Embedded Files
HEAD TEACHER'S NEWSLETTER
Friday 21 February 2025
Friday 21 February 2025
I hope everyone had a lovely February break, and it’s been a quick week back in school.
Our Monday Inservice day was one of professional learning on our Positive Relationships and Behaviour Policy, Teaching Sprints, and sharing with colleagues the draft timetable for the March Review.
Our ELT (Extended Leadership Team) then spent an hour discussing the review and focusing on our collective leadership: namely, what is working well in our school, how we know and our next steps.
I know that our senior pupils are starting to feel the pressure of the next few weeks so hope that the information about Study leave and Easter Revision programmes supports their preparation for the SQA exams.
With best wishes for the weekend.
Jodie Hannan
Key Dates
Monday 3-Wednesday 5 March: ELC Review
Week beginning 3 March: S3 reports distributed
Friday 4 April: Term ends
Tuesday 22 April: Staff and Pupils return
Remember you can find all events on our school calendar, and you can add this calendar to your own too.
Staffing
Welcome to Mr Ritchie who has joined us on a temporary supply basis for Mrs Tudor’s Maths classes until Ms Smith takes up this temporary maternity leave cover post in mid March. Regrettably, we have been unable to recruit for the vacant CDT post due to a lack of suitable applicants. I will share the plans for staffing CDT in due course.
Parent Council Meeting dates
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
Science review
As well as the imminent external review of MGS by ELC, we continue with our own schedule of reviewing faculties, and it is Science next week. Our review process mirrors that used by ELC and HMIe with a large number of lesson observations as well as a teacher and pupil focus groups.
East Lothian Review of MGS
MGS will be reviewed by East Lothian Council 3-5 March 2025. Our last Review was October 2022.
These Reviews are valuable opportunities to evaluate our work and ensure we keep improving our young peoples’ experience in school. The main questions for our self evaluation are:
How are we doing?
How do we know?
What will we do next?
The Review team will observe a number of lessons across S1-S6 over the three days and speak to a number of pupils, staff and parents in focus groups.
Active Schools
Football sessions with Technical Edge Coaching are starting this week at the Pinkie 3G from 4-5pm.
Sessions starting this week are: S1 Boys (Tuesday); Girls (Wednesday); S3 Boys (Thursday). S2 Boys will start up on Monday next week.
Table Tennis will be on every Wednesday lunch time.
The sessions will be running weekly up until the end of the school year. If you want to attend and haven’t signed up or have any questions, please see Maria in A45.
Easter revision programme
We intend on running an Easter revision programme again during the Easter holidays to support Senior pupils’
preparations for exams. The programme is currently being collated and will be published in early March.
SQA Exam Diet
The SQA exam diet now commences on Friday 25 April, not Monday 28 April https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/nq-2025-exam-timetable.pdf
These are the plans for all Senior Phase pupils for the week back after the Easter Holiday:
Monday 21 April: School closed for holiday.
Tuesday 22 April: all pupils return to school.
Wednesday 23 April: all S4-S6 pupils remain in school.
Thursday 24 April: Study leave commences for S4-S6 pupils with Computing and Psychology exams only. All other pupils are expected in school and Computing immersion class will be held.
Friday 25 April:
1st day of SQA exams for Computing & Psychology.
1st day of study leave for all other S4 –S6 pupils.
MGS Revision Resource Poster.pdf
Pupil Voice
Well done to Pupil Voice leaders and members for leading this week’s House Assemblies and giving the school updates on the excellent work that is being done. The Learning and Teaching group presented their work and aims first, followed by the Equality group. Members of the Royal High School’s Pupil Council are visiting MGS Pupil Voice on Wednesday 5 March and we have invited the Review Team to join that meeting.
We look forward to the next update!
Food Poverty
In RME this term we are supporting a local charity called the Trussell Trust.
The Trussell Trust is a charity that runs food banks that can be accessed from all over the country. They hand out food parcels for people in need.
Trussell Trust provided 124,893 meals to those in need in 2023/4. That’s an average of 2,400 every week.
Suggestions of donations that you could bring in are:
Tinned food, dried meat, pickles, pasta, biscuits, tinned soup, aubergine, beans, rice and cereal.
If anyone would like to bring any donations please give them to Mrs Craig in D1
Feedback on Skills Development Scotland’s (SDS) career service:
Parents and carers are key influencers over young people’s career ambitions and choices.
SDS works in close partnership with this school to support our young people to make informed career choices and they would value feedback from parents and carers on their services. You can do this by taking part in a short survey.
All responses are confidential and anonymous, and the results will be used to inform SDS services.
The survey should only take about 10 minutes to complete.
SQA Assessment and Assignment calendar
Almost all N5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses require pupils to complete an Assignment, Dissertation, practical performance or other assessment before the SQA exam diet.
These assessments must be completed and deadlines cannot be missed.
To help pupils and parents/ carers see what is required over the next few months and plan out study time accordingly, we have collated these in a spreadsheet for all parents and pupils. This can be found on our website under 'Students', also in 'Musselburgh Learns/SQA' and will be posted in the S4, S5 and S6 Google classrooms - so you can't miss it 😀.
Coursing
Coursing of all S2, S3, S4 & S5 pupils for next session has now concluded. This information will now be collated and we hope to finalise subject allocations for each pupil before the Easter break. Pupils will be issued with a letter when this process has been completed.
Any pupils that have missed their appointments due to SCP or other attendance out of school should see Mrs Watson after the February break.
A pupil feedback form can be found: https://forms.gle/v5GHRF17SUK7v3MHA
Please encourage your child(ren) to complete this to allow us to make improvements in future years.
ELW Coursing Information Evening for S3, S4 & S5
ELW would like to offer pupils, parents, carers the opportunity to join the next online course information session on Wednesday 26th February from 6:30pm using Google Classroom. Please see the information below:
ELW Course Information Evening
Wednesday, 26th February · 6:30 – 7:30pm
Time zone: Europe/London
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/juh-babp-qwu ( the link should work for both meetings )
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: 92%
S2: 89%
S3: 89%
S4: 90%
S5: 92%
S6: 91%
SQA Exam Diet 2025
Please follow this link to see the SQA Exam timetable for Spring 2025: Exam timetable and learner apps - SQA Please check the timetable as there have been some modifications to the original timetable.
School Medical Records
We are updating our school medical records to ensure that we hold the most up to date and accurate information for all our pupils.
If contacted, please return paperwork as soon as possible. In some cases this is vital to ensure access to school medical equipment in the case of an emergency.
If your child has a medical need that the school does not yet know about please contact our admin office mailbox.
Medical
Polio/Dip vaccinations
All S3 Boys and Girls and also some catch ups will have received a polio/dip/meningitis form.
Please return this to school asap.
The vaccines will take place on Thursday and Friday 20th/21st March 2025.
HPV VACCINE
All S1 and also some catch ups will take place on Tuesday 3rd June 2025. Please return your
form back to school asap.
MMR VACCINE - Catch ups (only if you received a blue form) will be vaccinated on Tuesday
3rd June 2025
Reminders to parents:
Asthma: emails have been sent out regarding returning Asthma consent forms. Please return these no later than Thursday 20th February. If your child requires an inhaler, this must be carried with them at all times.
Infection Control - if your child has had vomiting/diarrhoea, they should not return to school before 48h after the last episode. This helps limit the spread of any bugs - thank you for your co-operation.
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