Choices (Course choice):\u00a0 There is a lot of work going on at present to ensure pupils can make informed choices.\u00a0 Our S2 pupils have the chance to choose a broad ‘pathway to follow in S3 giving them some specialisation but ensuring that they are not locked into life changing decisions from a very young age.\u00a0 Our S3s, having had a year on their chosen pathway, are selecting 6 courses to study in S4.\u00a0 Our S4 and S5 pupils have different decisions to make – by now they are reaching an age where school is only one of the routes available to them and we do all can to help those who decide to leave us\u00a0to move into what is called a ‘positive and sustained destination’.\u00a0 Many pupils at this stage decide to return to school but they need to see this as a positive decision which they will\u00a0sustain through to some positive results.\u00a0\u00a0I do not want pupils to return because they\u00a0don’t know what\u00a0else to do – they should return with a clear sense of purpose and with a commitment to do all they can to achieve their ambitions.\u00a0 Which leads me on to our S6s – they know they have to leave and they often have offers for\u00a0what they are doing\u00a0post school.\u00a0\u00a0This can be a real problem because\u00a0some think\u00a0they can\u00a0switch off from school work.\u00a0\u00a0Anyone with an\u00a0offer\u00a0should check the ‘small print’ of their offers – almost all indicate that a drop off in S6\u00a0could result in the offer being withdrawn.\u00a0 Even if that is not the case personal pride and satisfaction should be motivation to see courses through to a successful outcome.<\/p>\n
Choices and Changes (SQA):\u00a0 At the information evenings we spoke of changes being proposed by SQA for next session.\u00a0 We have looked at what is being proposed and it would be fair to say we are extremely concerned at what is proposed.\u00a0 The changes relate only to National 5 courses next session and they will see the removal of course units but with an increase in the length of exams.\u00a0 In several cases we are looking at exams running for two and a half hours at National 5!\u00a0 Youngsters with additional support needs and are entitles to extra time in exams may be almost 3 hours in the exam.\u00a0 The removal of units will also make it impossible for a youngster who narrowly missed National 5 to gain a National 4 and is in my view a backward step which will impact most on the more vulnerable pupils should be\u00a0trying to support the most.\u00a0 We await information on how the system will cope with pupils who are taking National 5 over two years.\u00a0 I know teachers, parents and pupils are concerned about all of these issues and will continue to try and seek the reassurances we all require at this time of uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Changes (Google drive\/Google Classroom):\u00a0 This week we had a meeting with the Head Teachers from the 4 Primary schools linked with Harlaw Academy.\u00a0 It is always good to meet our Primary colleagues and we are making really good progress on a wide range of issues which will support pupils as they\u00a0move from Primary to Secondary.\u00a0 What made this meeting different was that we tried to run it as a paperless meeting sharing documents within Google Drive.\u00a0 We were keen to try to work in this way because we want to work this way within our schools and ultimately work like this between the schools.\u00a0 A couple of education officers were at the meeting and were very impressed not only at the work we were discussing but also at the way in which we were working.\u00a0\u00a0We have a lot to learn about the technology\u00a0but we have made a good start\u00a0and\u00a0are keen to see this develop\u00a0new and exciting\u00a0opportunities for our pupils.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Choices (Course choice):\u00a0 There is a lot of work going on at present to ensure pupils can make informed choices.\u00a0 Our S2 pupils have the chance to choose a broad ‘pathway to follow in S3 giving them some specialisation but ensuring that they are not locked into life changing decisions from a very young age.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parents","category-weekly-blog","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}