Friday 21 September

1.      We held a very well attended P7 Open Night last night. It was great to see so much interest being taken in our school. We recognise that Edinburgh has many excellent schools and we seek to continue to improve to maintain our strong standing and appeal to families.

2.      We currently have vacancies being advertised for teachers in Gaelic, Social subjects, Support for Pupils, Business Education and Performing Arts.  In the interim we have reorganised classes across the school to try to ensure minimal disruption to learning.

3.      Our annual ‘Musicfest’ takes place on the evening of Thursday 4 October.

4.      Rehearsals are now underway for the Annual Christmas Concert on Tuesday 18 December. As in previous years, this will be staged at the Usher Hall.

5.      The school will be supporting this year’s ‘Show Racism the Red Card - wear red day’ on Friday 5 October. We aim to raise awareness and demonstrate publicly that we celebrate diversity at JGHS. . Staff and pupils are encouraged to participate by wearing something red on that day.

6.      Our senior pupils are organising a Model United Nations (MUN) conference on Friday 5 October. Pupils from across Scotland will be attending.

7.      Best wishes to senior pupils and staff who will be visiting Ireland over the next week as part of their Gaelic studies.

8.      We encourage as many staff and pupils as possible to walk or cycle to school. Cyclists are reminded to use a high quality lock.

9.      All are reminded to mark personal belongings so that ‘lost’ items can more easily be returned to their owners.

10.  We look forward to welcoming pupils from our partner school (Law Ting Pong) in Hong Kong in November. Details will follow on this and plans for our pupils to visit Hong Kong in October 2019.

11.  Arrangements are progressing well for the S6 annual visit to partner schools in South Africa in February 2019.

12.  Pupils in S1-3 have, this morning, had presentations from ‘Social Bite’, the social enterprise set up in 2017 to raise awareness of homelessness.

13.  Well done to:

a.       Kirsty Johnson, 3S1, who came second in the under 14 girl category in the Scottish National Youth Road cycling Race Series 2018. 

b.      Mollaidh Nicholson (S3), who recently took part in the Scottish Seniors Pro-am at Craigielaw Golf Club. Mollaidh finished a very creditable 20th in the Pro-Am event at 8 under par.

c.       Dorin Whitelaw (S4) and helpers who, this morning, ran a bake sale and raised over £100 for Cancer Research.

14.  I was very pleased at how sensibly our pupils conducted themselves during the stormy weather on Wednesday.

I wish all a lovely weekend.

Donald j Macdonald

Headteacher