Firstly, thank you to everyone for their positive feedback on the new school name. It feels like I have had a baby J Of course, not everyone got their first choice. However, we will all be aware that there will be a lot of decision making going on over the next few weeks and months, and that none of us will always get exactly what we wanted! What’s important is that we celebrate the voice of the young people coming through and the opportunity to build a genuinely collaborative identity.

Our next step is to decide on the school emblem. In the interests of complete transparency, I will say that I would have hoped to do a much more thorough consultation on this. However, we are very aware of the need to complete discussions with suppliers on dress code in particular, which can take a while. We have therefore had to opt for a streamlined process and would like you to consider three options for our school emblem, all on a similar theme.

The three options can be viewed here: School emblem options

The reasons for the key choices in the emblem are here: The Rosehill emblem

Please view/read these carefully before making your selection on the Google Form here: School emblem vote

This will remain open for one week only, to allow us to make the required progress on dress code items.

We also have a second Google Form request. In line with the information gathered on the school Houses and the overall desire for themes from nature, we have narrowed our categories down to those we think work well with the Rosehill identity and are going to go for House names which are either Scottish wildflowers or Scottish trees. Please note your preference here: House names second survey

Again, this will remain open for one week only, to allow us to fully engage in the process of assigning young people to Houses, and beginning to develop positive relationships with the relevant adults.

As well as getting down to the detail around school identity, I have also had the chance to lift my head up and look outwards a couple of times in the last week, with two visits to other new schools.

The first of these was to Winchburgh Academy. Their story is quite similar to our own, with the school being built in a former mining village, and designed to support a rapidly increasing population. HT Jonny Mitchell opened the school in August 2022 with (wait for it) only 56 pupils. He talked through both the challenges and opportunities afforded by a small school population, and we really focused in on the importance of nailing routines, boundaries and expectations early doors- with lots and lots of repetition as required.

I also got up to Waid Academy in the East Neuk of Fife. Although their context is very different to ours, the real lessons here were around running a building that is a genuine community campus. HT Scott Duncan talked through how partnerships evolved over time and what to do when unexpected clashes occur- such as Bookbug sessions during SQA exams! It was so helpful to be able to see the practical aspects of multiple agencies operating under one roof, and what this does to enhance the offers we can make to young people.

I am very grateful to both for giving so generously of their time.

Another highlight of the week was the first day of our new Business Manager, Paula O’Neill. I was very, very excited to have coffee with a colleague on Tuesday morning! Ms O’Neill will have a crucial role to play at this stage in Rosehill’s development, including finance, procurement, and a bigger recruitment drive than most of us will ever see in our careers. She is also currently working on pulling together contact details for our (gradually settling) school roll, which will make keeping in touch with our families so much easier.

Thank you to all of you who have already signed up to be part of our Parent Engagement Group. I will leave the form open during the course of this week in case it has dropped of anyone’s ‘to do’ list by accident. You can sign up here: Parent Engagement Group

We will be in touch soon about our first session, which will focus on vision and values.