Info – Trinity Academy Parent Council

Why join the Parent Council?

It’s the start of another school year and Trinity Academy is welcoming new families to the school as they join S1. Parent Councils play an important role in bringing home and school together — enabling schools to gather parents’ and carers’ views and for parents to share their ideas and get more involved in school life.

We would like to ask you to think about joining the Parent Council because Parent Councils are most successful when they represent all members of the school community.

What does the Parent Council do?

Help the school take the needs of parents into account when making their decisions.
Give the school leadership an opportunity to communicate directly with parents.
Help parents to understand decisions from the point of view of the school.
Help the school to access parental skills which may benefit the students.
Increase parental involvement in the school.
Improve communication between school and home.
Raise funds and give a little of our time to support and promote the work of the school.

Why join us?

Here are a few ideas.

Knowing more about how the school works, helps you to help your child.
There’s something for everyone. You don’t have to be part of a committee if that’s not your thing. You can help run events, look after our website or social media, campaign, help our school uniform and sport equipment exchanges. You can do as little or as much as you want.
To make friends. After primary school it’s easy to lose touch with other parents, and our meetings and events bring parents together.

Please contact us if you would like to come to our first meeting on the 2nd of September.

Here’s a short video with more reasons…

Course Choice Parent Information Evening

On Wednesday 27th February at 18:00 the school will be holding a Course Choice Information evening where Mr Todd will deliver a presentation on the curriculum structure, course options and qualification types along with lots more. After the presentation, both Mr Paterson and Mr Todd will be available to answer any questions. Any S2/S3/S4/S5 parents looking for coursing information can attend this event. Please register for a free ticket through Eventbrite to give the school an idea of numbers.

1895 Exam Papers

After it opened in 1893, the first exam certificates at Trinity Academy were presented in 1895. Today’s school wouldn’t be pleased with that Arithmetic pass rate!

During the Christmas break, if you want to try some really old past papers, they’re available on the website just for fun!

Thanks to the National Library of Scotland for archiving these.

SCQF Guide

If you have ever looked at your child’s exam certificates and wondered what SCQF Level and SCQF Credit Points mean, there is a guide on the SQA (Scottish Qualifications Agency) website.

‘SCQF’ stands for Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework and the links above describe it using descriptions such as…

“The Framework provides the language for describing learning opportunities and therefore makes relationships between qualifications clearer. It clarifies entry and exit points, routes for progression within and across education and training sectors, also increasing the opportunities for credit transfer. This helps learners plan their progress and minimise duplication of learning.”

Basically though…

The SCQF makes it much easier for employers and learning & training providers across the UK and overseas to understand what has already been achieved by a student.

The level of the qualification shows how demanding it is. There are 12 levels in the Framework running from level 1 up to level 12, the most demanding. A National 3 award is level 3, a National 5 is level 5 and so on, up to level 12 which is a Doctorate (PhD or similar).

The number of SCQF credit points shows how much learning has to be done to achieve the qualification. One SCQF credit point represents about 10 hours of learning.

The SCQF website has a database that provides a way to look for courses in specific subjects and easily see what credits are required and the level of those courses.

University Open Days

We have updated our events listings to include all the university open days at Scottish universities up to June 2018.

Opendays logo

The opendays.com website is also a useful reference to *all* the university open days and has lots of advice on what to do at open days, how to apply to university and college, revision tips, what to do on gap years (and whether they are worth it!), and university subject/course advice.

Helping hands

In case you’d ever like to come long to a meeting but find the idea a bit intimidating, just get in touch with us. We’d be happy to arrange someone to meet you at the door and keep you company through that first meeting.

Universal Children’s Day

Today, 20th November, is Universal Children’s Day established in 1954 and celebrated on this day each year. It is also the date in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and in 1989 the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

To mark this day on which children’s rights are advocated and promoted, we share a part of a wonderful poem written by George The Poet, aka George Mpanga.

A child is not a portion of an adult.
It’s not a partial being.
A child is an absolute person,
An entire life.

