Head Teacher Update – Week Beginning 3/2/25

Monday 3rd February 2025

Calendar
4.1.25 House Assemblies – Holocaust Memorial
4.1.25 Parent Partnership Meeting (7PM – 9PM Art Department)
5.1.25 Senior Phase Parents Evening (Telephone appointments)
10.2.25 – 17.2.25 February Break

Parent Partnership
The next parent partnership meeting will be held in the Art Department from 7pm – 9pm on Tuesday 4th February. I will be giving an update regarding what our data is showing in terms of bullying and equalities on the back of the launch of our new anti-bully policy in the autumn.
The policy can be found on the school website (https://dalkeith.mgfl.net/bullying-equalities/)

Dress Code
The school dress-code is designed to be flexible and to give parents/carers and pupils various options. However since the Christmas break we have seen an increase in two issues I am looking for your support to address.
More female pupils are wearing crop-tops and both male and female pupils are wearing coloured leisure wear. Crop-tops are not appropriate for school and your support with reinforcing this message would be appreciated. The school has been flexible about leisure wear as it is comfortable and something pupils will happily wear, but too many pupils are now wearing a range of colours, not the black outlined in the dress-code. On a campus with nearly two thousand pupils it is very important that staff can quickly identify pupils by their school. St David’s pupils wear grey/maroon hoodies and Dalkeith wear black. If our pupils are wearing multi-coloured tracksuits this identification becomes more difficult.
I am very aware that buying clothes for teenagers is expensive and some families find this particularly challenging. We have a clothing bank of new school uniform and if a young person needs anything we will happily provide this – please just let us know and this will be handled confidentially and sensitively.

Senior Phase – Exam Preparation
The school offers a range of study support session across the week, details can be found at this link. Supported Study Template 24 25.xlsx

We have purchased a whole school license for an online resource called Achieve (achieve.hashtag-learning.co.uk/accounts/login/). Pupils in S4-6 have been given login details.

Vaccines
The monthly bulletin you were sent last week contains specific information about the vaccine programme and dates for the return of consent forms. For general information about the vaccines please see the link below.
Vaccines for young people | NHS inform

Best wishes
S Illingworth
Head Teacher (Acting)

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