Yesterday S4 pupils were issued with their full reports.

Please can parents/carers return the tear-off section of the enclosed letter to registration teachers to confirm receipt of the reports.

If you have any queries or wish to make any comments these would be gratefully received.

Many thanks.

As part of the school's self evaluation Mr Blair (Teacher of Mathematics) is hoping to look at the transition for parents and pupils P7/S1 and has asked the Parent Council for assistance.

We thought one way to get views was to have a small focus group for an hour at Knox on Thursday 13th November. We are hoping for around 10 parents in each group.

There will be two groups:

• 1st Group for parents of children in P7 6.15 to 7.15pm
• 2nd Group for parents of children already in S1 7.30 to 8.30pm

The format of the meeting will be to answer around 5 questions in two groups and then a plenary session for open discussion.

The meeting will take place in the Learning Support room which is through the main doors, turn left and it is first on the right. Please contact us (knoxacademypsp@gmail.com) if you can make it – just so we know how many home made brownies to bring!

Louise Elder
Chair, Knox PSP

Knox Academy is pleased to announce the following vacancy:

Applicants interested, in the following position are invited to apply through myjobscotland, where further details can also be accessed. The closing date for applications is indicated below:

Closing Date: Sunday 16 November 2014

• Teacher of Biology, full-time, permanent

Current vacant posts can be viewed on this website under News > Recruitment

The Advanced Higher Geography class along with Miss Jeffrey attended a 2 night residential fieldwork course at the Kindrogan Field Studies Centre in Perthshire in order to learn sampling and processing techniques to apply to our Geographical Studies.

We arrived at the centre at noon on Monday the 29th September and ate our lunch outside in the sunshine before meeting with our tutor and the other school groups attending the course at the same time.

After the introduction we headed out into the field to assess a Soil Catena. We climbed a ridiculously steep and muddy slope to measure different factors of the soil at different points up the hill. We took measurements of soil depth, soil texture, slope angle and used quadrats in order to sample vegetation type, taking photos to help us identify any unknown species. We collected soil samples to test moisture content back at the centre in the lab. We also observed different soil horizons – where the soil changes in colour, texture, density etc. through it’s different layers – at various points up the transect. This helped to reaffirm a lot of the soil theory which he had learned in higher and was great to apply practical skills to help us decide what topic areas we would like to use for our own personal studies.

When we returned to the centre we collated the data we had gathered with the other groups and made a slope transect using the slope angle and soil depth measurements. After an exhausting day we were a little dismayed to find a rather disappointingly portioned dinner, though the pudding was pretty decent - with some of my classmates having seconds, and thirds!
 

Day two started unexpectedly with the fire alarm going off at quarter to eight thanks to somebody spraying deodorant. We all had to troop outside, half dressed, with some of us even having to rush out of the shower! It was freezing but thankfully Miss Jeffrey brought her car keys and let us all sit in her car with the heating on whilst we waited to be allowed back inside, much to the envy of the other schools. Thankfully the weather overall was great with some of us even requiring after-sun for our sun stricken/windswept faces on the Tuesday evening!!!

After an early breakfast we made our packed lunches in the pupil "pantry" which consisted of fruit, flapjacks/homebaking and sandwiches. We headed up into moorland (on a high speed hike!) in order to take measurements at a river as it flowed downstream We split into groups with the other schools and took measurements at fifty metre intervals at three different sites. We took measurements of depth, width, velocity, river load and wet perimeter. Luckily, nobody fell in! The river study was particularly interesting as it demonstrated the various theories we had been taught e.g. depth and width increasing as a river flows downhill and gave us ideas of Geographical Methods/techniques we could conduct for our own investigations.

Back at the centre we used the data to calculate river discharge and to construct a river cross section, showing the velocity changes at different depths. We also did some work with statistics in order to prove how reliable some of the data was. Applying the statistics straight away to our own date made it easier to relate it and helped us build on the statistics we have covered in class.

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