We were delighted to start the week with the first of our whole staff transition visits to Musselburgh Grammar school. Our three S2 and four S3 classes all took part in a session focused on The Rosehill Way, including the opportunity to reflect on their time as a secondary pupil so far, and what might be new or different at Rosehill. I spoke with all seven groups, both to welcome them personally and to reflect on change and its necessity as part of life. A few repeat themes came up in our discussions, which it’s worth sharing here for clarity.

Mobile phones: Mobile phones have no place in our classrooms. Our young people all have access to Chromebooks throughout the day, so they are not required in any way for learning. All young people have lockers they can access and our recommendation is that phones are stored there. If your young person chooses not to do this, phones should be on silent and out of sight in all classes. Phone use in class is not in line with our core value of respect. As well as potential issues around cyber bullying, recording people without permission etc., using a phone instead of learning is going on is never going to help someone to be the best version of themselves. It’s worth noting that phones are personal property and that, therefore, the school can take no responsibility for loss or damage to these or other devices.

Rest breaks: Rather than one very short and one longer break, we are piloting pupils having two 30 minute rest breaks. This means that there are two opportunities for them to visit the toilet, refill water, have something to eat, and get some fresh air, thus creating a much more balanced school day. There is not time, therefore, for them to go anywhere much beyond the campus. In keeping with our core value of responsibility, our school is not a prison, and pupils won’t be locked in! However, if they are off campus, there are no adults around to support them if things go wrong. Whilst it is up to families to have these conversations with their young people and to set your own expectations, we strongly recommend that all pupils remain on campus throughout the school day, to reduce the risk of bullying incidents or anti-social behaviour.

Dress code: If you have been following the updates, you know all about this! However, it seems a number of young people don’t. I have been shown a range of black trousers with the question, ‘Are these okay?’ Yes, black trousers are always okay! In keeping with our core value of kindness, no young person will ever be criticised based on what they are wearing. If we notice a specific issue, we will have a conversation with the young person to find out what any barriers are. A reminder of our simple dress code is here: The Rosehill Way: Dress Code

Our Curriculum Leader for Health and Wellbeing, Paddy Cuthbertson, has also put together this note about clothing/equipment for courses in his faculty: HWB Clothing and Equipment

By the end of next week, we will be providing access to our ‘What You Need To Know’ Google site. This collates lots of the discussion points that have come up during transition so that you have them all to hand. Please take the time to go through this carefully with your young person after it is published.

Thank you everyone who attended our final Parent Engagement Group of this session. This was focused on character education and its place at Rosehill. The slides for the sessions are here: Character Education During the session we talked about the:  Association for Character Education We also made reference to our plans for the Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) in S3: YPI Scotland

We’ve also continued our work around ‘One Page Policies’. A couple of examples of our most recent policy work are here:

The Rosehill Way: Ways of Being

The Rosehill Way: Parental Engagement and Family Learning

These will remain in draft throughout this school session, as we will learn and modify as we go. As always, your questions and feedback are welcome as we share our thinking as we go.

And finally, some news on our Twilight Tours. As you are aware, getting the building over the line has meant thinking really hard about prioritisation. You will be able to see that the campus looks ‘finished’ (seeing the signage go up was a lovely surprise when I drove by on my way to the Wallyford Gala last  weekend!) but there are lots of health and safety checks and snagging that needs to be done during this handover period. However, we can now confirm that visits for pupils and their families can take place on the 26^th and 27^th June. Slots will be s between 4pm and 6.15pm, and you should anticipate your tour taken around 30-40 minutes.  In order to ensure the health and safety of all, all visits must be booked in advance. We will email a letter with booking information next week.

 

It’s incredible to think that we are already at the beginning of June and that we will soon have a much more sizeable team, and we’re making the last few appointments for mainstream staff. We will benefit from a learning technologist based at Rosehill for the first 6 months after opening, to ensure that there is expertise on hand to get the most out of our Chromebooks. We were also delighted to play a part in the recruitment of our new Active Schools Coordinator, who will be working with both Rosehill and our partner primaries to support physical activity for all. This includes supporting sporting activities beyond the school day. We’ll provide more information on this once he is formally in post.

