MUSSELBURGH GRAMMAR SCHOOL

HEAD TEACHER'S NEWSLETTER

Friday 25th October 2024

Monday’s Inset day was a day of professional learning for all staff. We welcomed Lewis Paterson from the Scottish Government to talk us through an analysis of our attainment data, and then spent time in groups discussing learning and teaching strategies.

House assemblies this week have been led by Summer, Katie and Ailsa updating peers on what they have been doing since being appointed to the roles in June. We were also delighted to badge our new S3 junior leaders, Poppy Jones, Owen Craigie and Poppy Bichan at each assembly and look forward to working with them this year.

Have a lovely weekend.

Jodie Hannan

Key Dates

Tuesday 29 October: Senior Phase (combined S4-S6)

Wednesday 30 October: Fright Night for S1 pupils 6.30-8.30pm

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.

Staffing

Mrs Fullerton, Teacher of Business Studies, is moving to a new role at North Berwick High School on 11 November, and her job is currently advertised.

Parents’ Evenings dates

All Parents’ Evenings are in person 5-7pm.

Tuesday 29 October: Senior Phase (combined S4-S6)

Wednesday 11 December: S3

Tuesday 21 January: S2

Senior phase booking link available here. Appointments are still available with some teachers.

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: 92%

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.

Silver Duke of Edinburgh

Applications for the new Silver Duke of Edinburgh group will open this week for S4 and S5. The Silver Duke of Edinburgh award builds on the skills from Bronze and participants are required to complete activities for 3 sections (volunteering, skills and physical) as well as a walking expedition. Pupils can apply who have not done the Bronze award, it will just take longer to complete the sections.

Due to restrictions on sizes of walking groups for the expedition, and staffing, the number of pupils offered a place will be limited.

How much does it cost? Initial cost - £28 for the silver account which is needed to record activity. Expedition costs will be charged closer to the time and cover camp site fees and fuel.

A google form will be posted on Google Classroom for pupils to fill in and places allocated by mid November. You can find out more about the Award on the website: https://www.dofe.org/do/

Blythswood Shoe box appeal

Thank you to all the people who donated items for the shoe box appeal. We have 21 boxes being collected next week which will then be sent to countries in need, such as Ukraine, for Christmas.

House points update:

At the end of term 1 Caird are currently the winning house!

Mrs Tudor’s 3G1 class are the class of the term winning the most points out of all registration classes- well done!

Outdoor Learning group working with Archaeology Scotland

The Outdoor Learning group took part in a series of six, engaging workshops designed to introduce participants to archaeology and sustainability. Workshops encouraged pupils to apply classroom learning, from across the curriculum, in a workplace context while supporting the development of key meta skills such as curiosity, critical thinking, collaboration and problem solving. Pupils achieved a Heritage Explorer Award, one of Archaeology Scotland’s wider achievement awards.

Pupil Voice

We were very excited to hold our first official Pupil Voice meeting yesterday! We started off with ice breakers such as lining up in birthday order without talking then breaking off into pairs for '2 truths and a lie' so that pupils from across S1 to S6 could get to know each other a little better before moving on to team games that involved asking questions about learning and teaching, equality and rewarding pupil participation.

Thank you to everyone who came along to the meeting , this was the first of many meetings we are going to have! The class reps were split into groups and had a taster of what will be the future topics of discussion and focus points of the Pupil Voice.

The three groups were:

Eleanor Greene - Learning and Teaching

Keira McLennan - Support and House Points

Jasmin Notarangelo - Equality

The engagement was very high and the feedback from those involved was extremely positive. Every pupil present co-operated, collaborated and shared their ideas. - Summer Stirling S6, Head of Pupil Voice.

Head Team

We hope you all had a great October break!

Whilst looking at the new pupil leadership structure we noticed a lack of house representation. For this reason, each of the three head pupils are now captaining a house as shown below:

Ailsa - Caird

Summer - Grange

Katie - Moray

We are so excited about this new addition to our roles and all the house events to come this year. If you have any ideas for house events, please your designated head pupil or Mrs McElhaney in C9.

We also had one of the Senior Phase Parents evenings this week on Wednesday as well as one coming up next Tuesday. Thank you to all the prefects for your help with these events. It is great to continually get positive feedback about how helpful you all are.

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.pdf

S1 Fright Night

The best event of the year is here: FRIGHT NIGHT!

All S1s are invited to attend the annual Fright Night. Please see the poster for details. S1 parents have been emailed details and all tickets must be bought via iPay. There will be cash-only stalls and tuckshop on the night. Tickets must be bought by Monday 28th October.

Any questions should be directed to

Amy McElhaney: amcelhaney@edubuzz.org

Extra 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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