Parent Newsletter

No80
(April 2010)

Parent Newsletter Archive

New School Rebuild – Update
There has been a considerable amount of planning for our new school over the past few months. A number of options for the rebuild of Garnock Academy were considered by North Ayrshire’s Education Executive on 9th March. These ranged from a straight replacement of Garnock Academy, to other more ambitious options. The Education Executive opted to pursue an ambitious project which is described as a “Secondary and Primary School Campus with Leisure Facilities.” As well as a new Secondary and Primary school, this campus would included a new swimming pool to replace the Garnock pool, along with enhanced PE facilities. The pool and the enhanced PE facilities would be shared between the school and the Community via a joint use arrangement, for mutual benefit.
It is important to appreciate that the above ambitious option will be entirely dependent on appropriate finance being available in the future. It would represent a great development of first-class educational facilities within the Garnock valley.
The next step forward will be a decision by the Education Executive to identify the most suitable site for the new school campus. Several sites are still under consideration, and will be presented to the Executive in due course. Once this step has been completed, serious planning for the design of the campus and buildings will commence. All interested parties – parents, community, pupils, staff – will be fully consulted in this process when enough information to consult on is established.
(Note: All the options considered by the Education Executive included the rebuild of Garnock Academy, which is significantly funded by the Scottish Government’s Futures Trust initiative.)

P7 Parent’s Evening – 17th May
The Parents’ Evening for parents of the new S1 in August, will take place on Monday 17th May. On this evening, departments will have pupils demonstrating various aspects of their work, which we hope will be of greater interest to parents than simply viewing where each department is located. Two sessions ago, we piloted this style of Parents’ Evening, supported by the Parent Council, and found it to be very successful. Consequently we would like to repeat this model on Monday 17th May, again assisted by the Parent Council. The evening may also be of particular interest to parents of pupils demonstrating within departments, and they are most welcome to attend, as are any other parents. A bus will be provided to bring pupils into school for the evening and take them back home later.

GLOW
GLOW is a national initiative that aims to join all teachers, pupils and parents, in Scotland, together in an on-line community. The Scottish Government has invested time and resource into GLOW and is now seeing the benefits of this new web-based technology.
North Ayrshire came on-line last year and is now in the process of training all staff and pupils. Within Garnock Academy all staff and most pupils have been trained.
The area we have focussed upon so far has been to create GLOW groups for individual classes. This involves the class teacher compiling a website for their class and then populating the group with the pupils. The teacher can then add a variety of resources aimed at improving learning.
Such resources could be:
• Class notes • Web Links • Examples of Good Practice • Homework

GLOW is accessible from any internet connection and therefore can be used at home, or from an internet enabled phone. All pupils and staff have login details that allow this. As teachers and pupils become familiar with GLOW the way in which it is used will evolve and develop.

This facility has huge potential and is being actively used in the school. Please encourage your son/daughter to use GLOW and to demonstrate its capabilities to you. There are no plans yet to roll out Parental access, but this will happen in the near future.

If you have any queries please contact the school and the Glow Mentor (Mr S Duff) will be pleased to discuss any issues relating to GLOW.

Pupil Activities
Pupils have been involved in outstanding successes in Musical performance this term, collecting many trophies and awards at music festivals in Inverclyde and Ayr. Siobhan Lennox (S6) won the North Ayrshire Young Musician of the Year award, and Amy Connelly was runner up in the North Ayrshire Young Singer of the Year competition. Our school concert band takes part in the National finals in Birmingham during the Easter holidays, and we all hope they will perform well there.
Our school show this year will be “We Will Rock You” which will be performed in June. I am sure it will be a great success.
A reminder to all local girls and ladies that the Garnock Academy 5K event will take place on Wednesday 28th of April, starting at the Vale park in Kilbirnie at 6.30p.m. The entry to the event is £1 which can be paid on the night. The school and the PE department in particular would like to thank D.S.M of Dalry who are sponsoring the event.

Mr Boyle’s S1 basketball team has played a range of fixtures in the last few months. The team has won more then they have lost. Mr Boyle has been delighted with the conduct and effort of the players during each match.

The S3 football team progressed to the next round of the Ayrshire Cup after a nail biting penalty shoot out. They play Largs in the next round. The senior team are scheduled to play Greenwood on Monday 29th of March.

Mr Wilson’s and Mr Blair’s rugby teams have done well recently in several tournaments in Ayrshire.

