HEAD TEACHER'S NEWSLETTER
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MUSSELBURGH GRAMMAR SCHOOL
Friday 03 October 2025
Friday 03 October 2025
It was great to welcome so many families and P7 pupils to our P7 Parents’ Evening on Wednesday night. The school was buzzing with excitement and interest as the families toured the departments and the feedback was incredibly positive.
Thank you to all families who came and we look forward to welcoming the P7s back to the Grammar for their three day transition visit next June.
Jodie Hannan
Staffing Update
The acting CL Modern Languages, Art and Music interviews are next week.
Key Dates
Friday 10th October: All Break for mid term
Monday 20th October: Staff In-service Day 3
Tuesday 21st October: Pupils Resume
Thursday 30th October: S1 Fright Night
Friday 31st October: Whole school Halloween dress up day!
Remember you can find all events on our school calendar, and you can add the calendar to your own too.
Study Support
Please click the link to take you to our S4/5/6 Study Support timetable, or view it below.
Study Support 2024-2025.pdfParent Council Meeting Dates
These are the dates for this session’s Parent Council meetings:
Tuesday 4th November AGM 6.30-8.30pm in school.
Thursday 11th December 7-8pm online https://meet.google.com/idi-dhis-hjo?authuser=0&hs=122
Tuesday 3rd February 7-8pm online https://meet.google.com/csy-mvmg-mtu?authuser=0&hs=122
Wednesday 1st April 7-8pm online https://meet.google.com/csy-mvmg-mtu?authuser=0&hs=122
Thursday 4th June 6.30-8.30pm in school
Notes from the office
Notes from the office
Our friendly office team are the first port of call for most parents and, often, pupils. We look after pupil records, timetables, attendance, and all communications to and from school. Here are some of the things we’re working on at the moment, and we need parents’ help with:
Annual Data Checks - thanks to everyone who has sent these back. This information is absolutely vital to us, because it gives us the details we need to look after your young person when they’re at school. Contact details, medical information - we need it all! Please take the time to check what we have sent, update it, sign it, and send it back to us. Without accurate contact information, we may not be able to get hold of you if your young person needs help while they’re at school, or we may not be aware of their current medical requirements.
Planned Absence and Appointments - please let us know if your young person needs to be out of school. We know that medical appointments sometimes need to happen during the school day; just email us or call us, and this avoids us sending home absence texts. If you are intending to take your child out of school on holiday during term-time, we need to have this in writing, because we need to keep it in your child's record. Just send us an email with the start and end dates. Please be aware that most holidays during term-time are recorded as unauthorised.
Water Bottles - we're becoming aware of an increasing number of pupils asking to be let out of class to get a drink of water. We do have disposable cups available at the office, but this means pupils are missing out on learning time, and it's also using a considerable amount of plastic cups. If parents could ensure their child has a water bottle with them each day, we'd really appreciate it. Water fountains are situated on the ground floor for pupils to top up their bottles at break and lunchtimes.
We are happy to support The Pennypit Trust’s request for donations to its festive provisions this year. The Pennypit works in partnership with East Lothian Council, the NHS, schools and Social Work to support families and last year 200 families across Musselburgh were supported by the Pennypit Trust. All donations from our Halloween Dress up Day will go to the Pennypit.
Donations can also be dropped off at school at any other point in the school year.
Year group attendance
Improving attendance to improve attainment is one of our school improvement priorities this year and we expect pupils’ attendance to be at least 90%. We are tracking pupils’ attendance carefully throughout the session and more information about our attendance strategy will follow. I hope parents and carers find this weekly update on each year group's attendance useful.
Travel and Tourism trip
The Travel and Tourism class visited Edinburgh College this week to take part in a cabin crew training workshop. All of the students took part in a training exercise where they carried out a role on the plane, this included: boarding the plane and seating passengers, the safety demonstration and the trolley service. The role play task is used for the work based experience section of the course and offers the pupils a great opportunity to have a taster of what college life is like and the courses offered in Travel and Tourism. We even had a visit from 2 ex-pupils who are currently on the ‘Cabin Crew and Ground Staff operations’ L6 course! Thank you to Nicky and Jenny at Edinburgh college for hosting the class.
Daniel Tomlins in S6 is organising a new whole school event on Friday 31 October.
For the first time ever, staff and pupils are invited to dress up in Halloween costumes, with competition for the best staff costume and House points for all pupils who come to school in costume.
