Investment at Trinity Academy

There is now movement on the re-development of Trinity Academy. The proposal for Phase 1 (the development of a new sports facility at Bangholm) has been submitted for planning permission and can be seen here.

View of proposed Bangholm entrance

Initial thinking for the Phase 2 development has been set out (refurbishment of the school building between 2020 and 2025). The Education, Children and Families Committee at Edinburgh Council decided last week that the Phase 2 development should be on the existing school site.

‘Massing diagram’ presented to parents. Not a design

However, no budget for Phase 2 has been allocated yet and the Parent Council has written to councillors setting out our enthusiasm for the planned redevelopment of the school and emphasising again why we believe it is needed urgently and why budget should now be allocated. We have sent this with the backing of the Parent Councils from Trinity, Victoria and Wardie Primary Schools as well, so that there is a collective voice.

The council are expected to be making capital budget allocation decisions in February and we very much hope that budget to allow work on Phase 2 to begin will be allocated then. We’ll continue to update parents and, of course, this will be an ongoing item at Parent Council meetings in the coming months, which you are welcome to come to (the next one is 6:30-8:00pm on Jan 15th).

Amazon Smile

There’s now a new (and free) way to raise money for Trinity Academy if you are an Amazon user. Once you’ve signed-up to Amazon Smile, Amazon will give 0.5% of the purchase price to our Charitable Trust and then we will pass on those donations to the school.

Proposed Cuts to Nursery Provision

While this is not directly related to Trinity Academy the campaign below may be of interest to some of our members.

The EIS is trying to draw attention to the proposals from the City of Edinburgh Council to remove all nursery teachers from nursery classes, and nursery headteachers from nursery schools.  This proposal has been made as part of a wider programme of budget cuts. The believe many Edinburgh residents are unaware of the proposal and its implications, and aiming to draw people attention to it. Their concern is that…

we recognise the huge budget pressures being faced by the Council, we feel that the immediate salary savings that would be made by removing these teachers and replacing them with staff who are paid on a lower grade and are qualified to a lower level, will be more than lost by the long term costs due to children receiving a poorer experience in the early years.  In particular, we think the lack of specialist educational input will result in poorer transitions into P1, a loss of expertise around identifying additional support needs, less successful links between home and nursery, and will undermine attempts to close the attainment gap.

You can find more information about this issue on the EIS campaign website. If you share their concerns about this proposal, they are asking for people to sign a petition and contact their local councillors to let them know your views.

New Year

As 2018 comes to an end, a MASSIVE thank you to anyone who helped our work and the school in any way. Raising funds, sharing ideas, coming to meetings, helping other parents, campaigning…
Here’s to 2019!

Donation Delivered!

Parent Council chair Liz presenting a check to headmaster Bryan Paterson

Following our AGM, our Chair, Liz, was delighted to be able to hand over the Parent Council’s donation of over £8,000 to the school. Parent Council funding is used to support equity and inclusion across the school. This year our donation will help to purchase

  • Mathletics, an online Maths learning tool
  • Spare PE kits
  • Mask sets and lighting equipment for the drama department
  • Speakers for music practice rooms
  • Extra guitars to allow wider opportunities for performance
  • A range of novels promoting positive attitudes
  • Entry to the Silver LGBT Chartermark
  • French and Spanish dictionaries for pupils to use at home
  • Subscription to Linguascope to support vocabulary acquisition for learners of other languages and learning of English as a second language
  • Screen to enhance communication across the school
  • Transport costs for S1 residential trip
  • Support to headteacher’s equity fund
  • Ties for all S1 pupils

Thank you to everyone who supported our fundraising last year. This funding will make a real difference across the school.

School’s out for summer

Summer is in the air; the holidays are about to begin, and the Parent Council is feeling cheerful. Last week’s decision by the City’s Education, Children and Families Committee to commit to investing £10million on developing sports facilities at Bangholm and progressing plans for refurbishment of Trinity Academy was such a great way to end the school year. This decision comes after a long period of campaigning by the Parent Council over many years. It will be great to start the new school year with the school community working with the Council on shaping our new facilities. The Education Committee’s decision and three amazing performances of We Will Rock You have given us a warm end of term glow!

