Staffing and School Roll (Download this newsletter from here)

Three new appointments have been made to the staff of the Academy: Miss Carnegie (Business Studies), Ms Prowse (Modern Languages) and Mrs Dwojacka (Chemistry and Science). These three teachers - and any trainees who are allocated to the school - will start in August. We are also fortunate to have secured the services of Ms Leanne Young who will be with us as a Classroom Assistant (Behaviour Support) until the summer. We have also advertised a post in this area for next session.

Mr Learmonth has now gone into hospital for neck/back surgery and is likely to be absent for the remainder of the session; Mr Spracklen has stepped in to cover classes during this time. Mr Tinman took ill on the first week of the Easter break and his classes have been split between Mrs Dobson and Mr Boyom who is with us part-time until Mr Tinman returns.

SQA Examinations

The annual diet of national examinations began on Monday of last week. Pupils have been fully briefed about timetables, regulations and expectations and parents have received details of procedures, study leave and induction activities by post. If you have not already acknowledge receipt of this letter, please do so as soon as possible.

Kirkcudbright Academy Half-Marathon

This year’s Half-Marathon takes place on Saturday 23 May and is shaping up to be a memorable event – with the main race, the 11k and the walk being enhanced by stalls, live music, dog show and various other activities taking place in the school grounds. We have a good number of parent volunteers helping out, but if you would like to join the team, please contact the School Office. Volunteers should have a task slip by the end of the week, detailing job, time and location; if you do not receive one of these, please contact us.

A Curriculum for Excellence

Accompanying this newsletter is a pamphlet from Dumfries and Galloway Council giving some basic information about the Scottish Government’s reform programme entitled ‘A Curriculum for Excellence.’ The government has also identified in-service training days for staff – 1 June and 18 August – and these will be non-pupil days (apart, of course, from those pupils who have exams on the 1 June).

Emergency Planning

Again, in line with requirements to have procedures in place for different kinds of emergency, a group of staff has been working on a Kirkcudbright Academy plan and this is now ready to share with parents. Before we are able to do so, however, some additional lighting has to be installed at the corners of the buildings for alert purposes. As soon as we are ready to undertake a practice of an emergency drill, we will issue a letter with further information in it.

Open Evening and Parent Council AGM

Our annual Open Evening takes place on Wednesday 3 June and all parents and friends of the Academy are welcome to attend. The evening will begin at 6.30pm with a brief meeting in the Cochran Hall when senior members of staff will talk about a number of aspects of life at the Academy. This will also include a presentation by Coniston Corporate, our school uniform supplier. Thereafter, from around 7.00pm onwards, visitors will be free to look around the school and visit the various displays and activities which subject departments will put on. The evening will end, promptly, at 9.00pm.

The AGM of the Parent Council will also be held on that evening with refreshments available in the Cochran Hall prior to the meeting at 8.15pm.

Website and current information for parents – GLOW

In order to improve communication, we have taken up the suggestion from one or two parents to make ‘current’ letters and information available on the school website – just click on the item you require. The national education intranet GLOW will, in the near future, provide pupils, teacher and parents with rapid and easy access to a single source of information. We will soon be registering staff and pupils for GLOW.

ECDL

Congratulations to Ruth Hamblin, Annie Hyde, Fiona Kerr and Alison Locke who have successfully completed all 7 units of the ECDL course. Thanks to Chris Fyles from Castle Douglas IT Centre for teaching the course and carrying out the assessments.

Orienteering Success

Well done to Zach Reilly in S3 who won his age group title in last week’s regional orienteering championships. Zach also won the Junior Challenge in the Hard Rock mountain-biking event at Dalbeattie.

Girls Football

Hannah King and Lily Knott have been playing regularly throughout the South of Scotland for Dumfries Girls. Any other girls or parents interested please contact Mr G Scott.

Free Books for Schools

Thank you for your help in collecting books for schools tokens from The Times and The Sunday Times last term. We were able to order several books from Books for Schools.

It is now time to start collecting for our next order of free books. Summer term tokens will be available from April 19 to July 11. We will be placing our second book order at the end of the summer term, so please make sure we have all your tokens before the holidays begin. C Maitland, Librarian

Half Marathon Draw Tickets

Raffle tickets are for sale for the Half Marathon draw from POLARPAK and the School Office

Tesco Vouchers

Once again, we have started collecting Computers for Schools vouchers and would be very pleased if parents would gather vouchers and pass them to the School Office. Last year, we were able to buy a significant number of pen-drives for school use and would be grateful if you can pass vouchers on to us agai

Volunteers/Leaders needed to support Kirkcudbright Academy’s Duke of Edinburgh’s Award group

There are several different roles for our volunteers - have a look to see what you could do:

Leaders – You'll lead, guide, inspire and encourage young people, agree their programme choices and sign off Record Books through regular meetings to keep the kids on track with their DofE Award and help them train for their expedition.

Expedition leader – supervise participants on the expedition section of the award. Must hold a current walking leadership qualification ( Walking Group Leader Award / Mountain Leader) or be willing to go through the council run Hillcraft Leader qualification .

DofE Expedition Assessor – no experience or qualifications needed, just a willingness to come and meet the groups at various points along their expedition routes to check on their progress.

First Aid trainer – needed to deliver a handful of short basic first-aid training sessions either during lunchtime meetings or after-school to a small group ofparticipants.

Transport - Help out by driving the community minibus on the occasional weekend April-Sept, to drop expedition groups off or pick them up

If you'd like to make a positive impact on young people, then we want to hear from you! 

Contact: Ms Val Speirs

Kirkcudbright Academy’s Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award group.

Stakeholder Survey

The following table summarises the responses from parents to the Stakeholder Survey:

Parental questionnaire: question	Agree	Disagree
The school helps my child to become more confident	93.0%	4.0%
My child enjoys learning at school	94.0%	6.0%
My child finds school work interesting	82.0%	5.0%
My child is encouraged and stretched to work to the best of his/her ability	87.0%	7.0%
I am kept well informed about my child`s progress	91.0%	9.0%
My child feels safe at school	98.0%	2.0%
My child is treated fairly at school	93.0%	5.0%
I feel staff really know my child as an individual and support her/him well	81.0%	10.0%
My child benefits from school clubs and activities provided outwith the classroom	67.0%	20.0%
The school actively seeks out my views	77.0%	20.0%
The school takes account of my views	69.0%	15.0%
The school is well led	91.0%	4.0%
Overall, I am happy with the school	90.0%	7.0%
Please use space below to expand on answers given	0 answered	110 skipped
Name	106 answered	4 skipped

Thank you to the 110 parents/carers who took the time to fill in responses to the survey. There are clearly areas where we can do better, some of which involve better communication as to what is on offer in the school, and we will be working to incorporate these into next session’s School Improvement Plan.