Please note that full face masks are not permitted on grounds of safety, that is, staff must be able to identify all of our pupils, and all costumes must be appropriate for school.
Pupils who do not wish to wear costume can attend school in uniform.
DONATION DEADLINE EXTENDED!
We have received donations of toiletries and some games and gifts and now have 3 completed boxes and 5 that have been started. We have checked through donations and made a list of what we need more of:
Socks, hat/ scarf/ gloves, small toys/ games, sponges, soap, underwear, sweets.
We have lots of shoeboxes wrapped and ready to be filled, there is a list of what a full box needs to help you get started.
For more information, visit the website: https://blythswood.org/shoeboxappeal/
Active Schools
MGS Mountain Bike Success:
Congratulations to students Tom, Dylan and Tom for representing the school at the SSAA Mountain Biking Championships. The boys held their own and raced superbly against a high class field.
Rapid Running at the Road Race Champs:
A huge well done to MGS trio Tom, Euan and Rowan who competed at the SSAA Road Race Championships at Pittencrieff Park. The boys ran brilliantly with Tom placing in the top 10 in his category! Congratulations boys!
Football at MGS
All our football teams have had a busy calendar of fixtures competing in leagues such as the EMSFA and the SPAR Cup!
I’d personally like to thank all the volunteers, teachers and parents who have made this possible. Your support is greatly appreciated.
As interest in our S1 football continues to grow, we have decided to put on a trial to decide our competition team to make it fair. The trial will be held on Wednesday 8th October at Pinkie 3G from 4-5pm. The trials will be held by our coaches at Technical Edge.
If your child wants to register for the trial, please can they do so via the Musselburgh Grammar Active Schools website. Any questions, please get in touch!
For more information on Active Schools at Musselburgh Grammar Schools contact:
Maria Lyle
Active Schools Coordinator at Musselburgh Grammar School
mlyle@elcschool.org.uk
Our school’s vision and values
You may be aware that one of our School Improvement Priorities this year is to refresh and reset our school’s vision and values.
Between recording our best exam results in almost a decade at S4 and S5, experiencing quite a lot of change with our school roll, and approaching our 400th anniversary next year, it feels like the right time to revisit our vision for our school, the values we hold dear and discuss what we want our school to give our young people.
Your voice is really important in shaping the school’s future and I want to gather as many views as possible from students, staff, families, associated primaries, our partners and the wider community over the next few months and will be emailing all families with further details about how you can be part of the discussion.
Musselburgh Area Partnership
Don't forget Musselburgh Area Partnership's Communities Day is on this weekend!
The Honest Thread
Our Honest Thread, “free to a good home” initiative is a new way to share gently used school uniforms within our school community. Anyone who is in need of these items are welcome to request them free of charge.
If you would like to receive any uniform items, please complete the short Google Form below. This allows us to organise requests and prepare your order for collection from the School Office.
https://forms.gle/8NGk3eGnr5M9bMd56
The form will be added to on a regular basis and we hope that we will be able to include items other than schoolwear; this scheme is entirely donation based, so families are always invited to donate clean, good-quality items they no longer need. All donations are much appreciated and can be dropped off at the School Office FAO Ms Ritchie.
Car park safety
A safety reminder to all families who drop children off at school in the morning that they should be dropped off in the turning circle outside the main gates and then use the footpath to the main doors, not walk through the car park.
This is due to a few near accidents recently with the volume of cars in the car park and pupils walking through it. If it is essential to come into the car park then the one way system must be used, again, to prevent accidents.
In addition, any S6 pupils having driving lessons should not be using the school car park for any part of the lesson due to the amount of cars in the area including narrow lanes and parking bays.
Thank you for your support.
Lost property
Various items have been handed in to Ms Harvey, please go to her office to claim anything you may have lost.
Medical
Medical
All flu forms must be handed back to the school office as soon as possible. If you do not hand your form back in time there will be a mop up clinic date to follow soon. Flu vaccinations will take place on Wednesday 17th December and Thursday 18th December 2025
School Toilets
Our pupil toilets are checked on a regular basis to ensure everyone’s comfort and safety. These checks may be done by male or female staff members, and signage is in toilets to make pupils aware of this.
MGS website and School Handbook for parents
Our website has lots of useful information for parents, and includes our School Handbook and School Policies. Have a look! We welcome your feedback.
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