The Annual General Meeting of the Menzieshill High School Parent Council will be held on Wednesday 13th May at 6.30 pm in the Meeting Room.

All parents are warmly invited to come along and new members of the Council will be most welcome.

http://www.npfs.org.uk/national-5-revision-in-a-nutshell/?dm_i=LQE,3ALRP,3LCU3U,BSHHN,1

"These Revision in a Nutshell National 5 subject guides supplement learning and revision in class. They are organised alphabetically, by subject, covering 20 osubjects which have exams and for which the SQA has provided relevant past paper questions. Please check with your teacher to ensure that the guides are relevant to you.  The SQA Specimen Paper and the marking instructions are the most important documents to look at – the BBC Bitesize guides are also really helpful and provide different revision materials.  See our Pointers for Parents and Pupils for more information.  Feedback on these is very welcome.   Good luck!

Our general guide to revision for parents and pupils, which contains links to key SQA and Education Scotland information,  is Pointers for Parents and Pupils: pointersforparents

View the SQA National 5 Specimen Papers for every subject with an exam here http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/69284.html

BBC Bitesize revision resources are available in most National 5 subjects here http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/levels/z6gw2hv"

http://www.npfs.org.uk/new-higher-revision-guides/?dm_i=LQE,3ALRP,3LCU3U,BSHHN,1

"These resources provide a clear, straightforward explanation of what learners need to know in order to prepare for the new Higher exams. For each subject, there are links taking you directly to specimen papers, exemplar question papers and sites where you can access other useful information. Please note that these resources are for the new Curriculum for Excellence Highers only."

A copy of the S4, 5 and 6 prelim exam timetable is available here in the Parents' Documents.

A letter outlining the consultative process on the proposed Closure of Menzieshill High School and Changes to the catchment area for Harris Academy is available here in the Parents Documents section of the website.

For our second visit supported by Live Literature Scotland  Matthew Fitt came in to do a Scots Language workshop with a second year English class on 26^th November. To our astonishment and delight Matthew also invited along Sheena Wellington who had only the previous day been announced as Dundee’s first Scots Language Ambassador. Sheena was not content to be merely audience but worked alongside the pupils as they explored what they knew about Scots vocabulary, had a go at translating Humpty Dumpty into Scots and discussed how they would represent Scots words in a visual dictionary. finishing by having a go at singing Scots versions of well known songs. Matthew’s session was as always interactive and engaging and we were delighted when our pupils were complimented on their Scots by both Matthew and Sheena.

Once again, the Young Mothers’ Unit has been awarded a “very good” grading following a recent unannounced inspection visit from the Care Inspectorate.

In all the individually inspected areas, the YMU was graded at a 5 which means in the 1-6 grading system it is considered to be “very good”, with the exception of the section specific to staffing, which was graded a 6, the highest possible score indicating “excellence”.

This report reflects the consistently high quality of the service which is provided for young mums and their babies.  The inspection covers specifically targeted areas e.g. Management and Leadership, Environment and Staffing and the inspector also seeks the views of service users and their parents.

Yet again, the staff of the YMU are justifiably proud of their efforts being recognised so positively.

This event has become something of a tradition in Menzieshill High and historically, took place over one day where a staff coffee morning was held and pupils wore something pink.

This year it was decided that we should shake things up a little and run things differently.  We organised the running of cake and candy stalls in the staffroom and social area at morning intervals with the staff stepping up as generously as always and baking a fabulous array of tempting treats over the course of the whole week.  This proved to be enormously successful particularly with the pupils, who seemed to enjoy all the home baking.

On the final Friday, we held a “Wear it Pink” day where pupils were allowed to wear a pink accessory with their uniforms if they paid £1.00  The whole week was a huge success and a whopping £366.00 was raised by our very generous staff and pupils for this very worthy breast cancer awareness cause.

On Monday 17^th November, in a visit organised by the librarian, Pam Cairns came to speak to pupils in the Geography department about life in South America. Her first talk was to an S3 class who will be looking at the issues of poverty and shanty towns and the second was to the Higher geography class who will be looking at shanty towns, economic development and deforestation around the Amazon. Pam Cairns is a doctor who was for some years a director of the Vine Trust, working particularly with the Amazon Hope Programme and she now writes novels for teenagers; exciting adventure stories which draw on her experiences for their authentic backgrounds. Her first novel, The dead don’t hurt us, is set in the Peruvian jungle and among the street children of Peru; her second, Trampled Shoots, is for a slightly older age group and deals with the problems of human trafficking and organised crime in South America. Pam’s knowledge and passion for her subject shone through in both talks and their success can be gauged by the fact that there were pupils in the library at the end of the school day to borrow the books.