Assemblies – the school chaplains deliver periodic assemblies and this week they were exploring the idea of ‘passion’.\u00a0 Some time ago when we had been looking at the theme we had planned to speak of the need to work hard at things you are passionate about.\u00a0 However with recent events around the world we adapted the focus to also include the idea of strong passions\u00a0becoming\u00a0destructive.\u00a0 We are fortunate to have a group of chaplains who can communicate with youngsters in a way which helps them gain insight into the wider world.<\/p>\n
Events in Paris – I have also been giving consideration to recent events as we are due to have a school trip going to Paris and Belgium in late May.\u00a0 I have written to parents of all 3 excursions (Paris, London and Argeles Sur Mer) as there are deposits to be paid and decisions to be made.\u00a0\u00a0Once I have heard back from parents and pupils we will reach decisions on how to proceed.<\/p>\n
S1 Parents’ meetings – It was fantastic to welcome parents of S1 pupils to the school to meet with teachers.\u00a0 We have been very pleased with how the S1s have settled into the school and I was really encouraged to see so many parents taking an active interest in how things are going.\u00a0 On the evening we also took the opportunity to ask around 50 parents to give us some feedback on school improvement.<\/p>\n
Parent Council and PTA – It was also really good to meet Carol Eddie (Chair of the Parent Council) and Carol Bremner (Chair of the PTA) this week.\u00a0 These meetings are a way for us to keep challenging each other to find new ways to\u00a0involve and inform parents.\u00a0 Parents\u00a0should have a very strong voice\u00a0in\u00a0improving your school and we will keep trying to help make this possible.\u00a0 It was also great to hear that the recent PTA quiz night had raised just over \u00a3560 – thanks to all involved.<\/p>\n
Pupil voice and participation – Pupils should\u00a0also have a very strong voice in shaping school improvement and with this in mind we have been working with a group\u00a0on a wider\u00a0consultation on improving the school grounds.\u00a0\u00a0Work is at an early stage but we want pupils to see that their views can lead to positive and meaningful\u00a0improvements.\u00a0\u00a0.\u00a0\u00a0Over recent years pupils have reviewed the vision, values and behaviours of the school, they have also redesigned the school uniform.\u00a0 I know many of the current extra curricular activities have arisen from pupil suggestions\u00a0and some (eg Rock challenge, Harlaw Defenders) are being led by pupils.\u00a0 We are also working with Skills Development Scotland to train a group of S5 pupils as ambassadors for “My World of Work” – this will allow them to train pupils, staff and parents in this powerful careers programme.\u00a0 In many schools pupils can be passive recipients of what is dished out – I want Harlaw Academy pupils to be active participants in the life and work of their school.<\/p>\n
Successes and events:\u00a0 This week saw the S1 football team move into the next round of the Scottish cup with a big win away at Auchmuty.\u00a0 The S3 team moved up to second in their league (with a game in hand).\u00a0 Two of our senior players were at the trials for the International Squad – Seyon Kosheodo S5 and Lewis Liversedge S6 will hear soon how they got on.\u00a0 On Friday a group of around 40 senior languages students\u00a0visited the Belmont cinema for a screening of a French film.\u00a0 Through the week we had activities running as part of ‘Book Week Scotland’.\u00a0 We also had 5 pupils taking part in the Scottish Schools Swimming time Trials – Hannah Fenwick S4, Zoe Walker S4, Amy Allan S3, Rebecca Reid S2 and Hannah Holland s1.\u00a0 We are hopeful a few will qualify for the nationals later in the school session. We also had 3 pupils taking part in\u00a0a Scottish Schools Indoor Rowing event.\u00a0 Daniel Lynch S3 was 1st, Christos Bardas S2 was 3rd and Jacub Zbikowski S2 was 5th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Assemblies – the school chaplains deliver periodic assemblies and this week they were exploring the idea of ‘passion’.\u00a0 Some time ago when we had been looking at the theme we had planned to speak of the need to work hard at things you are passionate about.\u00a0 However with recent events around the world we adapted […]<\/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":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-blog","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811","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=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/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=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}