The Bank of Scotland 7 a-side football teams continue to have mixed fortunes. The girl’s team seem to be winning more than losing, where the opposite can be said of the boy’s team. A big thanks to the senior pupils who give up their free time to take the teams, and to Mr McLaggan and Mr MacDonald for driving the mini bus.

The PE department returned from the skiing trip in Pila tired, but had a brilliant time with the 45 pupils on the skiing trip, from 13th to 19th February.

Miss Jones is finalising details of an outward bound trip to the Benmore centre in Dunoon. The trip is for S1 and S2 pupils.

Mr Boyle has organised his annual golf trip for pupils and staff to St Andrews, Fife, which will take palce at the end of June.

S3 Work Experience
Over the last few weeks S3 pupils have been applying for work experience placements using the Work It program. Pupils are given the opportunity to choose from a Database of opportunities or to find a suitable placement themselves. The feedback from most students is that they find the experience worthwhile and that it frequently helps them to see their future more clearly.
Over 100 pupils have already applied and consent forms will be sent to parents shortly to confirm the placement details.
Skills for Work: Some pupils on our COPE program were recently interviewed for Skills for Work courses for next session. Lecturers from James Watt College came to the school and carried out the interviews as part of the selection process. So far only interviews for the Hairdressing course have been held and it is hope that interviews for the Uniformed and Emergency Services course will be held soon.

Homework Groupcall
Since 1st March, the school has been contacting parents via text message and voicemail about homework which is incomplete or not produced on time. This has been well received by parents, who have followed these issues up with their children. We will continue to do this. When parents are able to access homework due through GLOW (see below) this procedure will be even more effective.

SQA Exams – Supported Study etc
This year’s diet of SQA exams is almost upon us again. We have been trying to impress upon S4, S5 and S6 pupils how important it is to make the right preparation for these examinations. Many subjects have offered additional supported study over the term, mainly on a Tuesday or Thursday afternoon when there is a late bus arranged at 5.00pm, and many pupils have taken advantage of this. There will be some supported study classes running over the Easter break in Geography, Biology, Chemistry and Music. Details will be provided to pupils by these departments. Guidance staff will be covering study skills with S4 to S6 classes prior to the examinations, and are also happy to discuss study techniques with parents. Guidance staff are available for consultation to support pupils (and parents) experiencing exam pressures.
This session we have again made extra provision to work with and assist individual pupils in their preparation for examinations. Mr J Hunter has been working with S4 pupils since February to ensure that all achieve at least five SQA awards before they complete S4. We were very successful in this area last session with almost 98% of our S4 pupils gaining five or more SQA awards against a North Ayrshire average of 94%. This session we again expect the figure to be 98%, which would be an excellent figure to achieve. We hope that this work will pay dividends in raising pupil achievement. Link to SQA Timetable

School Plan
This school’s priorities for next session are currently being considered. The main priorities will be to continue in our efforts to raise pupil attainment and achievement, and to continue to prepare for the “curriculum for excellence” initiative which involves all Scottish schools. There may be other areas which you feel we should be addressing, but are not at present. If you have views on areas which we should consider for next year’s school plan, please let me know by telephone (01505 682685) or by dropping a note to the school office.

S1 Curriculum for excellence projects
From August of 2010 the school will be delivering cross curricular courses for pupils in S1. These projects will allow for pupils to gain a rich experience with particular insight into the responsibility for all outcomes of literacy, numeracy as well as health and wellbeing.

These courses will be offered by departments working together to allow pupils to have a holistic approach to learning when working towards an end point where they will demonstrate and apply their knowledge.

The courses on offer include – New school project, Phame academy, Celts, Narrative computer games, Human body, World War One and Numeracy.

Easter Holiday and Inservice Days
School closes for Easter at 2.30pm on Thursday 1st April and re-opens at 9.00am on Monday 19th April. All pupils will attend an Easter Service at St Columba’s Church on Thursday 1st April. Please note that there is an addition to the pupil holiday and in-service days for the summer term, to allow staff preparation for the Curriculum for Excellence, as required by the Scottish Government.

These are now as follows:
Friday 30th April Staff in-service day (pupil holiday)
Monday 3rd May School holiday
Friday 28th May School holiday
Monday 31st May School holiday
Tuesday 1st June Staff in-service day (pupil holiday)
Tuesday 29th June School closes at 1.00pm for Summer holiday

Brian McNaught Rector April 2010

Garnock Academy
School Road
Kilbirnie
KA25 7AX5
Telephone:01505 682685
Email: contactus@garnock.n-ayrshire.sch.uk


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