School Update – 20th June 2023

Head Teacher Introduction

Dear Parent/Carer,
I hope that your child is looking forward to
the upcoming holiday. There certainly isn’t
any ‘wind down’ for staff as we work hard to
complete a range of deadlines and prepare
for next session.
I wanted to share some final information in
this my final School Update of the session. I
hope that you and your family have a good
summer.
Best wishes,
Mr. S. Clark
Head Teacher

Last Week Information

Please be aware of the following information for the end of term:

- Full school uniform is required except for pupils participating in Upbeat Trips (out of
school) on Thursday and the last day of term.

- Friday will be a non-uniform day in aid of East Renfrewshire Larder foodbank. Pupils
may deposit any non-perishable donations from Wednesday onwards and on Friday
pupils should bring a non-perishable foodbank item or a cash donation (or both) to
contribute for their non-uniform participation. See further information (below) on
ways to assist East Renfrewshire larder.

- Please consider assisting our uniform re-cycling by handing in clean, used uniform in
good condition to our school office.

- School will close at 1pm on Friday and buses will be organised to leave at this time.
 School Uniform Requirements – 2023/24
Following extensive consultation last session demonstrating overwhelming support for our
uniform policy we will not make any changes to our uniform requirements for 2023/24.

The vast majority of pupils show pride in their school community and are very smart in their
Mearns Castle uniforms. As this term has progressed, there have however been more
instances of non-compliant short skirts. I realise it is towards the end of term and parents
may wish to wait until later in July before purchasing replacement uniform. Please be
reminded that:

- Jumpers must be plain black, with no logo and V-Neck (not crew neck or hoodie).
Blossoms, Stevensons and many outlets and supermarkets stock black v-necks.
- Black school shoes – not trainers – are required for every pupil.
- Skirts should be plain black and approximately no shorter than 2” above the knee.
- Trousers should be plain black formal trousers (not jeans) with a plain belt and (tucked
in) plain white shirt.

Whilst we are happy to support pupils in meeting these requirements through access to our
uniform store, we appreciate your support in avoiding the need for this. Our new Year Teams
will be proactively checking all uniform requirements in the new session and so I would
encourage you to keep the reminders above in mind as you shop for uniform this year.

Uniform Recycling – Summer Holiday Dates

I am pleased to let you know that we will again host two dates over the summer holidays to
provide a recycled uniform service. This is a great way to help the environment, lower your
carbon footprint and reduce costs!
We are able to offer two dates before the start of the new session to all parents:
• Monday 24th July
• Tuesday 1st August

Both sessions will take place in our Open Area from 10.00 – 12.00 where staff from our
school office will be able to welcome you and hopefully find items that you can use for the
coming session.

To be able to continue to run this recycling project, we fully rely on donations of uniform
items from families in our school community. All donations are very welcome, and can be
dropped off at any time to the school office.
 Uniform Suppliers
Stevensons and Blossoms are both local suppliers of MCHS uniform items.

Stevensons
 Information from East Renfrewshire Larder
“Things have now become really busy at the East Renfrewshire Larder and we are still delivering in
excess of 50 food packages per week to the most vulnerable in our community.

But we need your help to raise funds to keep providing this service over the summer when schools
and clubs are shut meaning our main source of donations aren’t available and with kids being home,
more mouths to feed. We have never run a fundraiser before and to this point always managed OK
but the time has come for us to ask for support. Every single penny will be spent on food and
distributed to those in need in East Ren. Please can you help share this far and wide. Thank you for
the support.”

Here is the link for donations:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-east-renfrewshire-food-larder

Modern Languages Success

Well done to all participants of the national competition “Le foot et la Francophonie” and huge
congratulations to Chris, Gavin, Gabriel and Ishan who won the competition!

Judges were very impressed by your football and French skills!

All S2 pupils took part in a translating

competition within the topic of food.
They adapted the menu from Ça Va
in Giffnock in French. Their menus
were fantastic and very creative.
Congratulations to our podium who
appeared in the Community
Magazine!

Huge well done to Cameron, our

winner, who won a £20 voucher to
use at Ça Va. Thank you to our ex-
pupil, Richard Harris, who very kindly
gave the voucher for the winner.
 Local Recruitment Fair
I have been asked to share information on a local ERC Recruitment Fair with families across the area:
 New S6 – A Great Start!
Our new S6 pupils have made a great start to their year as role models and contributors to school life.
Over 130 S6 pupils volunteered to assist our new S1 pupils as part of the Academic Family, over 50 S6
pupils volunteered to become one of our new Equality Heroes (with our new partner Humanutopia)
and we have had excellent feedback on our Gold Duke of Edinburgh participants and World Challenge
volunteers. Thank you to staff for organising these opportunities and well done to our pupils for taking
advantage of them.