Last week, on 4th November, the first National Non-Fiction Day was celebrated. Pupils were encouraged to select a non-fiction book from the library, those who did so, received a reader sticker. Also, a very lucky group of S1 pupils were taken by staff from the Maths Department, to meet the wonderful Kjartan Poskitt at the Royal Society in Edinburgh. Mrs McInnes reported that Maths is often seen as dull, boring and useless but not by Kjartan – he dazzled the pupils by showing them how exciting, useful and entertaining maths can be with an amazingly energetic and fun-packed show. All the pupils had great fun and came away buzzing with excitement. National Non-Fiction Day will be an annual celebration, initiated by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups in partnership with Scholastic Children’s Books. Thank you to Scholastic for giving Knox a signed copy of Kjartan's new book ‘The Murderous Maths of Everything'.

On Tuesday evening, the Rotary Club debates took place and were a great success. The pupils involved were: Laura Lynas, Hannah Baxter, Sophie Christman, Meg McVicar, Megan Rogers (S5) and Rosie Murray, Ailish Kelly, Liska Crofts and Beth Revualta (S4). Two topics were debated: 'This House Believes the Voting Age Should be Lowered to 16' and ‘This House Believes that Single Sex Education is Beneficial to Pupils'. After some very tough judging, Megan Rogers (S5) was awarded the 'The Rotary Club of Haddington 50th Anniversary Trophy' for the best single participant. Congratulations to Megan and all the participants and thanks to the Rotary Club for hosting the event and Mr O Edwards for organising the Knox team.

During the week, I have visited the S3 classes. As always, I monitored dress code and the use of homework organisers. The focus this week has been homework and it is pleasing to report that the vast majority of pupils are deemed satisfactory or better by the teachers regarding handing in homework and the standard of the work completed.

The theme of the assemblies this week has been ‘War and Peace’ to commemorate Remembrance Day. The timings of the morning yesterday were re-configured to ensure all pupils were in class for the 2 minutes silence at 11am. As the assembly hall is in use for the S4 examinations, Mr Illingworth prepared a ‘virtual’ assembly to be played in each classroom and to include the 2 minutes silence. The presentation proved to be very moving and is available to view on the website. Poppies have been on sale all week and, yet again, the pupils and staff have been generous in contributing to the charity.

Today, along with Mr Plain and Mr Illingworth, I had the pleasurable but daunting task of judging the S3 History pupils’ trench warfare models. There were so many models and of such a high standard it was very difficult to choose the ‘top’ three. Ms McPhee will inform pupils of the outcome next week. Well done to all pupils involved and thanks to Ms McPhee for organising the event.

Best wishes.

JB Craig