7 October 2022: The October edition of the Connect newsletter is now available. As always it covers a wide range of topics, and this month includes news about:
6 October 2022: Are you looking to return to work after a career break?
Making Work Work – for Women Returners is the Challenges Group’s women returners programme. It is a free online Skills Development Scotland-funded course for women returners looking to get back into paid work after career break.
Find out more and register to attend on the Challenges Group website
The programme seeks women in Scotland looking to step back into the workplace and who face difficulties in finding work that fits with all the commitments and fun of life following a career break (e.g. for maternity, caring, health issues / disability, redundancy, relocation or other reasons).
We are looking for women who have management experience or aspirations from across Scotland to take part in a peer-led skills refresher programme which will facilitate the confidence and networks essential to finding work commensurate with their skills, ambitions and potential.
Don’t worry if you have not had management experience – this will not exclude you from the programme. However, you need to be willing to learn about management and leadership skills – either for your next role or a future one.
Participants also get support with their job search, personal development and designing their (work)life blend.
2 October 2022: Every year the Parent Council’s Small Sums Fund provides additional resources to support and enhance the experience of youngsters in the school and in extra-curricular activities, in areas where funding is not provided by the City of Edinburgh Council.
The JGHS Parent Council Small Sums Fund is open to staff, pupils and anyone connected to
the school to bid for funding.
This year we were delighted to provide support for a range of different activities, include funds to help fit out the Support for Learning classroom in Bruntsfield House.
Mr Cockcroft, Support for Learning Leader, said:
As you know, we moved into a large, empty room in Bruntsfield House last year. We spent the money on making the room more welcoming for the students who access it and bought soft furnishings, plants, cabinets to display pupils’ work and lots of picture frames.
We held a small art exhibition in July of the work of the students who access SfL and invited their parents in to see this. It was a great success and something we plan to replicate this year. Thanks again for the money we received.
Some photos of the new classroom are shown below.
More information about projects supported by the Small Sums Fund is available at the link below
29 September 2022: Education Scotland has published an updated version of the Parent Council Resource. This is a guide for parents working in partnership with schools and the wider community to welcome all parents, gather their views and report back to parents.
The information is now live on Parentzone Scotland website
You can also access the details via the pdf linked below:
21 September 2022: Edinburgh Police Division are developing local policing priorities for 2023 to 2026. A forward looking Local Police Plan will be published in April 2023.
The views of the local community are fundamental to ensure their priorities align with local needs.
They are inviting the community to contribute to development of the Local Police Plan by completing the “Your Police 2022-2023” survey. They are keen to get as many opinions as possible, so please consider adding your input.
Your Police 2022-2023 – Police Scotland – Citizen Space
If you have further questions you can contact the South East Community Policing Team by email or visit their website:
11 September 2022: Connect, the body supporting Parent/School interactions, has just published its September newsletter. This edition includes a wide variety of issues including:
Updated 15 September 2022: Many thanks to those who were able to attend the meeting of the Parent Council on Tuesday 6 September 2022. It was a packed agenda and a wide range of issues were addressed:
If you would like to listen back to any sections of the meeting, the recording of the meeting is now available on YouTube:
Listen to the JGHS Parent Council meeting 6 September 2022
The slides from Laura Stewart’s presentation about the refurbishment of the Darroch Annex and use of the space planned can be accessed below:
If you have any questions that were not answered during the meeting, please contact the Parent Council and we will follow them up:
The next meeting of the Parent Council will be on Wednesday 12 October.
This meeting will be our AGM, and will be held in-person in the School for the first time in over 2 and a half years. We very much hope that you will be able to join us.
2 September 2022: The first Parent Council meeting of this session will be held on Tuesday 6 September at 7 pm, and all parents and carers are most warmly invited to attend. This meeting will be held online using MS Teams, and the joining link will be circulated by email by the School next week.
The provisional agenda for the meeting is:
If there are particular issues or queries that you would like raised during the meeting, please send these to us by email:
Please note that there will no written Q&A after the meeting. Please emphasise any question you are interested in by using the “like” function in the Q&A panel to help us get through all business during the meeting.
21 August 2022: The JGHS Parent Council meeting will be holding regular meetings throughout the year. All parents and carers are very warmly invited to join us at these meetings, and to bring any questions or areas of concern to our discussions.
This year’s meetings will be held in a mixture of online and in-person formats.
Meetings will be held at 7 pm on the following dates:
f there are any issues you would like to raise with the Parent Council, please contact us by email:
19 August 2022: The first Parent Council meeting for 2022/23 will be on Tuesday 6 September at 7pm.
This will be an online meeting and will be an opportunity to find out about the work of the PC, meet our new Headteacher, Neil McCallum, and hear about what is happening at the school at the start of the new term.
Questions for the meeting can be raised in advance by emailing the Parent Council and we will try to include them in the updates. There will also be the opportunity to raise questions via the Q&A typed chat facility on the night.
Please look out for the joining link for the meeting, which will be sent by the School in the week of the meeting.
This year, the PC plans to have a mixture of online and in-person meetings – dates for all the meetings are given below:
JGHS Parent Council 