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HEAD TEACHER'S NEWSLETTER
Friday 1st November 2024
Friday 1st November 2024
Our House assemblies this week featured our SCQF ambassadors who wanted to share their work and plans with peers. More information on this can be seen further in the newsletter.
Alana Thompson, in S6 and our school Dux, also shared details of her weekly Medical Club with all students. This Club is for all pupils interested in pursuing a career in medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine, allowing them to discuss current medical issues and to support seniors with UCAS applications for medical degrees.
Our new school nurse, Eve, also introduced herself and details of her service are included below.
It was also the second Senior Phase Parents Evening on Tuesday with a really positive buzz across the Hall and social space as senior pupils’ parents met teachers in advance of prelims at the end of November.
Have a lovely Halloween weekend!
Jodie Hannan
Key Dates
Wednesday 13 November: Employability Pathways evening open to all S1-S6 pupils and parents/ carers 6-8pm
Remember you can find all events on our school calendar, and you can add the calendar to your own too.
Parents’ Evenings dates
All Parents’ Evenings are in person 5-7pm.
Wednesday 11 December: S3
Tuesday 21 January: S2
Parent Council dates
Thursday 21 Nov: MGS PC Online briefing 7-8pm meet.google.com/oxc-fwdh-pmz
Thursday 23 Jan: MGS PC Online briefing 7-8pm meet.google.com/vnh-jkwe-kkd
Thursday 13 Mar: MGS PC full meeting – in person, in school 7-9pm
Tuesday 20 May: MGS PC Online briefing 7-8pm meet.google.com/tkd-rakc-dor
Monday 16 June: MGS PC full meeting – in person, in school 7-8pm
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.
S1: 91%
S2: 87%
S3: 87%
S4: 87%
S5: 92 %
S6: 91%
S2 reports
Will be issued to pupils to bring home in the week beginning Monday 18 November.
Future Pathways Evening
We are excited to invite you, along with your family and friends, to our Future Pathway Evening on Wednesday, 13 November from 6pm – 8pm.
This event is a valuable opportunity for pupils of all ages, whether you are currently making subject choices or planning for the future. Every school department will be attending alongside universities, colleges, employers and the Army and Navy. This is an ideal chance to connect with these professionals, explore career paths and seek advice in areas that interest you as you prepare for the future in the world of work.
SCQF Ambassadors
College places for January starts
If you require help in applying for any of the above courses, please call into B16 to make an appointment with A Hoffman or S Dalton
S1 Fright Night
Oh what a night! Fright Night happened on Wednesday and it was a brilliant success. The S6 did a fantastic job of organising the event, with a special shout out to Luca for coordinating so much of the night. All our S1’s were incredibly well behaved and really enjoyed the haunted tour of the school, with a frighteningly good disco run by our S5. A special thanks to our S5 team who were responsible for the sound, lighting and photography. Events like this can’t happen without our staff who give up their time to organise the event, so a special thank you to all staff who gave up their evening, too.
We had a photographer on the night, with photos to be shared via Google Classrooms for our S1 & S6. Until then, here are some photos from the night.
Here’s looking at you S5 to make next year’s event bigger and better! We can’t wait.
Geography field trip to the Water of Leith
Senior Geographers ventured out to the Water of Leith Visitor Centre on Tuesday to complete fieldwork at the river. Higher and Advanced Higher pupils were able to consolidate their learning of the Hydrosphere and learn valuable data gathering skills which can be used later in the year for their assignment and course work.
Pupils worked in teams to measure width, depth, velocity and gradient of the river at various sites as well as conducting bedload analysis. Everyone displayed confidence, enthusiasm and excellent teamwork skills on what was a beautiful, sunny autumn day. Mrs Walker also accompanied us on the trip and discovered her inner-geographer!
A big thank you as always to Ruth and the water of Leith Conservation Trust for leading the outdoor learning.
Mrs Dias and Mrs Orsi
Winter Fayre
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE LAUNCH
Some of our amazing Retail, Fashion, Inclusion and Nurture pupils are relaunching our 'free to a good home project'. We are currently rebranding, with a new name coming soon..
The pupils are setting this up as a social enterprise and there is going to be an exciting launch of this through a Fashion Show in February!
