Dear Parents and Carers

Thank you for your help and support to ensure pupils returned to school this week ready to learn.  We remain incredibly proud of their engagement in lessons and their understanding whilst covid-mitigations remain in place.  Please can we ask parents to keep encouraging their child to do twice-weekly lateral flow tests and to log the results online - whether positive or negative.  This helps public health have a clear understanding of possible transmission across Orkney. Thank you for your support with this.

We are grateful for your support with encouraging pupils to wear their dress code too – this is a simple, but powerful, way of showing we are all part of the KGS community.  We have recently worked with the pupil council to review this and an updated copy can be found on the ‘About Us’ page of our website: http://www.kgsorkney.com/about-kgs.html

We are disappointed that our S1 Parents’ Evening cannot take place in school next week although we hope the online event proves to be a brilliant opportunity for parents and teachers to start to get to know each other.  If you have any questions about the evening, please feel free to contact your child’s guidance teacher.  We are still committed to welcoming our S1 parents to the school for a face-to-face event as soon as possible.

We would like to remind parents of pupils in any year group that if you have any questions, no matter how big or small, please don’t hesitate to contact us.  Your child’s guidance teacher will always be happy to answer any questions and they are able to facilitate a call or meeting with other staff, as appropriate, so please don’t feel like you need to wait for a formal parents’ event to talk with us.

On Monday morning our new Celebrating Success programme will be launched with pupils through their tutor groups. As before pupils can be awarded, by staff, house points for any positive contribution to school life. This can be excellent work, achievement in sport, helping others being positive role models and contribution to KGS. Each week, tutor groups will be able to see how many house points their tutor group has been awarded and there will be prizes for the group with the most points. At the end of the year the house with the most points wins the house cup. In addition, staff and pupils will be able to nominate pupils for an “above and beyond award” which will celebrate outstanding achievements or contributions by KGS pupils. The above and beyond certificate will then be emailed to the pupils and their parent or carer.

Although we are aware of some of our pupils' achievements outside of school, could any parents with success stories for KGS pupils please email: [email protected] who will collate success stories and celebrate these achievements on the school website at the end of each term.

Finally, we were hoping to be able to discuss the school’s development plan priorities with parents during face-to-face sessions.  Since covid-mitigations remain in place for at least a little longer, we would like to start this discussion virtually.  From next week, we will share a link to a survey with parents which will take less than 30 seconds to complete.  The survey is anonymous although there is an option to leave your details if you’d be happy for us to follow up on your feedback.  Your thoughts are important to us so thank you in advance for your help.
 
Please find below 6 additional (external) notices:

1. Kirsty and Brian from VAO (Voluntary Action Orkney) will be in school on Wednesday 3rd November at lunchtime for a drop in. Pupils can find them by the theatre doors, no appointment necessary. 

1. If pupils signed up or started volunteering last term, they can come by for an update.
2. If pupils are interested in adding to their CV, using their spare time well and helping others, they can pop past and say hello.
3. If pupils are already helping out with something in their spare time, they can talk to them and find out how to get a Saltire Award, the Scottish Government’s recognition scheme for volunteers.

2. Connect is delighted to host a special introduction to Place2Be’s new Parenting Smart website which will help parents/carers find the information they need to support their child’s mental health. Parents/carers and parent groups are warmly invited to a live online session which will also include information on Place2Be’s work inside schools providing mental health support for children, young people and their families, as well as suggestions and ideas for supporting children and young people’s mental health.  Find out more about Place2Be here https://www.place2be.org.uk/about-us/where-we-work/child-mental-health-support-scotland/ 

3. The AGM for Youth Forum Orkney takes place on 2nd November: Orkney Youth 

4. Professor Ken Muir is conducting a consultation on education reform for Scottish Government. There is an online survey for young people to complete independently. This can be accessed here: https://bit.ly/YPEduReform The consultation is being supported by Scottish Youth Parliament, Children’s Parliament and Together. If you have any questions you can contact [email protected] The young people’s consultation closes on November 19th. 
 
5. SDS (Skills Development Scotland) have written a letter to all parents detailing their work with schools and how you can contact them: Letter from SDS 

​6. The Hearing Support service have shared a poster about Glue Ear: Hearing Support poster 
 
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend,
Miss Claire Meakin

Dear Parents and Carers,

We hope you and your families have had a relaxing October holiday.

The Scottish government announced on Tuesday that all covid-mitigations should remain in place at the start of the new term.  Therefore, we are required to ask all pupils and staff to continue to:

• Wash or sanitise their hands regularly
• Wear a face covering during lessons and when moving around in communal areas
• Take twice-weekly lateral flow tests, logging the results (whether positive or negative) online.

The Guidance team have collated a list of pupils who they have been notified are exempt from wearing a face covering – if this applies to your child but you haven’t spoken to us yet, please let us know.

The retained mitigations means that our planned S1 parents’ evening on Tuesday 2nd November will now be an online event.  Ms Devlin will be writing to all S1 parents early next week with details about the arrangements.

Finally, as we mentioned at the end of term, we’re in the process of refreshing our policies linked to promoting positive behaviour.  Staff will be reminding pupils about the expectations in classrooms to ensure we maximise learning every lesson, along with how we’ll be celebrating their successes and achievements.  Thank you for your support in ensuring all pupils return to school punctually next week, wearing their dress code and ready to learn.

We are looking forward to another positive term,

​Miss Claire Meakin