We have had a bumper week this week.

Last Friday saw the final day for Ms Good of our Science and Biology departments. Ms Good had been at Knox Academy since 2004 and will be sorely missed. Our loss is Eyemouth High School’s gain.

On Saturday I had the distinct pleasure of being in the audience at the “New Spirit” concert hosted by Haddington Pipe Band. Several of our pupils were involved: they piped, they sang and they played – all marvellously. It was a really uplifting concert with many a stirring tune and some that were new to us. I would like to thank Haddington Pipe Band for their hard work and support, and I look forward to the continued partnership between them and Knox Academy.

On Monday, fourteen intrepid reporters who form the BBC School Report team left Knox Academy armed with video cameras, tripods and questions to meet with Iain Gray MSP at the Scottish Parliament. Iain was charming and affable and spoke in a relaxed and uncomplicated way about his feelings with regards the extensive building that is happening in East Lothian (the pupils are investigating the issues around new housing in Haddington). After the interview, Iain kindly took time out of his busy schedule to show the group around the parliament building and was an excellent raconteur, making the visit personal and particularly relevant to East Lothian. The concrete came from Dunbar and the seats in the Debating Chamber were crafted in East Lothian. All pupils behaved impeccably and are excellent ambassadors for Knox Academy. The BBC School report team will now edit their videos, with the help of Mr Dempster and Mr Plain to create a 3-4 minute news item which will be submitted to the BBC School Report website which goes live on Thursday 10th March. I would like to thank Ms Prime, Ms Bulloch and Mrs Fraser for supporting the pupils in this project.

On Tuesday, having qualified for this national event by winning the East Lothian tournament before Christmas, Mr. Mitchel (Coach at Haddington Badminton Club) and Mr. Wands took our U14 Badminton Team, to the Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility in Motherwell. Knox was drawn in a tough pool that included George Watson’s and the High School of Glasgow amongst others. We finished 3rd in our pool and went through to the 5th / 6th place play-off match. Following some thrilling games in which all players contributed, we narrowly lost out 2 games to 3 placing us 6th overall. This is an excellent result for us and I’d like to extend my congratulations to all involved: Harry Anning, Jonathan Carruthers, Niall Holman, Jamie Gilkison, Kyle Sutherland, Amanda Martin, Rachel Broadley, Sophie Cheyne, Amy Mill-Irving, and Sophie Milne.

I am delighted to announce that Hamish Hastie is the recipient of this year’s Aubigny Scholarship. It’s a fantastic award that will allow Hamish to spend some time in Aubigny with families and working in the community. I wish him all the very best and we will say a fuller congratulations to him at our annual Awards’ Ceremony.

On Wednesday we hosted representatives from the Electoral Registration Office who were in to ensure that all the young people in the school who are eligible to vote are registered. It was a bit of a process to find youngsters and get them down to the Hall and get their details, but hopefully we now have as many young people registered as possible.

Have a very good week.

S Ingham