We are now beginning to developed detailed plans for our Staff Welcome Days (14^th and 15^th August) and our Pupil Welcome Days (16^th-18^th August). We will ensure that all families have copies of the planned schedule for young people ahead of the summer break.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to give some feedback on our Welcome Evening, and for your kind words about the enthusiasm, positivity and engagement in the sessions. We note that (in your keenness) a couple of people have commented on wanting more/longer sessions, so it’s worth being clear that this was a voluntary event that staff undertook and that we therefore had to ensure something that worked for them and their own families. I was delighted to see that 94% of respondent said that they were very likely or quite likely to attend similar events in future. Family learning sessions are part of our planned calendar for session 23-24, so those extra sessions will indeed be along soon!

This stage in the term means that we are thinking carefully about out improvement planning and our priorities for next year. The plan is a working document and we look forward to input from our Parent Council when we establish this in later August/early September. Our Improvement Plan is currently undergoing consultation with staff, but it’s worth sharing our draft key priorities now. These must be related to Scottish Government and East Lothian Council priorities, but I am sure you will be able to see the clear connections between these and our own vision and values:

• Developing the leadership skills of everyone is our school community to support continuous improvement
• Enacting a responsive curriculum based on principles of equity, wellbeing and inclusion, underpinned by the highest quality of learning, teaching and assessment at all levels
• Viewing all of our improvement priorities through the lens of school culture and a commitment to children’s rights

Our Improvement Plan also has to include provisional plans for the use of our Pupil Equity Fund. We have two key resources planned in relation to this:

• Employment of an additional Pupil Support Worker, working across both Houses, to support attendance and engagement
• Investment in resources for Outdoor Learning, to ensure that there are no barriers to participation

We have been thinking carefully about the Cost of the School Day and will share our planning for that along with the finalised Improvement Plan.

We have also continued with our draft policy work, with a commitment to keeping it simple and providing a range of summary documents that outline key principles. This week’s thinking included:

The Rosehill Way: Homeroom

The Rosehill Way: Pupil Voice

As always, we welcome any feedback via our admin email admin@rosehill.elcschool.org.uk

Towards the end of term, we will add a ‘One Page Policies’ tab to the website for easy reference.

Regarding transition, we look forward to seeing all of our MGS contingent on Monday. Every class will have a first session based on ‘The Rosehill Way’, outlining our school culture and how we interact with each other. They will then have a series of inputs across curricular areas. Our catchment primary pupils are engaging in Google lessons with staff over the next couple of weeks, and our non-catchment pupils have in-person sessions in place.

We are also pleased to note that ALL young people moving from MGS to at Rosehill for S3 are going to be able to access the two Pathways that were their first and second choices. This has been no mean feat, and credit goes to Neil and Lynsey for making this happen. We are also now at the stage of finalising the timetable and ensuring that young people are allocated to a form class, practical class, and homeroom. Again, we will make sure this is with you by the end of this term.

It’s a hugely busy time with regards to our school building, as we head towards the June handover period and ensuring everything is operational ahead of our August opening. We talk about the value of partnership working all the time in education, but never has it been so apparent just how many people are pulling together to ensure the successful completion of this huge project. You will have noticed that much of the building looks ‘finished’ but it’s now all in the details to ensure we have a smooth and successful start.

One simple example of partnership is the ongoing work of the ELC catering team in ensuring that young people have access to a full school meals menu that meets all required nutritional standards. For info, the standard ELC menu and associated nutritional standards are available here:

ELC Secondary School Menu

Nutritional Standards

It’s worth considering now what your young person plans to do for lunch. There are no accessible options for food around the campus, so this means a packed lunch or school lunch, which must be consumed in the food court. We will of course ensure that young people still have access to outdoor space for fresh air and exercise as appropriate. I’ll be meeting with some of our pupils to discuss the (very important!) topic of food and any questions they may have.

Young people will use their NEC cards to pay for anything in the food court, and will also need these cards to access the building both in the morning and throughout the school day. Our records show that almost all pupils have these already, and we are working through the process of contacting those who don’t. However, please get in touch with the admin team admin@rosehill.elcschool.org.uk if there are any issues around this.

