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Lockerbie
Academy Bulletin - January 2010
A
Message from the Rector
Firstly, may I take this opportunity to wish all pupils, parents
and staff a Happy New Year. 2010 brings the 16+ preliminary exams
for S5 and S6 students. These exams begin on 18 February and,
as always, we wish all students involved in these every success.
We hope all parents involved will encourage their youngsters to
follow a planned programme of revision and work hard to achieve
their potential during this very important time in their school
careers.
This edition marks the first of our termly bulletins for 2010.
We increasingly rely on schoolbag mail, together with other means,
to communicate with you on a wide variety of topics. Please ask
your children, on a regular basis, if they have any communications
from school.
Each time we issue such information, we shall send an electronic
version via Parentmail (www.parentmail.co.uk)
to those families who have enrolled using the free registration
service on the internet (163 families currently use this facility).
We thank you for your patience with regard to the recent school
closure and appreciate the problems this can cause for working
families.
We did our best to communicate the school closure via our own
website, Parentmail, the Council website and Groupcall. Unfortunately,
Groupcall could not cope with the capacity of traffic and some
messages took several hours to deliver, or were not delivered
at all. The company was very apologetic about this and is working
on improving this aspect of its service.
It is important therefore that our records are up to date with
the correct mobile numbers for Groupcall, and that if you have
internet access, you are registered with Parentmail as another
means of contact.
Finally, thanks to the courtesy of Dumfriesshire Newspapers and
the commitment of our “staff” reporters, we shall also inform
you about school events via our regular column in the ‘Annandale
Herald’.
Staffing
Mrs S Bain has been appointed Headteacher of Dalbeattie
High School, and Mr M Turner appointed Depute Headteacher at Wallace
Hall Academy. Mrs Bain began her career as a Business Studies
teacher in Doon Academy in 1982 and was promoted to Principal
Teacher. She was appointed to Lockerbie Academy as Assistant Rector
and took up post in April 1993.
Mr Turner began his teaching career in St Leonards Secondary School
in Glasgow in 1992 and was acting Assistant Principal Teacher
for six months before leaving in 1997. He was appointed Principal
Teacher History/Modern Studies and began at Lockerbie on 1 April
1997. When management restructuring occurred, he was appointed
Principal Teacher Curriculum for Humanities.
We wish them both every success in their respective new posts.
Mr N Terrace has been appointed Acting Principal Teacher of Humanities
until a permanent appointment can be made. Mrs A Anderson has
been appointed Acting Depute Headteacher on an 18 month secondment
and Ms S Linton has been appointed Acting Principal Teacher Pupil
Support (Annan), replacing Mrs Anderson.
We are also pleased to welcome Mrs L Gardiner to the Support for
Learning department and Mr J Carrick to the Humanities faculty.
We also wish them every success in their new posts.
Fairtrade
School
Thanks to the hard
work of Mrs Cotter and pupil and staff groups, we have achieved
Fairtrade status. We are the first school in Dumfries and Galloway
to do so and one of only 72 in Scotland.
There have been a number of awareness raising activities within
the school including Fairtrade tuck shops, assemblies, Fairtrade
fortnight, quizzes and coffee mornings.
All tea and coffee at staff functions and parents’ evenings is
purchased from the ethical superstore.
Further information can be found on the Fairtrade webpage on our
website.
Syracuse
Scholarships
The application process has begun for those aspiring to become
the 2010 Syracuse scholars. Stefan Hanley and Alistair Inglis
are the current scholars and Alistair returned home for Christmas.
Unfortunately, due to the weather, Alistair was unable to get
in to school to speak of his experiences to this year’s potential
candidates.
Success
of Coffee Morning for Thawale Primary School, Malawi
What a great success
the Malawi African Link Enterprise Group’s coffee morning turned
out to be. Over 150 supporters enjoyed endless cups of coffee
and home baking and the Lockerbie Academy students were to the
fore, not only sixth year students manning stalls and serving
coffees, but also lots of younger pupils helping behind the scenes
and also on many enterprise stalls. The entry fee, competitions
and amazing raffle with almost 100 prizes raised a final total
of £1020.
For such a link to be successful it is vital that there is a degree
of equity in the link and, therefore, it was important that both
Lockerbie Academy students and Thawale Primary School benefitted
from this enterprise activity. So far the Enterprise group has
helped organise a sponsored walk and cycle, raising over £3,000,
as well as sending 300 pen pal letters and 100 books. In future
there will be a continuing exchange in cultures, resources and
a partnership with the Fairtrade groups in the school. Thanks
also to Mr Turner and other staff and parents who helped support
the event. Ms Wright has now taken over the co-ordinating role
for this link.
