Preparing your child for the present and beyond

At the High School of Dundee, we are working hard to give our pupils the best school experience during these unprecedented times.

Online learning and teaching

Just as if pupils were in the School itself, a timetable of lessons is in place with most of them delivered live using Microsoft Teams. For example, last week more than 600 live lessons took place in the Senior Years and around 150 in Junior Years. Our teachers are also creating prerecorded lessons and continuously uploading resources to our Virtual Learning Environment. Our Learning Skills Team continues to provide timetabled support. Our Junior Years teachers have devised activities which ensure that pupils stay engaged with one another and have a chance to work and play alongside their friends virtually, whilst our Senior Years Guidance Teachers meet their groups online every week and continue to provide one to one pastoral support. We have also been running a Care Hub at May̬eld for children of key workers.

Building essential skills

Now more than ever, we want to be sure that we’re also building skills in creativity, resilience and con̬dence so that our pupils are able to adapt to our everchanging world and take responsibility for their own learning in the widest sense. We are providing as many co-curricular activities as we can. As well as taking part in weekly Sport and Cookery challenges, our pupils have been creating wellbeing podcasts, producing their own lockdown newsletter and much more. PE Lessons and music tuition are also taking place online.

A flexible future

What we’ve put in place in response to COVID-19, is also a crucial part of our future. We’re working hard on our plans for returning to school and Nursery. We don’t know how the pandemic will progress, but we do know that we’ll need to be ̭exible and agile. Our remote learning programme allows us to do that, ensuring that our pupils can continue with high quality education regardless of where they are learning.

Wellbeing and our values

Rector Lise Hudson says: “The wellbeing of our pupils is always our number one priority, and is something we have worked hard to protect and safeguard during lockdown; listening to our pupils concerns and feedback and responding to their needs. “We are a community that works to support each other and kindness is at the heart of all that we do. As we move towards a reopening we have learnt how precious our shared humanity is and the power that we have to change the world for the better through our individual and collective actions.” Around 20% of families receive bursary support. Many of our families have been a̫ected ̬nancially by the COVID-19 crisis, but our mission is to ensure that no child leaves the School due to ̬nancial reasons. We are working hard to support all our families; we’ve put in place fee variations to help those who need it and our fees are frozen for the forthcoming year.

You can still join us during lockdown

Here at HSD we have children joining us all year round and even during lockdown. In fact we’ve had new pupils joining the School within the last few weeks. One parent of a pupil who recently joined the school said: “My son has been very happy with the process so far. There is a good quantity of information/resources available for him. The interactive teaching makes a big di̫erence in enabling him to feel some con̬dence in the process of settling into a new school. “To meet the teachers and to have some very basic interaction has been helpful for him to begin to feel a part of the school. Thanks to everyone for being so welcoming.”

Pupils and staff from throughout the school joined together online to perform We’ll Meet Again to mark VE Day.