Transition work is ongoing with our catchment primaries and Mr Valentine and Mrs Lock have now booked sessions with those coming from out of catchment. Please remember, whichever primary they are coming from, your child remains a pupil of their current school and all communication regarding these arrangements comes via them.

A link to the most recent assemblies at Wallyford and Pinkie (led by Mrs Stewart-Young and Mr Valentine) is available here:

P7 Assembly (2)

Our MGS transition visits begin on the 5^th of June and will take place on Monday and Friday mornings throughout the month. As part of this, all young people joining us from MGS will have received information about their new form class this week. This has to go out to secondary pupils earlier than primary pupils, in order to support timetabling arrangements at MGS. Mrs Stewart Young is currently finalising the timetable, and we will be able to confirm S3 Personal Pathways soon. Information on S1 classes will be shared before the end of term.

Thank you to everyone who attended the Welcome Evening this week. It was a real pleasure to see families from across a full range of schools and to give a taste of some of the activities that happen in today’s classrooms. A particular highlight was watching so many of our parents pick up the ukulele for the first time! Huge thanks go to both our staff for volunteering their time and to Wallyford Primary for hosting us. We’ll post the presentations from the evening on the website Transitions page over the next few days. There’s also a link here on ordering any dress code items. Those ordered before the 9^th July are guaranteed to be delivered before the start of term:

Dress Code Ordering

An evaluation of the event will be emailed out to all attendees. We’d really appreciate your feedback.

There have been a few queries coming in regarding the provisional ‘twilight tours’ for families in June. Please be mindful that these can only be confirmed within the bigger picture of the handover. We’ll get info to you as soon as we can, but can only do this in alignment with allowing snagging work to take place. Our top priority has to be ensuring that the building is ready, and we don’t want to get in anyone’s way!

This week started with an excellent session with David Reid, our Education Support Officer, who leads on all things digital. David worked with the full leadership team to enhance our knowledge and skills in making best use of the Google suite to support young people. We had a particular focus on accessibility tools and helping young people to help themselves on their allocated Chromebooks. All staff are now working towards Google Educator accreditation, and the knowledge that this comes with stickers and the potential for certificates was a huge motivator for a number of us! We will continue to make use of David’s expertise as we devise learning around the digital skills part of our BGE timetable. We also completed our second session with Skills Development Scotland, looking at how we will link our learning on Metaskills with curriculum content.

We have now almost reached the top of the staffing mountain. We now have preferred candidates identified for all of our classroom teaching posts. Once their employment has been confirmed through the relevant HR processes, we will start to invite them to add their profiles to the appropriate section of the website so that you can start to put more names to faces. Although most class teachers don’t start until August, we welcome Sara Whillans and Euan Dixon to the team at The Brae this week. This means that, ahead of the summer break, they can take a full part in transition and undertake all of the relevant training required to ensure that our young people have all the support they need.

You can see the ‘big picture’ of our current staffing here:

Rosehill Staffing August 2023

Our Parent Engagement Group met this week to look at tracking, monitoring and reporting. We are keen that these activities are focused on regular, informative, low stakes communication to ensure that we are working in genuine partnership with our families. The slides that were used to start the discussion are included here, for information:

TMR introductory slides

I have also included a brief summary of the key discussions points here:

TMR summary points

As promised in the last Parent Engagement Group session, we have used our discussions therein to help us to pull together a draft ‘one page policy’ on communication between home and school. This draft can be accessed below, and we would welcome any further feedback via admin@rosehill.elcschool.or.uk

Communication between home and school (DRAFT)

This is the first in a series of ‘one page policies’ that we are developing. Each will be a maximum of two side of A4 paper and will outline The Rosehill Way on a number of topics, such as relationships for learning, anti-bullying, and the cost of the school day. The idea is that these will be easily accessible and easy to adapt as the school grows and we get to know our community better. We’ll continue to provide access to draft of these, and an invitation to feedback, as we move towards opening, and indeed beyond.

