Staffing and School Roll (Download this newsletter from here)

Mr Learmonth has returned to us on a part-time basis following surgery to his neck and shoulder. Mr Tinman is still absent and, sadly, Mrs Clark-Kennedy is also absent through illness. We are fortunate to have Mr Boyom with us in Modern Languages and Mrs Huddleston and Ms Taylor in English. We are interviewing for Mr Donnelly’s Pupil Support post on Thursday of this week and hope also to make an appointment in English soon.

SQA Examination Results A

We now have the results of the Stage 1 Appeals (Higher and Advanced Higher) and a number of senior students have had results upgraded. Stage 2 appeals have been submitted for Standard Grade and Intermediate courses and these will be responded to by November.

Charities Events

This year’s nominated school charity is the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the first of our fund-raising events takes place on Thursday of this week. Interact, our Rotary Club junior organisation, has decided that their chosen charity will be Mercy Ships. The local Rotary Club continues to give excellent support to the school, not only by assisting with Interact, sponsoring places at enterprise events and with interview practice for university applicants, but also with competitions such as YouthSpeaks, Young Masterchef, Young Musician and Young Photographer. We are very grateful for their contribution to the life of the school.

Chaplains

Our chaplaincy team, led by Rev Douglas Irving, has been extended and now includes Roger Cutler, Stella Gillette, Malcolm Macpherson, Val Ott, Dennis Samways and Mhairi Wallace.

In addition to leading and organising faith assemblies (where our pupils learn more about different faiths), the chaplaincy team has a presence on all assembly days and there are two representatives available to meet informally with pupils in school on a Thursday lunchtime.

China

We have recently received information about a school in China which has expressed interest in forming a partnership with Kirkcudbright Academy: School No. 36 in Chongquing which has 3000 pupils!

S6 Prefects

Rachel Connor, Sam Gilston and Claire Smith have been elected to serve as Senior Prefect this session. Congratulations to them and especially to Rachel who is this year’s Head Prefect.

School Email Address

The school is using a new email network and our contact address is now koffice612@ea.dumgal.sch.uk

Pantomime

This year, the school pantomime is “Sleeping Beauty” and the main roles have been cast. If any parents would like to be involved in preparations, especially anyone who can assist on the musical side of things, please let Ms Clement, Ms Westbrook or Mr Forbes know as soon as possible.

Mobile Phones

A reminder about mobile phones. Our policy with mobile phones is quite simple; pupils are in class to learn and should not have a mobile phone switched on at this time. If a pupil is found to be using a phone or a phone interrupts a class, the phone will be confiscated and will be held in the school office until a parent or carer authorises its return. The phone will be returned to its owner at the end of the school week. I am certain that we can count on your support. It is not necessary for pupils to have mobile phones in school as any urgent contact that has to be made with family or home can be done through the school office. We will always allow a pupil to use the phone if they need to.

Free School Meals – Addition to Entitlement Criteria – Important Information

In order to qualify for Free School Meals the parent/guardian of a child should be in receipt of one of the following benefits:

• Income Support
• Job Seekers Allowance (Income based)
• Employment and Support Allowance (Income based)
• Child Tax Credit only with an annual income under £16,040 (subject to change)
• Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit with an annual income under £6,420 (subject to change)

Dumfries and Galloway website www.dumgal.gov.uk has now been updated and explanatory notes and the application is now available online.

Free Books for Schools

At the end of the summer term we were able to order eight books from Books for Schools. Thank you for collecting tokens from the Times newspaper to enable us to increase our school library stock.

We are collecting the special Books for Schools tokens again this term. Autumn term tokens are available from September 13 - December 6, with four tokens in The Sunday Times News Review, three tokens in The Times on Saturday and one token each day in Times 2 from Monday to Friday.

Please collect as many tokens as you can and given them to your child to bring to school. Tokens can be deposited in our special collection boxes, or given to a member of staff. We will be placing our book order at the end of the autumn term, so please make sure we have all your tokens by December 11, 2009.

Morrisons Let’s Grow Vouchers

We would welcome these vouchers being handed in to the school as we are hoping to buy materials and equipment for our Rural Skills courses.

Tesco Vouchers

Thanks to everyone who collected Tesco Vouchers for schools – we amassed the grand total of 11,723 and were able to exchange these for various items of PE equipment and pen drives. This means that Academy contributors spent £112,000 in Tesco!