pupils, staff and parents who will make recommendations to the school governance group (a group with representatives from pupils parents and staff).  It is my hope that we will have a draft set of statements ready for soon after Easter and these will be ready to launch in June as our new P7 start with us and our current school begin their new timetable.

As you know we are committed to engaging with parents and promoting the rights of children (eg article 12 the right to have a say in matters affecting them).  I hope you will engage with this consultation on shaping the vision, values and behaviour statements for your/our school.  We have over 900 pupils and around 100 staff who are part of the Harlaw Academy community.  I want us to have a common purpose which we have all been part of shaping.

 

 

 

 

 

29th January – 2nd February: Technology, dignity and good manners

Two items caught my eye this week:

  • An item by Gillian Martin (MSP) drawing attention to the issue of youngsters sending inappropriate images on social media.
  • A feature on Sky News about youngsters becoming lazier, more demanding and more rude as a result of ‘Siri’ and ‘Alexa’ type applications

They were particularly interesting because Tuesday next week is ‘safe internet’ day and we will be running activities with our junior classes about some of the dangers associated with the use of ICT.  Teaching youngsters to use technology safely is very much a child rights issue:

  • the right  to an education
  • the right to be safe from exploitation
  • the right to access information

It also brings into sharp focus a rights conflict – the right to privacy vs the need for adults to guide and support children.

‘Sexting’ was discussed at the recent Parent Council meeting.  I was very clear that we as parents/teachers needed to stop viewing the behaviours as being ‘harmless banter’ and ‘kids just being kids’ and begin to refer to it in the same way as we might refer to it in terms of sexual harassment.  I am in little doubt that much of what we deal with under the heading of ‘sexting’ is similar to what we have seen on the news with Harvey Weinstein etc:

  • It is sometimes about an abuse of power and exploitation – people with power exploiting people who are vulnerable.
  • It is sometimes predatory – using compliments, persistence and fear to take advantage of someone when they are weak/defenceless

The impact on the ‘victims’ can be devastating and it is important that those who are ‘witnesses’ or ‘friends’ stand up to protect each other – and yes ‘sexting’ is something we view as being a child protection issue as will the police and wider society.

The item on Sky was interesting as it was not something I had thought about but once I heard the story it was fairly obvious.  I am sure most parents will remember when they were youngsters.  If they lay in their beds and demanded something they may have been told to get up and sort it themselves.  They may have been asked to put a “please” or “thank you” to any demand and they may have had to wait to get something.  But in the modern world if we have a ‘smart device’ we can sit back and demand what we want.  We get what we want immediately and without a please or thank you.  So it comes as no surprise that a university study found that the ‘smart device’ was making people lazier, less polite and more demanding.  The researcher was clear in advising parents of the dangers of these devices – suggesting that youngsters should not use them and should be encouraged to develop good manners, to be active and polite and to recognise that they cannot keep making demands and expecting an immediate response.

The motto on the school badge for Harlaw Academy is “learning and courtesy”.  I hope as a school community we will keep helping young people to learn, particularly about the safe use of technology, and keep promoting courtesy towards other people both in the real and the virtual world.