One of the key request from our Curriculum Information Evening was that it would be helpful to have some broad brushstrokes as to what is included in each curriculum area. We’ll be sharing our knowledge organisers for the start of the new term but, in the meantime, we hope that these summary comments are useful by way of introduction:

Course Descriptors

It was lovely to see the excited response to our ‘100 days’ milestone this week. If you haven’t read the article yet, here’s what the East Lothian Courier had to say:

East Lothian Courier: 100 days

This means that there is a huge focus at the moment on all the tiny details that are needed to get the building over the line. I had a great meeting with our architect this week who was able to share lots of things that make my heart sing: wooden signage for the Margaret Oliphant library, the Rosehill emblem on the entrance mats, and exactly the right sort of green in the games halls! Rosehill staff will continue to be based at Wallyford Primary school until the end of term, to allow the ELC team to get in and get us set up with phones, Wi-Fi, furniture and equipment. Although this work is will be ongoing throughout the rest of the term, we remain confident that we will be able to welcome families for some ‘Twilight Tours’ towards the end of June- we’ll get organised with timetables and booking for these after our welcome evening on the 25^th May.

Our team’s focus on professional learning continues, and one highlight of this week was definitely work with Skills Development Scotland. We know how important it is to our young people and their families that they be given the opportunity to build the skills that will be useful to them within school and beyond. If you are interesting in reading more about this approach, you can use the link below.

SDS Meta-skills

This, of course, links into our ongoing work around curriculum planning. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the session Mrs Stewart-Young led on curriculum. I think we’d all agree that, as parents, it’s important to know how we can support our children’s learning, and I’m really excited about using our knowledge organiser approach to encourage that sense of a shared journey. If you were unable to attend, or would like to refer back to the information we shared, the slides we used and a recording on the meeting are available here:

Curriculum Information Evening slides

Curriculum Information Evening recording

Our Parent Engagement Group is next due to meet on Monday 15th May, with a focus on tracking, monitoring and reporting. Invitations have been issued to members of the group. We are also in the early stages of planning for a final Parent Engagement Group meeting in early June, which will explore more around our work on character education and how this can support wellbeing and learning- invitation to follow.

Our transition work continues, with more visits to our catchment primaries and plans in place for MGS young people firmly in place. All current S1/2 Musselburgh pupils who are coming to Rosehill next session should receive a letter from MGS in the next few days, outlining our June transition plan. A copy of the letter is here, for reference:

MGS S2/3 Transition Letter

There are a few questions pinging around about, ‘what happens on the first day?’ Although it’s easier said than done sometimes, please try not to worry too much! Ahead of the summer break, you will receive a full ‘one page plan’ as to expectations for starting with us, with time to come back with any remaining questions. We’re working hard both internally and will external partners on timetabling, class lists, access control, swipe cards, and LOTS of policy work. It’s a massive jig-saw and the pieces are all gradually fitting together, so we appreciate your continued understanding of the time and work it takes in to ensure we open as smoothly as we can.

Next Monday, the 8^th May, is an important date in the Wallyford Learning Campus story, as it marks 100 days until Rosehill High School opens to pupils. This meant yet another photo opportunity as our staff team was joined by Councillor Fiona Dugdale and young people from our partner schools this week, to mark the occasion. Please look out for the subsequent story that will appear via ELC, including up to date images of the site.

This important milestone has come alongside some big decisions. After extensive work with our community, we are delighted to share that our school vision is:

 “Rosehill: a place to learn, grow, and thrive.”

Learning comes first, in all of its guises: knowledge, skills, and for its own sake.

Growing as people through character education and a focus on our core values of respect, kindness and responsibility.

Thriving as the best possible versions of ourselves, in school and beyond.

We hope that this reflects our desire to ensure that we continue to look at wellbeing and learning as two sides of the same coin. This vision will influence all of the work we are currently doing around policy and procedure, and will provide a touchstone for our upcoming improvement planning.

We’ve also finalised our House emblems, and our emblem for The Brae. These can be viewed below:

House Heather

House Thistle

The Brae

Mr. Valentine is working on class lists with our partner schools and all young people will get information about their House allocation in June- without the need to make use of a sorting hat.

