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HEAD TEACHER'S NEWSLETTER
Dear Musselburgh community,
The February break is just around the corner and I’m sure we are all looking forward to it.
I know, and understand, your concerns about recent events with groups of pupils gathering after school. Please be assured that we are working closely with Police Scotland to identify and take action with those involved, and that your child/ren’s safety is my priority. Staff are present at the front and back gates after school to deal with situations that may arise, and there will also be a police presence at the end of the school day today.
Covid restrictions in school have eased enough to allow us to have small assemblies, and Mr Scott and Mrs Ormerod held assemblies with S1 on Thursday, and with S2 and S3 this morning, to talk about our school’s ethos of being ready to learn, respectful and safe, as well as the importance of teamwork and making positive choices in school.
S4 will have an ethos assembly on Monday with Ms Craigie and I, and S5 and S6 will have theirs after the February break.
Staffing
We bid farewell to Mr May, Teacher of Mathematics, who leaves us today to take up post in Midlothian. Thank you for your service to our school, and we wish you all the best for the next stage of your career.
We are unfortunately still experiencing challenges recruiting Maths teachers due to the national shortage, and Mr Mackay, Principal Teacher of Mathematics, will detail the plans in place in next week's newsletter.
Key Dates
Monday 14-Friday 18 February: February break
Monday 21 February: Inservice day for staff only
Tuesday 22 February: All pupils return to school
Wednesday 23 February: Parent Council online 7-9pm.
Please use this link to access the meeting: https://meet.google.com/sxp-mkbc-vke?authuser=0&hs=122
Best wishes for a lovely weekend.
Parent Council
The next Parent Council meeting will be held on Wednesday 23rd February. Parent Council meetings are run by parents and carers, for parents and carers. Ms Hannan and other staff members join us to share invaluable updates and representatives from the Pupil Voice add their important news too. We are fortunate that the Head Pupils also come along and contribute – it is wonderful to be joined by these all young people. The link to the meeting will be shared on the School App and in the HT newsletter.
As a PC we realise that there is going to be an increased need for us to support the school with fundraised income. To make that easy and to offer something back to you we’re trying out 2 ‘new to us’ opportunities. The first is via easyfundraising.org.uk click through this site before you shop online and earn us some donations at no cost to you. There’s an app you can download to your smartphone too.
The second is that we have joined the East Lothian Community Lottery. Ross High have raised over £4,400 so we’re hoping we can do the same…or better! Match all 6 numbers and you could win £25,000! Tickets only cost £1 per week and if you sign up now you go in the draw to win a £1,000 Sainsbury’s gift card. We urgently need to sell 50 tickets soon to keep our slot in the community lottery, please help us if you can.
Thank you – keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter – maybe we’ll see you at our next meeting?
Shona Blakeley & Andrew Horrell, Co-Chairs
Lateness Policy
Our lateness policy was rolled out at the start of January and we are delighted that it has already had a positive impact. We have noticed a 21% decrease in overall lateness since the first week of term, with a 64% decrease in pupils late to school on Fridays.
Staff are noticing fewer disruptions to teaching and learning caused by increased punctuality, whereby pupils are ready to learn promptly at the start of lessons.
We would appreciate your feedback regarding the new procedure to inform our next steps to further improve punctuality.
Please complete the short survey: https://forms.gle/Xo8xjzGTNBocLw5j6
The lateness policy is on the website in Our School > School Policies or through access using link: https://bit.ly/mgs-latenesspolicy
Thank you for your support.
Mrs Donnelly & Ms Ryan
VSER
This year we are continuing to review our faculties through our validated self-evaluation review process. This year we will be reviewing the Expressive Arts Faculty. This includes the Music and Art departments. Through focus groups we are keen to get your views on how this faculty delivers positive outcomes for your child. If you would like to be involved in this focus group could you please fill in the google form below:
https://forms.gle/kNDYBK4VnGyEB7Nx9
The focus group will be online and will last for no longer than 45 minutes. The dates of this review are 9th of February – 10th of February. I will be in touch to confirm times once we have collated names.
