At the senior phase information evening I indicated we would try to help parents access the links to the main things they need to access when helping their children make choices in the senior school. With this in mind this blog is very short and gives the links you need. In addition, I shall “tweet” … read more
On Thursday of this week we had a meeting of the Parent Council. At these meetings I normally provide a Head Teacher update and the one I gave this week is attached here: PC Jan 19 The notes cover a range areas including; building/property, staffing, budgets and pupil experiences. At the meeting which was attended by … read more
We often think of school in terms of the interaction of pupils and teachers within classrooms. If I reflect on the past week it is clear school is about much more than this. I want to start with a diagram of a jigsaw. At the centre are the two pieces – student and teacher. The … read more
Welcome back to a new year and a new school term. Next week our seniors sit their prelim exams and this will help add to the picture we are building up about their progress. Back in August I spoke of increased expectations and we have worked hard to keep revisiting this over the session. I … read more
Incident on Thursday: At lunchtime on Thursday one of our pupils let an intruder into the school and this resulted in a potentially serious event taking place. I am unable to comment on what took place as it is part of an on-going police investigation. What I will say is that our staff and pupils … read more
As we head towards the Christmas holidays we will try to strike a balance between keeping the focus on the work and acknowledging some of the key ideas around this time of year. On the work front we are very aware of the need to prepare senior pupils for prelim exams in January. Therefore pupils … read more
National success: The highlght of the week was being able to tell people of our success at a National level. We use a system called accelerated reader to promote reading for our pupils. The company behind this Renaissance Learning keep an eye on how well it is being used and as a result we were … read more
Focus on S2: Learning and teaching: Over this week senior staff have been popping into S2 classes to look at the quality of the learning and teaching. We have been very impressed by both the quality of the teaching we have seen and the attitude shown by pupils towards the work. As well as visiting … read more
On any given week there is a fair bit going on in Harlaw Academy. The blog this week lists 10 of the varied activities taking place over the last 5 days in the school: a group of our pupils went to Bridge of don Academy as part of a young inspector project most of our … read more
Mid Autumn/Winter brings with it; darker nights, falling leaves, changing weather, frost and snow. These conditions pose an added risk as we go about our daily lives and I am using the blog this week set out 5 simple ideas to help pupils reduce the risks and to stay safe. Set off earlier – the … read more