A great spot from one of our parents came this week as she noticed that our Rosehill school dress code items are now on sale! Please see the Border Embroideries link below:

Rosehill Dress Code Items

We will have sample sizes available for both the Welcome Evening on the 25^th May and the Twilight Tours that we are planning for June.

We’ve kept it simple in this first tranche by using black and the whole school colour (the deep green/blue). In future, we intend to offer ‘House’ options too, and will keep the conversation going as to what dress code might look like in the senior phase.

If you’re planning the school wardrobe, you may find it helpful to refer back to the information on dress code that was shared previously, in response to our pupil and parent consultation:

Dress Code

In summary, our dress code is quite straightforward, and focuses on clothes that are smart, affordable, and appropriate for active learning:

• White shirt, T-shirt or polo shirt (polo shirts with the school emblem are available)
• Hoodie or sweatshirt with school emblem (plain black can be worn as an alternative)
• Black on the bottom
• (School lanyard with swipe card- supplied by the school)
• With regards to logos: small ones are sometime hard to totally avoid, but young people should not look like they have been sponsored to attend their place of learning!

Our main priority is that every young person is in school, on time, and ready to learn.

We continue to work on supporting Safer Routes to Schools. Following on from your helpful comments and suggestions, a draft of our School Travel Plan in available on this link. This is a working document which will develop as we move closer to opening and as we begin to see how school travel works in reality. Please be aware that a number of the paths mentioned in the plan will completed over the summer break.

Rosehill High School Travel Plan

There were a couple of comments about supporting safer travel by looking at the school day. However, there is an ELC wide agreement as to the start and end times of the school day, which we are not at liberty to alter at this stage.

We continue to work closely with our partners to establish what the first weeks and months of opening might look like. As Head of Establishment as well as Head of School, I have a responsibility to ensure that this highly beneficial partnership working happens in a planned and cohesive way, throughout the course of session 23-24, and beyond. For example, the library and learning resource centre will be open to Rosehill pupils straight away, with public access after school hours available from around mid-September. This will allow us to complete all the relevant safeguarding checks, with young people in the building, to ensure that we can work towards shared access in due course. We’ll continue to keep our community updated as the provision expands.

Our curriculum leaders have begun their visits to our partner primary schools, starting with some active input on Health and Wellbeing with Mr. Cuthbertson and Science and Technology with Mr. Thomson. Mrs. Stewart-Young and Mr. Valentine also did some initial sessions around the importance of character in being the best versions of ourselves. Their slides are available here:

Rosehill High School Assembly 1

Everyone has been very impressed by the level of involvement from pupils and the rest of the team are excited to get out there, too. Please remember that, due to arrangements around timetabling and examinations, our transition activities for MGS will focus on the month of June. This will also be the key time for young people coming to join our mainstream from out of catchment.

Mrs. Fleming and I attended the Wallyford Parent Council earlier this week, but have pulled together our summary comments to ensure that they can be accessed by everyone:

Parent Council Updates 2nd May 2023

I also met with the Parent Engagement Group this week, and was joined by both Ms. O’Neill and our new business administrator, Ms. Fiona Glass. The topic of conversation was effective home/school communication, and our starter slides are here:

Parent Engagement Group: Home School Communication

A flavour of the discussions is available here:

Home/school communication key talking points

In combination with these and the parent discussion that followed, we will be producing a ‘one page’ policy in the coming weeks, that allows as to start as we mean to go on in terms of positive connections with the community.

Our Curriculum Evening will be led by Mrs. Stewart-Young, is open to all parents/carers and young people, and will take place on the 10^th May. A reminder of the details and link is below:

Parental Engagement – Curriculum

Wednesday, 10 May · 7:00 – 8:00pm

Time zone: Europe/London

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/eio-yycs-vey

This week we welcomed our Curriculum Leaders to begin their full programme of professional learning, as outlined in last week’s update. Middle leaders have a crucial role to play in terms of upholding and enacting the values of the school community. They have all completely embraced the challenge and opportunity ahead in terms of ensuring the best outcomes for young people. We are very fortunate indeed to have built such a committed and enthusiastic team. We will continue to share highlights of our professional learning and development via our Twitter accounts.