Thank you in advance for your support with this.
Mrs Ormerod
Empathy Fortnight
Our whole school focus on Empathy has involved junior pupils learning about the importance of kindness and manners, and seniors discussing the importance of empathy as an employability skill. These inputs and conversations will continue into next term and beyond and link to our school work on Character and Values.
Thank you to our Empathy Reporters Sophie Hill, Michael Underhill, Leah Durham, Lauren Hollings, Astrid Morris, Taylor Smith and Tapha Seydi who collectively observed and recorded 124 individual examples of empathy in action over Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Well done to all our pupils who were observed being kind, holding doors open for others, checking in with peers and being empathetic in so many other ways too.
LGBT History Month
February marks the start of our month-long celebration of LGBT History Month. At MGS we continue to support and celebrate all LGBTQ+ identities in pupils, staff and our community. We are keen to continue our action plan to increase our supports, celebrations and development of an inclusive curriculum this year and beyond. This work links to our school value of Respect.
Our S6 Equalities Captains have shown great leadership and have done a superb job in organising a range of activities this month including new displays, updates to PSE lessons and a variety of awareness raising and fundraising events too. Listen and look out for information about Purple Friday (Fri 25th Feb) in the coming weeks.
S1 and S2 Interdisciplinary Learning
In September, we asked our S1 and S2 pupils which Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) they were learning about in school and which goals they’d like to know more about. Their responses have helped us plan interdisciplinary units of work that are being delivered this term!
S1 pupils have been learning about Learning for Sustainability and the goals in Citizenship. In addition to this, they’ve specifically explored SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production by designing sustainable packaging in Art and Design, based on the work they’ve been doing in Food, Fabric and Care.
S2 pupils are about to explore SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities by considering racism and society in Modern Studies and they will use this understanding to design anti-racist campaigns in English. These issues will also feed into their work in Modern Languages.
Keep an eye on our @LfSatMGS Twitter or Google Site to see a gallery of our pupils’ designs and work!
Free Bus Travel for Under 22s - National Entitlement Card (NEC)
MGS Office staff are able to verify pupil details for new NEC cards e.g. name, address. A recent photo is required to accompany the form, therefore once verified, the form will then be handed back to the pupil to take to a local library. The library will be able to take a photo for the card and process the application. Many thanks.
Medical - S3 and S4 Vaccinations
Polio Diphtheria vaccinations for S3 and S4 pupils (and pupils catching up) will take place on Tuesday 8th February in the Hall. A reminder to pupils to check Register Class times on the timetable outside Ms Harvey’s room. Many thanks
PE Uniforms
The PE department would like to remind all pupils and parents/carers that it is school policy that pupils come to school in school uniform and get changed into PE kit for PE lessons.
This is to ensure that pupil hygiene is maintained, and that pupil safety during lessons is a priority.
PE kit should be:
a change of t-shirt/polo shirt/sweatshirt
a change of joggers/leggings/shorts
appropriate flat soled trainers
all jewellery should be removed
long hair should be tied back
The PE dept would like to thank you for your continued support with this issue.
Thank you, Mr MacDonald
Musselburgh Crusaders Club
Musselburgh Crusaders’ Riding Club is offering 8 pupils from Musselburgh Grammar School the chance to take part in a 4 week riding and horse care course at Edinburgh and Lasswade Riding Centre. This will include riding lessons in the indoor school and an opportunity to learn about grooming the horses and looking after the stable. On completion of the course, pupils will receive a rosette and a certificate which can be used towards their continuous personal development module. We have already run successful courses for primary school and Grammar pupils during November and December 2018 and March 2019. The next riding course will commence in March 2022.
The cost of this course is being heavily subsidised by the Musselburgh Old Course Ladies Golf Section and Musselburgh Crusaders’ Riding Club to ensure there are no financial barriers for children in the area.
We have selected 8 girls this time around who are all going to benefit greatly from this experience.
East Lothian Secondary Schools Cross Country!
