Tynecastle High School - Newsletter Spring 2014 ! ! ! Contents ! ! ! Page 3 Head Teacher’s page Page 4 Whole School News Page 10 S1/2/3 Round-up Page 12 S 4/5/6 Round-up Page 17 Extra-Curricular Page 28 Faculty news Page 40 Active Schools & Primary Transition Page 46 Information for Parents/Carers ! ! ! ! ! Dear Parent / Carer ! !2 ! As always, it has been good to meet many of you at the Sport Awards Ceremony and the recent curricular information evenings. Our main focus this term has been to ensure all students are on track for their National Qualifications, and in preparing for introducing our new Senior Phase in May. I am pleased to say that thanks to the commitment and expertise of staff we are in the final stages of assessment, and that the delivery of the new courses has gone well. Our prelims also went smoothly and students should now be acting on targeted advice from staff in preparation for the exams. Please encourage your son/daughter to take part in our rich supported study and Easter School programme. Our use of IT to support learning has also really taken off this term with the appointment of specialist staff to lead innovation. You can read more about developments in this edition. Please follow us on Tw i t t e r ! Other term highlights for me include our on-going development of languages. All students during S1-2 now benefit from opportunities in Spanish and Mandarin, as well as French. In partnership with Historic Scotland our S1 Gaelic students have been performing a play for various organisations and in the final week of term will tour in the north of Scotland. Earlier this term our good practice in languages was recognised in a Ministerial Visit centred around our S1 Mandarin classes celebrating the Year of the Horse. I plan to develop further links with China when I visit the Beijing area during the Easter holidays as part of a British Council initiative. Our students have been busy writing greeting cards and making small gifts for Chinese students. Happy Easter! Mr T Rae Head Teacher ! Ministerial Visit Thursday th Whole School News 30 January 2014 ! !3 ! Tynecastle High School Technology for learning in welcomed Alasdair Allan, MSP Tynecastle is going from today. The Minister visited one strength to strength. All of our of our S1 Mandarin taster S3 and S4 students have iPads classes and chatted to the and we are soon to roll this students about their progress. out to the new S3 & S2. They are all very positive Students having access to about their experiences and their own device means that have made great progress in a we can provide learning short time thanks to the experiences where use of expert teaching of our technology is integrated and Chinese language Assistant, accessible to all. Students and Meiling. We are really staff are creating content and delighted to benefit from this sharing good practice much excellent partnership with the more easily and readily than British Council. All students in before, enhancing the S1-3 will be able to access the learning experience for all. Mandarin tasters this session. The visit coincided with ! Chinese New Year so the Across the school our staff students found out about the and students are making use customs and culture related of online learning platforms to this. They all now know we such as Edmodo. These are in the Year of the Horse, a systems help students connect prosperous year according to and engage with teachers and Chinese tradition. Follow up resources in a safe and secure work by the class also took environment. There is also an place in our House Assemblies Edmodo login for parents so the following day as part of you can see what your child is our Global Citizenship working on. Please get in awareness programme. touch if you do not already Mr T Rae, Head have a login. Teacher ! ! In February, all staff accounts in Tynecastle were moved Information Technology over to the new Council-wide !4 ! Microsoft Office 365 system. student work, share resources Our students will be moved and introduce our students to over shortly. This system a global audience. provides cloud-based email, calendars, storage and the ! familiar Office suite of Apps We have also featured on the such as Word and PowerPoint. Council’s Bright Futures blog Office 365 integrates with the at iPad and so the traditional edinburghbrightfutures.com. desktop environment is now This has brought to a wider accessible on our devices, audience the work of our allowing for more innovative dancers, Chinese language use of this technology. ! classes and World Book Day ! Social Media activities. ! ! Over the last few months we have been looking at social Social media complements our media and the various ways in more traditional channels of which Tynecastle can engage communication and we are with the wider school currently redeveloping our community and share all of school website to provide a the great things that happen more engaging and dynamic here. To help with this, and to place