We are almost at the end of class teacher recruitment with preferred candidates identified this week for Maths, Home Economics, PE and Drama. We have also been recruiting further support roles, including workshop technicians for our STEAM provision, who well help to ensure we are making the best and safest use of these flagship facilities.

An important milestone was reached in the identification of our facilities management team. BAM FM will be looking after cleaning and janitorial services across the campus. The importance of their role in ensuring that our building is kept to the high standards we expect cannot be over emphasised, and we are very grateful to colleagues in East Lothian Council for moving this forward and supporting us with this mobilisation. Our building is beautiful and we intend to keep it that way!

Regarding transition, we continue to receive a number of direct enquiries as to arrangements, particularly from parents of young people out of catchment. Please be aware that responsibility for communicating matters related to transition remains with your child’s primary school for us long as your child remains a pupil there, and on their SEEMiS system. Mr. Valentine has been in contact with the schools of all our of catchment and non-catchment pupils and, along with Mrs. Lock, is working to create bespoke transition activities for anyone who is not part of the Wallyford Primary and Pinkie St. Peter’s communities.

Mrs. Stewart-Young has been meeting with a range of learners do talk about their experiences of learning, teaching and assessment. She will be pulling their comments together to support our conversations will all staff about high quality learning, teaching and assessment. There will be a particular focus on our learners’ understanding of challenge and progression, and the ways in which we can use feedback to support this.

Thank you to everyone who responded to our School Travel Plan survey. This will feed into our Safer Routes to School plan, which will be published later on this term. We really value the time taken in offering suggestions as to how we can all work together to support active and sustainable travel.

We have not, I promise, forgotten to finalise and share our vision statement. With busy diaries it’s taken a bit of time to ensure we have worked with pupil representatives from all partner schools- nearly there! I’m sure you will all agree what an important piece of work this is, which requires our young people at its centre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter break and managed at least some time to relax. The summer term is going to be a busy one, and I know the whole team has been excited to get cracking this week.

Firstly, some dates for your diary.

Our Parent Engagement Group will be meeting online on the evening of Wednesday 3^rd May. Invitations will be sent directly to group members. The topic of this session will be home/school communication.

On Wednesday 10^th May, we will be hosting an online curriculum evening, led by Mrs. Stewart-Young. This will give everyone in our community the chance to hear more about what our Curriculum Rationale will look like in reality, including how we intend to share information about what your child is learning in each subject area. Young people are welcome to attend this with their parents and carers. The link is here:

Parental Engagement – Curriculum

Wednesday, 10 May · 7:00 – 8:00pm

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/eio-yycs-vey

On Monday 15^th May, we will have another Meet for the Parent Engagement Group, with a focus on tracking, monitoring and reporting. Again, invitations for this are sent directly to group members.

Please remember that, if you are using an address from outside edubuzz, you should ensure that you are in the meeting within the first 5 minutes. This allows us to pick up anyone ‘outside our organisation’ from the meeting room.

A reminder, too, that our Welcome Evening takes place on the 25^th May, from 5.30pm-7.30pm. A letter with further information, including how to book, will be made available early next month. All families are welcome, including those whose young people have been granted placing requests.

This week saw our SLT completed, with the arrival of Mrs Sarah Fleming, our DHT responsible for The Brae. Mrs. Fleming has already been in touch with the primary schools of our incoming pupils and will be arranging in person visits to start to get to know the young people over the course of the next couple of weeks. We have also confirmed that our full time class teachers will be starting in mid-May, giving them time to work intensively with Mrs. Fleming to ensure they are ready to meet the needs of our learners.

Mr. Valentine has also been busy with transition, focusing on meeting with the young people who are attending our mainstream school, but coming from outwith the catchment. If you have a child in this position, please keep in mind that communications around arrangements supporting the move to the new school remain the responsibility of your child’s current school, and will be shared by them.