Campaigning for investment in the school has been a major focus this year for the Parent Council but we’ve been busy with other things too. We have been working with the school on initiatives to tackle the costs of the school day which can make life difficult for some families. We’ve worked together on a project which should result in more parental involvement in the life of the school. We’ve done loads of fundraising and we made a donation of over £12,000 to the school to fund projects such as stage sound and lighting systems, laptops for pupil support, cricket kit, the new school website and ties for our new S1 pupils. Our members have helped with the recruitment of new curriculum leaders for Mathematics and Expressive Arts. And our first survey of parents for many years gave us really useful feedback – thank you to everyone who contributed.

September 4th 2018 is Trinity Academy’s 125th birthday and a year-long programme of events to celebrate this milestone is planned. The year will kick off with a celebration event on Friday 7 September – details of this exciting event will follow – watch this space. The ever-popular Bangholm Fun Day takes place this year on Saturday 1 September. The Parent Council’s first meeting of the year will be on Wednesday 12 September. We would love to see you at any or all of these events.

On behalf of the Parent Council, I would like to thank all parents, carers, pupils, teachers and staff and our elected representatives for their support this year. As Trinity bids farewell to the pupils and teachers leaving the school this year, we wish them well in their future careers and destinations.

An island in the summer with boats in the foreground

We hope everyone has a good summer break and returns refreshed and ready for an exciting year ahead.

Liz Blair
Chair, Trinity Academy Parent Council

Pedal for Scotland 2018

Cartoon describing the benefits of rising a bicycle. Including, it feels like flying!

For the last few years a group of parents and pupils have taken part in Pedal for Scotland’s cycle from Glasgow to Edinburgh. This event is a highly successful fundraiser and this year we are hoping to enter two Trinity Teams with separate fundraising goals:

  • Trinity Academy Charitable Trust – open to anyone; with fundraising going to our charity. The Trust supports a wide range of charitable donations to the school and pupils.
  • Team Sri Lanka – open to anyone; with fundraising contributing to the fundraising target for the School’s Hockey and Rugby tour to Sri Lanka.

The cycle is a closed-road event on Sunday 9th September. Most of us will be doing the 45-mile route, but there are also 10 and 100 mile alternatives. The 45-mile route is a mixture of hills and flat roads that can be completed by riders with a wide range of cycling skills.

  1. If you would like to take part in either team please get in touch with us and we will pass on details to the two teams.
  2. To register as an “individual” for the 45-mile event, register for the Classic Challenge and choose the Wave 2 departure time (8:00-8:30am).

If you would like to learn more, or register for the alternative distances, details are on the Pedal for Scotland website.

Investment Update

Today marked an important step forward in achieving significant investment in Trinity Academy. The Council’s Education, Children and Families Committee agreed to invest £10m from the 2018-2023 budget into building a new Bangholm sports facility and to develop detailed plans for refurbishment at Trinity Academy.

You might remember when we asked for your help in February, it was to try to ensure funding for improvements at Trinity Academy is included in the Council’s budget programme. The vote today is a first step in spending some of the budget that was set aside for “Replacement High Schools
” on Trinity Academy in the near future. The decision needs to be agreed by the Council’s Finance and Resources Committee and then the full Council before development starts but we anticipate design workshops with interested parties beginning after the summer holidays.

The Council has started to deliver on the commitments it made to delivering a ‘new’ Trinity and developing Bangholm. There is still much to do and a bigger budget needed (a capital investment programme from the Scottish Government will make the biggest difference), but our  campaign has succeeded in highlighting the needs of the school and raising its profile.

THANK YOU to all of you who helped our campaign and took time to contact local Councillors to urge the Council to make this investment.