for students, staff, model good practice with parents and visitors. social media to our students, Digital Footprints we now have a school Twitter account - @TynecastleHigh. With social media playing a Twitter allows us to easily significant role in many of our share news and updates about lives, including those of our school life. A number of students, we are mindful that faculties and subjects are also everyone at Tynecastle thinks using Twitter to showcase carefully before they publish !5 ! information online. We have If you have any questions or been speaking to our young concerns please do not people about their ‘Digital hesitate to get in touch with Footprint’ - the tracks that us. are left when comments, photos and videos are Support of Learning through published online, in any social Innovative ICT use network. As well as friends I w a s d e l i g h t e d t o b e and family, employers and appointed as a teacher at places of further and higher Tynecastle in February this education are looking to see year. My role is to support what information we have students, staff and the wider online and we want every community with the student at Tynecastle to have integration of technology into a digital footprint they are learning and teaching and proud of and would be happy promote innovative use. With for anyone to look at. access to what seems like unlimited amounts of information from around the world and the ability to connect with a global audience, it is my goal to ensure that all of our students are able to make the most of this amazing technology to help reach their full potential. The online world can often be daunting and confusing, and Mrs J so the Council has put Robertson together digital safety resources for parents which ! you can find on the Digital Learning Team’s website at: Provision for Highly Able Students http://tinyurl.com/ digitalinformation It is the ethos of the school that every student attains their full potential. The more !6 ! traditional focus of Support and outside of the classroom. for Learning is working with These include: students to bring their Literacy and Numeracy skills • Mentoring up to National standards, but • Subject specific we do also have an overview provision including and co-ordinating role for differentiation and students who are Highly Able. the delivery of Such students are identified courses to Advanced mainly via: Higher Level ✓ Teachers being aware • S e t t i n g i n m a n y of school policy and subjects. asked to identify students • Visiting speakers ✓ DHT/SfP House • Opportunities to meetings/discussions engage with Universities for both ✓ Transition information academic interests from Primaries and entrance. We ✓ Standardised subscribe each year Assessment results to the Lothian Equal Access Programme for ✓ National Assessments/ Schools (LEAPs) and SQA examination support students results through the UCAS system, including ✓ Parent/pupil/peer Oxbridge where referral relevant. ✓ Subject specific • Wider achievement target setting and opportunities t r a c k i n g a n d monitoring • Visits to specialist institutions To challenge our Highly Able Students we use a wide variety of strategies both in !7 ! • Engagement with World Maths Day at Scottish Network for Fettes College Able Pupils (SNAP) You can follow the wider • External achievements of all our competitions/ students on Twitter projects/prizes @TynecastleHigh. Students have many ! opportunities to engage in activities outside of school Mrs V Cheung which allows them to liaise Support for Learning Leader and compete with their peers. Some recent examples ! include: ! S3 Science and Engineering day at S6 Captains’ Round-up Heriot-Watt university Every year the school hosts a Scottish Poetry Burns Supper that features a Library Twitter two course meal, singing, Competition Highland dancing, speeches, raffles and of course, a Scottish Football ceilidh. This year Burns Night Trials at Toryglen was attended by teachers, students, ex-students and Construction and Built family and friends from as far Environment around the world as China, Challenge at Napier making it a great social and University cultural event. Halloween Haiku (Poetry) Competition ! World Challenge Heriot-Watt University Design It’s now fewer than 90 days Smash Challenge until the World Challenge team leaves for our month long expedition in Bolivia !8 ! which seems mad considering anticipation for this year’s that there were over 600 days Christmas pantomime. until departure when we first signed up. Our itinerary has ! been finalised and squeezes in Ex-Tynecastle student new a w e e k l o n g t r e k u p British Boxing Champion Apolobamba, a week building homes for poverty stricken We are proud to note that Lee families in Cochabamba, a 3 McGregor, who left at the end day visit to the unique Uyuni of Salt Flats, acclimatization in the Santa Cruz jungle and S4 to take up a Modern national park and a visit to Apprenticeship under the Lake Titicaca.