Pupil voice work continues this term, with Mr Valentine working to finalise our vision statement and Mrs. Stewart-Young focusing on learners’ experiences. They are also pleased to be finalising their Thistle and Heather House emblems, which we will be able to share soon.

This week we also appointed the first of our support roles, our Pupil Support Workers. PSWs are non-teaching roles whose primary purpose is supporting wellbeing. Families with young people in secondary school already may be familiar with the role of PT Guidance and the part they play in terms of the curricular, vocational and pastoral needs of young people. This will work differently at Rosehill with aspects of this traditional role looked after by different people.

• Your child’s Homeroom teacher: Day to day attendance and punctuality, ‘first line guidance’ in terms of daily check-ins, and flagging any ongoing concerns to the wider House team.
• Pupil Support Workers: Support for wellbeing including peer relationships, positive mental health, and engagement in learning.
• House Heads: Support for young people who are involved in child’s planning processes, including multi-agency involvement. Overall responsibility for the safety, inclusion and conduct of young people in their House.

More information on our House structures and supports for your child (including Support for Learning) will follow over the course of this term.

Monday the 24^th is an important day for us as our Curriculum Leaders take up post. They are particularly excited to begin transition activities in May/June for young people in our partner schools. If you haven’t done so already, you may wish to check out their staff profiles here:

Rosehill Staff Profiles

And finally, we need your help. We are in the process of creating our school travel plan. In order to do this as effectively as possible, we would like you to complete the following short survey about your child and their school travel plans:

School Travel Plan Survey

We want this survey to be as representative as possible, so please share with your Rosehill parent networks. A number of our pupils are coming to us from out of catchment, and it is important that they are represented in the survey, too.

We will be interviewing again throughout this week for almost all of our remaining posts, so it’s another busy one! It really is a pleasure to be building such a positive team.

 

Recruitment has continued at a pace in the last few days, with preferred candidates identified for both Chemistry and Physics. After the holiday, we’ll be focusing on PE, HE, Maths, Drama, Art, and various support roles. Many applicants have spoken explicitly about being inspired by the overall vision of the school, particularly our approaches to the curriculum, in its widest sense. They really are ready to embrace The Rosehill Way!

The quality of candidates coming though means that we can now identify teacher leaders for various aspects of school development, and Mrs Stewart-Young can begin constructing the detailed timetable in earnest. Many of you will know that we are doing things a little bit differently in terms of including, alongside traditional subject specialisms, specific timetabled approaches to cross cutting themes such as learning for sustainability and digital literacy. To this end, we will be holding an online Curriculum Evening in May, which will be open to all parents and young people. This will help you to see the big picture in terms of how we will be organising each curricular area across session 23-34. We’ll confirm the date after the holiday.

This will rely on the expertise of our Curriculum Leaders, and the senior leadership team are looking forward to welcoming them on the 24^th April. In preparation, we have been developing our ‘Big Thinking’ folder of ideas and resources to ensure that we are building the best school possible. This includes a significant professional learning programme for the incoming staff, based on the core quality indicators from the How Good Is Our School (4) Framework. These are:

• 1.3 Leadership of change: Focusing on vision and values, knowing our context and community, and learning and growing with this understanding at the forefront.
• 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment: Looking at day to day classroom experiences, with a drive on consistency of practice around what we know works best to support pupil progress.
• 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion: Building a school community that embraces every one of its members, no matter what their background or lived experiences.

A PDF copy of the HGIOS Framework is available here, if you would like to read more about the quality indicators.

HGIOS 4 PDF

Following on from last week’s update, Mr. Valentine has now completed a number of Pupil Voice sessions and we are pleased to be able to confirm that Rosehill’s agreed school values are as follows:

• Respect
• Kindness
• Responsibility

You can find some of the summary points discussed the young people here. Some of them really made me smile: Pupil Voice Input on Values

We will be doing more work on values, and how they relate to character, as part of our transition process. Our next step is to finalise our school vision statement. This may take a couple of weeks yet to ensure that we are able to link in with all partner schools, but we’re getting there!