This week we had 30 S1 – S6 pupils representing Musselburgh Grammar School in the East Lothian Secondary Schools Cross Country at Vogrie Country Park. With all pupils involved running a tough 3.35km (2.1mile) long route which consisted of both uphill and downhill sections. Our S2 Girls team placed 2nd in the year group’s event and Mia Robertson finished in 3rd place in the S3 race. With Musselburgh Grammar School receiving 3rd place overall!
A huge well done to all pupils involved. You are a credit to the school and we are all extremely proud of all your efforts. What a great day out it was and we hope this event was the first of many more East Lothian Secondary School competitions to come!
Special Sports Mention!
We are extremely delighted for Rosie Livingstone who scored the fifth goal of the afternoon v St Johnstone for Hibernian Ladies last Sunday. Rosie has worked so hard in training and matches in her transition from Hibernian Girls Academy to joining Hibernian Women's senior squad. We are all so extremely proud of you and look forward to seeing you continue to develop and progress this season. Miss Hall
MGS School App
Many thanks to those who have already downloaded the app. We have been pleased to see such high numbers of parents and carers using it. Following the February break, we will be using the app to communicate whole school and year group information, rather than group call messages. A reminder of how to download the app is outlined below.
Click on the app store links below or search for ‘School App for Parents’.
Apple App Store: https://apple.co/2Gvy17w
Google Play Store: http://bit.ly/2uZIrGf
A green app named ‘School App for Parents’ will appear. Download this app.
Once the app opens, search for ‘Musselburgh Grammar School’
You may be asked to receive notifications from the app, accept this so you can receive messages from the school via the app.
Engineering Event with Siemens
We have a fantastic Engineering Event with Siemens coming up we thought you'd love to hear about! More details are below.
On Tuesday 8th February from 5:00pm - 6:00pm we’re hosting a virtual Siemens inclusive-to-all Engineering event as they give us an insight into their $50 billion turnover operation with a focus on their mobility arm of the business.
“The mobility environment is being shaped by three megatrends: climate change, population growth and digitalisation. These trends demand for seamless, sustainable, reliable, and secure mobility solutions to ensure a high quality of life for 9.6 billion people worldwide by 2050.”
Find out more about the way Siemens is continuously transforming the way we travel, through intelligent road infrastructure and traffic solutions in and between cities. We’ll also gain an insight to their high-speed train systems, traffic management, simulation, tunnel management, digital services driven by AI, shared autonomous driving and much more.
Come and hear about the wide range of opportunities within Siemens Mobility and see if a career at Siemens could be for you in the future.
If you’d like to know more about careers at one of the biggest companies in the world driving change and innovation on all levels of life this insight event is for you.
Click the link below to join us:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Siemens-Engineering
Feel free to share this with anyone you know interested in engineering or technology.
We look forward to welcoming you to the event.
Josh Elder
Head of Marketing
Instagram: @youngprouk Twitter: @youngprouk
E: josh.elder@young-professionals.uk
Recruitment Morning at Fenton Barns Nursery on 12 February between 10am and 1pm
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Em & Nic's Not-So-Secret Diary
Happy Friday everyone! We hope you have all had a lovely week.
To begin, we'd like to congratulate the school on their efforts in this week's cross country championships which were held against all East Lothian schools. The MGS team came in third place, and we are extremely proud of everyone who took part!
Our third, fourth, and fifth years are in the process of choosing their course subjects right now. It is critical that you select the appropriate courses for yourself as well as those for a university or college course that you may consider applying to in the future. The best approach to find out the subject you need is by going onto the college or university's website to find out what you should study in your National 5s and Higher.
We are currently in the process of planning a charity football match for our senior students which will take place in the upcoming weeks. We are hoping to raise money for Young Minds which is a mental health charity which we feel helps young people greatly.
We would also like to remind you that our school app is now LIVE! Please go and download it on the app stores if you haven't already in order to keep up with the latest news in and around school.
Again as always thank you to all students for abiding by the guidelines and continuing to wear our face coverings throughout the building and applying hand sanitiser at the appropriate times. We really appreciate you going to these lengths to not only keep ourselves safe but also our staff and families at home too.
See you all next week,
Em & Nic
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