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HEAD TEACHER'S NEWSLETTER
Welcome to November!
It was great to see so many parents and carers at our Musselburgh Learns S1 Maths and Senior Phase curriculum events this week- please do remember to give us your feedback so we can keep improving what we do.
I think it’s safe to say that the S6s and S1s had a scarily enjoyable Fright Night last night with some fantastic costumes on show. It’s lovely to keep this S1/ S6 tradition going, with lots of seniors still remembering how much they enjoyed their S1 experience.
It’s Bonfire Night this Sunday so please see the important information from Police Scotland and the Fire Brigade below regarding firework safety.
Wishing you all a safe and enjoyable bonfire weekend.
Jodie Hannan
Key Dates
Tuesday 7 November: Musselburgh Learns N5 and Higher Maths for parents, carers and S4-S6 pupils 6.30-7.30pm.
Tuesday 14 November: Employability and Pathways evening for all S1-S6 parents and pupils 6-8pm.
Friday 17 November: Children in Need fundraising day.
Wednesday 22 November: Parent Council quiz from 7pm at the Store club, North High Street.
Monday 27 November: Prelims begin.
Tuesday 28 November: Parent Council briefing online 7-8pm. Please use this link: meet.google.com/mbn-eqdh-stc
Wednesday 19th December: S5/6 Christmas Dance
Staff
Welcome to Mr Donaldson who joins us in the Maths faculty.
Congratulations to Ms Holmes, Teacher of PE, who will take up post as temporary Pupil Support Leader across all Houses when Mr Aitchison leaves in mid November.
Firework Safety
Musselburgh Learns N5 and Higher Maths for parents, carers and S4-S6 pupils
Tuesday 7th November 1830 - 1930
Opportunity for N5 Apps, N5 Maths and Higher Maths students and parents to come to an evening looking at supporting your child through SQA Qualifications. We have two speakers from S6 who have taken different pathways but both are now successful learners in Advanced Higher Maths.
Following this there will be breakout presentations at the different levels of study.
Parent Council Update
Musselburgh is further west than Bristol – true or false?
Who is the best team in our school community? Who knows the most about music, general knowledge and quirky events? Soon you’ll have your chance to prove it! On Wednesday 22nd November the Parent Council is going to have their first ever pub quiz. Join us from 7pm onwards at the Store Club, North High Street. All welcome. You don’t have to be a member of Parent Council to join us.
The Quiz will start at 7:30pm. Prizes to be won! Prize amount will be taken from the team entry fees – so the more people we have participating the bigger the prize will be. Further details to follow, for now SAVE THE DATE, get a team together and think of your team name. 🏆
Fundraising
I know that finances are tight right now with there being many demands on a family’s income. In acknowledgement of this and while also supporting charities chosen by our young people, I am taking inspiration from the motto ‘that charity begins at home’. This means that the school takes 30% of any funds raised to go to the school’s Equity and Hardship Fund which supports our school and young people to be fully included in all aspects of school life, including excursions. This means we can support the young people’s chosen charities and raise funds for our own use at the same time. It means that we reduce the amount of times we come out to our school community asking for donations. I have taken advice from the Parent Council and a professional fundraiser so I know that as long as I make sure everyone knows this in advance, this meets fundraising legislation requirements. If you have any concerns about this model please let me know.
Senior Phase Study Support Programme
Scottish Youth Parliament
Thanks to Max McKenzie in S6, and Olivia Brown, the current Scottish Youth Parliament Home - Scottish Youth Parliament (syp.org.uk) representative for the Musselburgh area for their SYP presentations at this week’s House Assemblies.
The Scottish Youth Parliament is a valuable way for young peoples’ voices to be heard and aligns with UNCRC Article 12- Respect for Children’s views, Article 15- setting up or joining groups and Article 17- access to information.
Olivia is gathering young peoples’ views via:
Pupils will need their Young Scot card to vote using the QR code below ●Voting opens on November 6th and lasts until November 19th. Results will be known on the 20th November.
Developing the Young Workforce
CAN YOU HELP?
Can you share your skills, experiences, knowledge and pathways with our students.? We would love to expand our industry links and work with individuals/businesses to bring them into the classroom. We would welcome links/visits from any sector - care, fashion, film food, music, theatre, entertainment, technologies to name a few.
Rochelle Oliver (an ex pupil and parent of an S1 pupil) spent a morning last week with Business pupils about her job as a Financial Advisor. She brought concepts taught in the class to a real life context and answered many questions on personal and financial investment.
Jonathon Morrice (an ex pupil) has been working with a N5 Practical Woodwork class, supporting and inspiring the pupils with his knowledge and experience from his work in construction.
Claire Cornet (ex pupil and parent of S3 pupil) is pencilled in to deliver a session to build the skills around HR practice (employee relations and people management) to senior business pupils in January.
Please get in touch if you would be interested in supporting our learners pathways in any way and sharing your industry with our learners. Any sector is welcome.
Christmas Fayre
It's that time of year again where many departments and pupils across the school are planning for the School Christmas Fayre. It is a fantastic event where the pupils gain valuable entrepreneurial skills. The fayre is free and we would love to see you on the 2nd December supporting our pupil stalls and joining us to get into festive spirits. If you want more information please contact Mrs Donnelly or Mrs Fullerton.
Tech Donation Box - Edinburgh Remakery
This week we heard from the Remakery project in House Assemblies. The boxes will stay in schools for around one month and will provide an easy and secure way for students and their families to donate their old personal tech devices to be refurbished and reused. Having these boxes placed in schools enables young people to become part of a project which encourages achievable actions that support the climate and help make Edinburgh a Greener City.
