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Dear Parents and Carers, I’ve kept the links to the two Scottish Government reviews in this week's update just to make sure parents have had the chance to contribute. We are anticipating significant changes to the exam system over the next few years, and it is important everyone's opinions are heard. There is also the opportunity for the parents of pupils who sat exams in May 2022 to give their views on the exam and appeals service. Mr Neil Ewing Acting Head Teacher Today’s update contains 13 notices 1. Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment/Hayward Review 2. National Discussion Scottish Education 3. Family Fridays @KGS 4. University of Edinburgh Adolescents’ wellbeing, resilience, and stress-coping study 5. KGS Parent Council 6. To Parents and carers of pupils who sat SQA exams in spring 2022 7. E-sgoil Study support for senior pupils 8. Celebrating Success 9. Cost of Living Crisis Support Scotland 10. Free school meals and clothing allowances 11. Billie Theatre Performance 12. Tracking and Monitoring of pupils’ Health and Wellbeing 13. Injuries that require crutches to be used. 1. Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment/Hayward Review For your information, the public consultation for the Independent Review of SQA Qualifications and Assessment/Hayward Review is now live. Links to the public consultation can be found below. https://www.gov.scot/groups/independent-review-of-qualifications-and-assessment/ 2. National Discussion Scottish Education We would encourage as many parents as possible to engage in the national discussion regarding the future of Scottish education. You can find all the resources here: https://consult.gov.scot/national-discussion-scottish-education/ 3. Family Fridays @KGS Over the course of this session the Parent Council would like to invite parents into KGS on Friday mornings for school visits. The visits would be in small groups and run between 10am and 11am. Each visit would include a tour of the school in action, a chat with the Senior Leadership team over a cup of coffee, and a visit to some classrooms. The next visit will be on Friday 18th November and parents can email parent.council@glow.orkneyschools.org.uk by Wednesday 16th November to book a place. 4. University of Edinburgh Adolescents’ wellbeing, resilience, and stress-coping study The aim of this study is to understand how parents’ thoughts in parenting make differences to adolescents’ wellbeing, resilience, and stress-coping. This study is conducted completely online and will take less than 15 minutes from parents, and less than 10 minutes for adolescents to complete. Please see attached poster for full information (including QR codes to the online survey and the researcher contact).  5. KGS Parent Council
The next meeting of the KGS Parent Council is at 6pm on Tuesday 15th November in the conference room at KGS. Please email parent.council@glow.orkneyschools.org.uk for more details Securing the Best Outcomes (Joe McCall) 6. To Parents and carers of pupils who sat SQA exams in spring 2022 SQA is currently carrying out a large-scale evaluation of the 2022 approach to National Qualifications assessment. Part of this includes gathering views from parents and carers on the Appeals 2022 service. They have a panel of parents and carers who take part in occasional surveys for SQA. If you would like to take part, please sign up using this link. www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/96570.html. The survey will be open until Friday 2 December. 7. E-sgoil Study support for senior pupils A reminder that Webinars are now available in almost all subjects Registration for Evening Webinars will be via the link below. (Pupils must log on to Glow before accessing the link to the registration form, and should check the timetable carefully before choosing the webinars they wish to attend.) https://www.e-sgoil.com/study-support/ Promoting Positive Behaviour and Relationships (Mr Harvey) 8. Celebrating Success At KGS we are keen to reward pupils for hard work, effort and generally doing well. This is done by issuing House Points. Each week the registration class that receives the most House Points receives a prize which you may have seen shared on our website and Facebook page. We have also started issuing individual certificates when pupils amass 20 or more House Points in a term. These are emailed to both pupil and parent/carer. Look out for these in your email inbox during the term Securing the Highest Level of Universal Support (Ms Devlin) 9. Cost of Living Crisis Support Scotland A new Scottish Government website has been launched to signpost advice and financial support available to people in Scotland. It includes information about support with increasing energy bills, Scottish and UK social security payments and benefits, support with housing costs, payments for families, as well as where to get further advice, benefit calculators, and wider health and wellbeing information. The website can be accessed at the link below: https://costofliving.campaign.gov.scot 10. Free school meals and clothing allowances Orkney Islands Council provides assistance with free school meals and clothing allowances to families on a low income who meet the eligibility criteria. The current clothing allowance is £120.00 per eligible primary child and £150.00 per eligible secondary child. More information can be found here: https://www.orkney.gov.uk/Service-Directory/S/School-Meals-and-Clothing-Allowances.htm 11. Billie Theatre Performance A reminder that on Wednesday 16th Nov S3 & S4 pupils will have the opportunity to watch the production of “Billie” by Rolled Up Theatre This production explores through the eyes of young people, the prevalence, impact, and effects gambling can have on individuals, families, friends, and the wider community. The play does include reference to a range of risk-taking behaviours, drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc, as well as references to death and bereavement. There is mild swearing. Following the 35-minute play, there will be a short interactive facilitated session that will pose questions and raise awareness's on several areas in the play and a range of risk-taking behaviours. It will endeavour to empower the audience to make more informed choices and decision making. 12. Tracking and Monitoring of pupils’ Health and Wellbeing The tracking and monitoring of how pupils are progressing in their subjects is a very important part of the work that staff here at KGS do. Making sure that we are also aware of how pupils are coping with aspects of their health and well-being is equally important. So that we can support any concerns that our pupils may have that we are unaware of, they will be undertaking a simple survey in their PSE lesson, as part of our usual Tracking and Monitoring processes. This will take place over the next two weeks. Following this, we will try to make sure that we are able to offer support to any pupil where there is a concern. Pupils will be sent an e-mail with the link to the survey on it on Monday morning. Please reassure your child that they are not expected to do the survey at home but will get help with it in PSE. The survey will ask pupils around 10 questions, based on aspects of their health and well-being. Questions will include topics on how safe they feel, how they feel about their achievements and how included they feel. Given that the pupils have the survey in their e-mails, feel free to look at it with them at home. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with Ms Devlin or Mrs Firth if you would like further information. 13. Injuries that require crutches to be used. If your child gets an injury that will require them to use crutches or a wheelchair for a time in school, we would be grateful if you let their Guidance teacher know before they return to school if possible. This is because a special fire safety routine will be organised, to ensure that pupils can exit the building safely in the event of a fire. In addition, pupils using crutches may need to leave lessons slightly early to give time for them to get to the next lesson and avoid crowds in the corridors. Comments are closed.
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