As well as a huge number of matters related to staffing, Ms O’Neill has been particularly busy sourcing appropriate dress code items (and lanyards!). I know from personal experience how hard it is to guess whether you child is a large child or a small adult etc., so we are pulling together some samples that you can check for size during our welcome evening on the 25^th May. We will also make these available during our planned school tours in June. Parents will be asked to order ‘badged’ items directly from the supplier. We’ll get those details out to you as soon as we can.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the team, to wish everyone in our community an enjoyable Easter break. I am fortunate enough to be heading to Amsterdam for our first trip abroad since 2019, and you just know I am going to be posting pictures of tulips on Twitter! It’s also the first time I’ve left the dog, so wish me luck…

 

 

Thank you for all the positive feedback that has come in regarding the new school emblem. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank my husband, Ross Crichton, for taking our ideas and making them into a reality. The emblem is now with the campus design team, who are working on ways in which we can further incorporate it into the building itself.

It was also rather exciting to give the emblem its first outing in our letters to our incoming S3. The parents of all young people coming to us from MGS’s S2 cohort should have received a letter with a note of their child’s preferred Personal Pathways. Mr Valentine still has a handful of pupils to speak with, largely due to pupil absence. If you think your child has been missed, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Much of the activity over the last couple of weeks has been firmly focused on recruitment. Following on from an intensive period of interviews, we now have preferred candidates for the following posts:

• Business Administrator (school office)
• Science Technician
• Class Teachers for The Brae x 3 (This team will start in May, to support transition)
• Teacher of Social Subjects x 2
• Teacher of CDT x 2
• Teacher of English x 2
• Teacher of Biology x 1
• Teacher of Modern Languages x 1

Further interviews will be taking place right up until the end of term, and for the first couple of weeks thereafter. We will continue to keep you updated on the growing, thriving team.

Our first meeting of our Parent Engagement group took place last night, with a focus on vision and values. It was simply lovely to be able to connect with parents in this way. Using the data gained from the surveys we conducted earlier in the session, we drew out key vocabulary and looked at some suggested values and sample vision statements. Mr Valentine will now take our discussion points and feed them forward into a similar take with Pupil Voice groups. We will be ready to share the final vision and values early in the summer term.

With regards to further opportunities to connect, we will be arranging two further Parent Engagement Group Meetings in April/May. The first will be on home school communication, and the next on reporting/parent consultation. Details of these will go out to those who have signed up for the group. If you would like to join this forum but haven’t let us know so far, please drop us an email: admin@rosehill.elcschool.org.uk

We’d also like you to add a date to your diary. On the 25^th May, from 5.30-7.30pm, we will be hosting a Welcome Evening at Wallyford Primary School. This will be a family learning event that gives you and your young person the chance to meet the wider team, learn more about each of our faculties, and to take part in shared activities. We’ll share further details nearer the time.

Following on from this, there have been a couple of queries regarding Parent Council. We are not able to form a Parent Council until the school opens in August. Working with the ELC Parental Engagement Officer, we have sketched out a plan to ensure that we will have the opportunity, in early September, to host an event that welcomes all interested parties, and to move on from there to draft a constitution and elect officer bearers. I do hope that we will have a good representation coming forward, and value your interest in this area.

The opening of the building gets ever closer and we are cautiously planning some twilight opportunities in June to visit the campus with your child, enjoying a friendly tour hosted by one of the leadership team. We anticipate these being very popular so a booking system will apply. Again, more on this to come over the next few weeks.

Finally, a quick ‘troubleshooting’ tip for Google Meets, as we will continue use this platform where appropriate, even after the school opens. To support security, any sign in which is not an ELC sign in can access any of our Google Meets, but they will be placed in a virtual waiting room and need to be ‘clicked in’ to the meeting. This will always happen within the first few minutes of the meeting time. Once a presentation has started (we will always hold off for 5 minutes), the meeting is deemed to have begun and we are no longer able to see/open the waiting room. You can join at any time using your child’s Google sign in, as that is deemed to be safe and can come straight into the Meet. I hope this helps for any future online events. Our recording of ‘Meet the SLT’ remains available on the Parent Engagement section of the website.