The fact that the child is developing,
Doesn’t mean it’s incomplete.
This just makes it especially important for the Child to drink and eat,
and get a decent wink of sleep.

Lest we forget

The Third Battle of Ypres (31 July – 10 November 1917) concluded 100 years ago today and has come to symbolise the horrors associated with the war on the Western Front. It is frequently known by the name of the village where it culminated – Passchendaele.

Outside the school’s main hall is a memorial to the pupils and staff of Trinity Academy who lost their lives while engaged on active service during the First World War. After we’ve been around the school a while it’s easy to walk past without even noticing it.

Among the names listed from Trinity Academy is Sergeant George Eckford, aged 26, who died at Ypres on the 4th October 1917.

Philip K Lawrence wrote about the horrors of the First World War in the book Modernity and War: The Creed of Absolute Violence:

“I go forward with them … up and down across ground like a huge ruined honeycomb, and my wave melts away, and the second wave comes up, and also melts away, and then the third wave merges into the ruins of the first and second, and after a while the fourth blunders into the remnants of the others.

We come to wire that is uncut, and beyond we see the grey coalscuttle helmets bobbing about … and the loud cracking of machine gun fire changes to screeching as of steam being blown off by a hundred engines, and soon no one is left standing.”

Twelve Days of Prelims

Good luck to all those who finished prelims last week. As we move towards the Christmas holidays, let’s enjoy the Twelve Days of Prelims written by some talented S4 students. All together now…. ♫ ♪ ♫

On the first day of prelims
a tear dropped out of my eye
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the second day of prelims
Two tears dropped out of my eye:
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the third day of prelims
Three tears dropped out of my eye
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the fourth day of prelims
Four tears dropped out of my eye:
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the fifth day of prelims
Five tears dropped out of my eye
I want to die
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the sixth day of prelims
Six tears dropped out of my eye
Stop cracking knuckles
I want to die
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the seventh day of prelims
Seven tears dropped out of my eye
Give me more paper
Stop cracking knuckles
I want to die
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the eighth day of prelims
Eight tears dropped out of my eye
Twenty minutes left
Give me more paper
Stop cracking knuckles
I want to die
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the ninth day of prelims
Nine tears dropped out of my eye
My vision’s fading
Twenty minutes left
Give me more paper
Stop cracking knuckles
I want to die
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the tenth day of prelims
Ten tears dropped out of my eye
Stop with the rustling!
My vision’s fading
Twenty minutes left
Give me more paper
Stop cracking knuckles
I want to die
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

On the eleventh day of prelims
Eleven tears dropped out of my eye
Calculator’s broken
Stop with the rustling!
My vision’s fading
Twenty minutes left
Give me more paper
Stop cracking knuckles
I want to die
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh


On the twelfth day of prelims
12 tears dropped out of my eye
Can I hear a rustle?
Calculator’s broken
Stop with the rustling!
My vision’s fading
Twenty minutes left
Give me more paper
Stop cracking knuckles
I want to die
I am exhausted
What is that rustling?
My pen has run out
and I lay down and gave a great sigh

The Poet of Halloween

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, best known for his gothic poetry and tales of mystery and the macabre. He is often credited as being an originator in the genre of detective fiction with his three stories about Auguste Dupin, the most famous of which is The Murders in the Rue Morgue. He lived a bizarre life, died a bizarre death and his most famous Poem is The Raven, recited below by The Simpsons.

For over seven decades, every 19 January, a bottle of cognac and three roses were left at Poe’s original grave marker by an unknown shadowy visitor dressed in black with a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf. He would pour himself a glass of cognac and raise a toast to Poe’s memory then vanish into the night, leaving three roses in a distinctive arrangement plus the unfinished bottle of cognac.

‘The Simpsons’ has referred to classic literature many times during its 28 seasons and more than 600 episodes. These include Hamlet and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

Crazy though he may have appeared; in his Poem Eureka Poe appears to have predicted the big bang theory, modern electromagnetism, black holes, and quantum physics generations before anyone else.