Exceptional
Closure Days
To allow the smooth transition of
moving to the new school, we have been provisionally granted four
exceptional closure days. Therefore the school will be closed
from Monday 31 May 2010 to Thursday 3 June 2010 inclusive. This
is the allocation allowed by the Scottish Government. We sincerely
apologise for any inconvenience this may cause parents.
Library
News
At the end of the
year I had a look at borrowing information to see just which books
and authors had proved to be the most popular over the past twelve
months. I would have to say that there were not too many surprises.
Although generally speaking it is not very ‘pc’ to separate the
boys from the girls, from my point of view it is interesting to
see how the borrowing pattern figures differ as this can help
me when choosing new stock. I concentrated on fiction as non-fiction
books are often used without actually being taken out of the library
and therefore they don’t necessarily show up on the reports generated
by the library management system.
Amongst the girls, the book borrowed the most last year was It’s
OK, I’m Wearing Really Big Knickers! This is the second in the
Angus, Thongs, series by Louise Rennison which was recently turned
into a film. This was followed by Mates, Dates and Sleepover Secrets
by Cathy Hopkins. Sleepovers by Jacqueline Wilson took third place
and The Fellowship of the Ring by J R R Tolkien came in fourth
as a welcome contrast to the teenage ‘chic lit’ which is always
popular.
Boys too appear to enjoy the works of Tolkien as the book they
borrowed the most was The Hobbit. In second place, in sharp contrast
to that was A Mission to Menace, part of a very popular series
of Dennis the Menace books. In third place was Silverfin by Charlie
Higson, one of a series of books about the young James Bond and
in fourth place was The Wind Singer by William Nicholson. It is
the first part of the Wind On Fire trilogy and is a fantasy novel
set in a land where exams are everything! Perhaps at some point
this year it would be good to look and see what members of staff
are reading. L Langlands
School
Website www.lockerbie-academy.co.uk
Thanks to the diligence
of Mrs Bell and a small group of pupils, our website continues
to be updated and go from strength to strength. We encourage you
to log on and browse, especially the e-boards which contain a
valuable amount of curricular information from faculties.
Parental
Forums
The first meeting
of this year’s parental forums was held on 26 October 2009. The
new school was discussed as well as parental views on the Health
and Fitness and Creative and Aesthetic faculties. These views
will be incorporated into our audit reports on the faculties and
parents were thanked for their assistance with this.
The next meeting of the parental forums will be held on 22 February
2010. If you have any matters you wish to raise, please contact
Mr Herbert on loffice682@ea.dumgal.sch.uk,
telephone 01576 202626/202189 or by writing to the school (for
the attention of Mr Herbert).
Sixth
Year Charities Committee
This year, the nominated
charities are Macmillan Cancer Support and Steps (supporting anyone
affected by hip, leg or foot conditions). Since summer, the Sixth
Years have held a number of fund raising events and to date they
have amassed a total of £728.30.
Dates
for your Diary
| Jan |
19 |
S4 Curriculum
Information Evening, 7.00-8.30 pm (change of date) |
| |
26 |
S4 Parents' Evening, 4.30-6.30
pm |
| Feb |
3 |
S2 Curriculum Information
Evening, 7.00-8.30 pm |
| |
15 |
Mid Term holiday |
| |
16-17 |
Pupil holidays |
| |
18 |
S5/6 Prelims begin |
| |
22 |
Parental Forum, 7.00 pm |
| |
22 |
Fairtrade fortnight begins |
| Mar |
10 |
S2 Parents' Evening, 4.30-6.30
pm |
| |
17 |
Thermal Imagery - Science
event |
| |
26 |
School closes at 3.30 pm
for Spring holiday |
| May |
31- |
|
| Jun |
3 |
Provisional exceptional closure
days |
Provisional Dates for Parents’
Evenings 2010 (4.30-6.30 pm)
| Jan 26 |
S4 |
Mar 10 |
S2 |
|
| May 19 |
S3 |
Jun 15 |
S1 (Part 2) |
|
Provisional Dates for Curriculum Information Evenings 2010 (7.00-8.30
pm)
| Jan 19 |
S4 |
Feb 3 |
S2 |
| Jun 23 |
P7 |
|
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School Holidays 2009/10
| Feb 15 |
Mid Term holiday |
| Feb 16-17 |
Pupil holidays |
| Mar 29-Apr 9 |
Spring holiday |
| May 3 |
May Day holiday |
| Jul 2-Aug
25 |
Summer holiday |
Parents are requested to try to
arrange family holidays during the school holiday dates. The school
cannot grant permission for holidays taken during school time
and all such absences will be marked as unauthorised.
School
Holiday Dates 2010/2011 & 2011/2012
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