As promised last week, the results of our two most recent Google surveys have now been collated, with over 250 responses in total to the questions on your preferred school emblem, and House names.
The most popular option for the emblem was Option 2, the traditional shield shape. This was viewed positively by 83% of respondents. The option without the school name will feature on dress code items, and the option with the name will be used in correspondence etc. As a reminder, this is the chosen image:
However, the square emblem also proved very popular so we are working on using this shape for House emblems featuring the new House names…
I can also now confirm that, with just over two thirds of the vote, our Houses will be known as House Heather and House Thistle. Mrs. Stewart-Young will be the DHT link for House Heather, with Ms McCabe in the role of House Head. Mr Valentine will be the DHT link for House Thistle, with Mrs Yeoman as the House Head. Staff as well as pupils will be allocated a House, creating a ‘school within a school’ to support transition and ongoing inclusion and wellbeing. This will include allocated Homeroom teachers, who will have daily contact with each young person and an overview of their attendance, punctuality and engagement. We will provide more information on the Homeroom programme as part of ongoing transition communications.
Mr Valentine is currently working with our partner schools to allocate each young person to a House. This will ensure that young people who are part of the Child’s Planning process will be known to a key member of the House Team as soon as possible.
We also thought it would be good for you and your child to get to know a little more about the staff who are joining the school. To this end, each has completed a profile with some basic information about their background. Our incoming DHTs and Curriculum Leaders have all completed these, and we will add more staff as we firm up further personnel and start dates. I have added links here for ease, but they are also available on the staff section of the school website: Rosehill Staff Profiles
Tonight is our ‘Meet the SLT session, which we are really looking forward to. It’s always good to be able to begin to put names to faces and to be clear that, as well as senior leaders, we are also real people with families, friends and interests beyond school! I also look forward to having some time with the Parent Engagement Group in the coming weeks. Our first session will contribute to firming up on the school values and vision statement, and this will work alongside activities that Mr. Valentine is leading with Pupil Voice on the same topic. It’s important to us that our vision and values are things that we live and breathe, not just posters on a wall or banners on a website. Therefore, we want to spend time on getting this absolutely right. As well as this online engagement, we are in the early stages of planning an in-person Welcome Evening in May, kindly hosted by Wallyford Primary school- more on this in the lead up to Easter.
This week also saw the welcome arrival of our DHT Curriculum, Mrs Lynsey Stewart-Young. As is the case for the whole team at present, Mrs Stewart-Young will be heavily involved in recruitment over the next couple of weeks. However, her next main priority will be the continued development of our ‘shadow’ timetable into something that reflects updated information on personalisation and choice, staffing, and the ever increasing role: Rosehill is definitely growing! We do not take for granted the trust you have placed in us to look after the people who are most important to you.