Our Assemblies have informed pupils about e-waste, its impact on the environment, and explain how the Tech Donation Boxes provide an achievable and accessible way people can take action, whilst promoting environmental sustainability and supporting our people and our planet. A portion of all the repairable devices that are donated to us are gifted for free to members of our community who are facing financial hardship in order to help them overcome digital poverty and social isolation.
In 2022, we saved 83,087kg (CO2e) in CO2 emissions – equivalent to 100 million smartphones being fully charged, or 1,400 trees grown for 10 years. If you have any old devices that you no longer use and would like to be part of this refurbishment project, please drop them into our Tech Donation Box at the front of the school.
Dementia Choir
Over the last few weeks the dementia choir's wider achievements have been preparing for working with a group of older people who live with dementia. We have been learning more about the condition of making a lovely wall display that can be seen outside the music department. Finally after weeks of planning a small group of pupils went to St Andrews church to meet with the group of older people that we will be working with. We sat with them and discussed what it is we would like to do with them and they would like to do with us. After we had these discussions we spent some time talking to the members and getting to know them a little better taking part in activities such as puzzles, crosswords, making autumn reefs and even just sitting and having a cup of tea and a chat. All the members were very welcoming and made us all feel very welcomed. As of this Friday our first group of young people will be heading back to the church to take part in some singing activities with the group. We have chosen Christmas songs to sing with them as they are very keen to sing some Christmas songs for their Christmas party. After our visit on Friday our visits will become a monthly thing we’re we go and meet with groups taking part in different activities not always singing and after a while our second group will go this is so that the members can get used to the first group before introducing a bunch of new faces. We have all really enjoyed these visits and can’t wait to continue them.
‘The Wrap Up, with Charlie & Eva’
Welcome to another edition of ‘The Wrap Up, with Charlie & Eva’, this has been a big week. We hope everyone is ready for the weekend (we certainly are), so let’s get into it!!
This week our very own beekeepers had their first ever graded hive inspection! One at a time each of them went out to the MGS apiary and performed a full hive inspection with their beekeeping teacher, we hope everyone who’s done it had fun and did well, and also wish that all of those who are still to do it good luck!
Over the past few weeks some of our S5s and S6s have taken part in voluntary training to become a Mentor in Violence Prevention here at MGS. This week saw those MVPs give their first presentations to S1s and S2s, talking to them about gender stereotypes, gendered violence, and how things such as verbal abuse can impact someone
It’s almost prelim time! For some of you this will be the first year with exams and prelims so make sure to get revising and preparing for your prelims, they start on the 27th of this month and run through to December! However they are just prelims and while they’re used for things like tracking, there’s always a chance to improve upon them for your real exams so use it as an opportunity to improve and expand your knowledge!
This week we had some amazing assemblies about the upcoming youth Parliament vote. We heard from our current representative, Olivia Brown, and why she believes we should vote to re-elect her, as well as from our very own Max McKenzie and why he believes he’d be the best fit for the role. Make sure to consider both candidates and to cast your vote!
Yesterday the S6s and S1s got all dressed up for our annual fright night! Everyone did a fantastic job and had an amazing time both during the scary school tours and the groovy disco we had afterwards! We’d like to give a big thank you to all the S6s who helped plan and carry out the event, as well as thank all of the staff who stayed for it to help as well!
Thank you for reading this week’s ‘The Wrap Up with Charlie and Eva’. We hope you’ve had a good week and are gonna take this weekend as a chance to rest and relax! See you next week!
DofE Voluntary Work
It’s A Wrap!
The S3 Bronze Duke of Edinburgh group have been busy these past couple of months wrapping shoe boxes, collecting items and filling them with donations. Today 22 shoe boxes are making their way to the Blythswood Shoe Box Appeal who will distribute these small Christmas gifts to people in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine.
Well done to the pupils for their hard work and their time volunteering. Thank you also to the pupils, staff and the wider community of Musselburgh Grammar school for all your kind donations.
MGS Girls Football
Smiles all round for our girls football team last night who played in their first match of the season. They played in a 7-a-side round robin tournament with Rosehill and Knox Academy. With our girls winning both of their matches!
We would like to give a special mention to Ellen and Rose who both played in their first EVER match last night and absolutely smashed it after only a few weeks of training!
We would also like to say special thanks to Rosehill players Belle and Lily who joined us to give us an extra few players.
Well done girls we are super proud of you all and look forward to seeing what the rest of the season will bring for you!
If any other pupils are interested in joining our girls football team we train every Wednesday 4 - 5pm at Pinkie and we are open to all experience levels. For more information and to sign pupils up please see link below to our online booking system:
https://eastlothian.bookinglive.com/home/active-schools/active-schools-musselburgh-grammar
Science Faculty Scientists of The Month
Mrs Kivlichan - Daniel Barrett
Mr Natta - Lucy Fleck
Dr Brown - Isla Robertson
Mrs Duff - Tess Devlin
Mr Crawford - Asia McIntyre
Mr Jarvie - Michael Doyle
Miss Ferguson - Cole McLeod
Mr Dewar - Melissa Tomlins
Healthy Respect Drop In
All are welcome to the NHS Health Hub at the Gatehouse at Lewisvale Park every Friday During term time from 12pm-1.30pm.
Lost Property
There are lots of items of lost property in the Medical Room. Please check if any of them are yours.
Employability Pathway 2023
Please save the date, all welcome. If you are a business or know of any businesses who would like to secure a spot. Please contact the school or alternatively email, employability@musselburghgrammar.elcschool.org.
Newsletter Archive
There's an archive section on the newsletter site with all of the previous newsletters organised by date. It can be viewed by clicking on 'Archive' in the menu or using this link: https://bit.ly/ht-newsletter-archive.
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