Our aim is to have a place in school full of different items that would be available for pupils to take if they ever need anything. We are looking for staff/pupils and the wider community to donate items for this and we are looking for the following items:
School clothes
Casual clothes
Sports clothes/equipment
Jackets
Halloween/dress up
Christmas dance
Prom
Dalguise - costumes/general outdoor clothing
Nightwear (including eyemasks/hot water bottles etc)
Shoes
Accessories
School bags/luggage
Toiletries: deodorant/body spray/toothpaste/toothbrush/wipes/shower gel etc
Make up/Hair products/accessories
Stationery
Books
We will take any unwanted items but please make sure that any donations are in good condition and appropriate for teenagers!
If you are able to donate anything can you please hand it to the Office for Miss Ritchie
MGS Netball
This week, the senior girls’ Netball team travelled to Knox to take part in the first ever East Lothian Netball Festival. Several teams from other East Lothian schools joined to take part in the tournament with this being many players first ever netball game.
The Musselburgh team were fantastic displaying a really good level of skill for their first ever game. The games were fast paced and the girls remained steady, displaying some excellent shooting and defensive play. The girls gelled quickly as a team and were able to secure a win for both games against Dunbar and Knox! Well done to Rachael Knox, Sophie Davidson, Holly Wilson, Libby Bain, Grace Ryan, Eleanor Brown and Layla Ferguson.
Iona Holmes
PE Teacher
Girls into Physics and Engineering
This week some of our S3 girls attended a Girls into Physics and Engineering event organised and hosted by North Berwick High School. The event was a fantastic opportunity for our students across the authority to find out more about careers in Physics and Engineering and improve the gender balance through interactive workshops, presentations and a Q&A session. The girls demonstrated their teamwork and problem solving skills through challenges from building and programming robots, investigating circuits and LEDs and investigating electromagnetism and high speed rail. It was all agreed that the highlight was making ice-cream in under 5 minutes using liquid nitrogen! It was a fun day and a really inspiring event. A huge thanks to Elaine Cargill and NBHS for organising the event and all the groups who ran each session.
Pupil Voice
This week we had our first casual ‘meeting’, where members of the Pupil Voice painted pumpkins in celebration of Halloween. I hope everyone had fun and we plan on having more meetings like this. The next official meeting is going to be the 19th of November, where plans of a trip to the Royal High School will be further discussed and the pupil Voice leaders will run their own separate groups. However, we plan on starting up less formal meetings weekly in Mrs Hamilton-Wylie’s room at lunch times, where anyone can come along to ask questions, or just to chat about PV. Find info on the notice board next week.
Science Club
Happy Halloween everyone from Science Club!
We have enjoyed 2 weeks of Halloween themed activities and had a great time this week collaborating with Home Economics to make cinder toffee.
Head Team
Hello everyone,
Hope everyone's week has gone well as the slow climb towards our prelims begin.
Fright night was a huge success, with many of our S1’s scared but lots of fun had by all!
Ailsa has started the process of getting in touch with the five local primary schools so that we can visit them in the hope of answering questions and making the P7’s feel more comfortable with the idea of high school.
Furthermore, we had yet another successful Senior Parents evening - hope everyone's reports were ok. Thank you to the Prefects and the Junior Pupil Leaders for your help.
Pupil Voice has officially started back up with their first meeting being last week, with good attendance and engagement all round.
Update you guys’ next week!
Katie, Ailsa, Summer :)
School nurse service
Study support
Study support
Our updated One Stop Shop for Study Skills is now updated for this session and included in this email as the links to each site are live.
Mrs Donnelly, Curriculum Leader of Technologies, will also be running drop in sessions on how to use the online resource Achieve for parents, carers and pupils at 4.45-5pm then 7-7.20pm on both of the Senior Phase Parents Evenings (Wednesday 23 October, and Tuesday 29 October) before teacher appointments begin at 5pm.
MGS Revision Resource Poster.pdfExtra Curricular clubs and Study Support Sessions
We have added links to our website with information on all lunchtime/after school clubs, and also our Study Support sessions. You can find it all in the ‘Student’ section of our school website.
SQA Exam Diet 2025
Please follow this link to see the SQA Exam timetable for Spring 2025: Exam timetable and learner apps - SQA
Medical
The Flu vaccination will take place on 12th and 13th December 2024. If you did not receive a form please go and see Ms Harvey in the Medical room. All forms must be returned to school as soon as possible.
All pupils who have Asthma please have your inhaler with you in your school bag at all times
If you are unwell during the school day please go and sign out with Ms Harvey. As a school we have a duty of care for pupils. Do not leave the school building on your own and go home without permission. I will call your parent/carer
C Harvey
School Medical Assistant
MGS website and School Handbook for parents
Here is the link to our website, and it also contains our School Handbook.
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