From Sunday 31 July, the legal speed limit in streets across much of Edinburgh’s city centre and rural west area went down to 20mph, the first phase in a planned rollout of lower speeds across the Capital.

The new speed limits are designed to increase safety for all road users in Edinburgh as well as creating a calmer, more people-friendly environment in shopping and residential streets.  A network of key arterial roads across the city will be retained at 30mph and 40mph, resulting in a modest impact on journey times overall.

Our phased 20mph rollout between now and early 2018 brings to fruition many years of planning and public consultation and the network has been designed in line with robust criteria in partnership with key stakeholders such as Police Scotland and Lothian Buses.

Police Scotland will enforce the new limit, focusing on areas where particularly high levels of contraventions are recorded. Anyone caught breaching the limit risks a £100 fixed penalty and three penalty points on their licence.

We have long recognised that a majority of city residents want to see speed limits reduced in the city centre, around residential areas and in busy shopping streets.

Phase 1 ‘go live’ marks the start of sharing these benefits right across the Capital.  Further information and a detailed map of the 20mph network is available at www.edinburgh.gov.uk/20mph or visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/edin20mph.

This year’s SQA examination results arrive with candidates on Tuesday, August 9th. They will arrive by first class post and also by text or e-mail if the candidate has registered for this service through “My SQA”. If you do not receive your results or have a question, you can phone the school.

We hope everyone has the results that they were hoping for. If you would like to discuss a change of course following your exam results, you can make an appointment to see Mr Cotter on Thursday 11 August or Friday 12 August. Appointments can be made from Tuesday 9 August by phoning the school office. Parents and carers are welcome to attend with their son or daughter. Please note that some classes may be full at this stage but following the publication of the results there may be some movement. In such cases a waiting list system will operate.

If you do not have the result you were expecting and would like to ask about the SQA Post Results Service, you should speak to the relevant Curriculum Leader at the beginning of term in the first instance..

Another year has passed and exams are finally over. The pupils this year have worked extremely hard and have earned the right to enjoy themselves in the sun!

In light of this, we have a newsletter to share with you from our Head Teacher, Ruth McKay. A link to this can be found below.

PHS 2016 Newsletter

Happy Summer!

A huge congratulations to Aimee Combe for winning the Edinburgh International Film Festival Student Critics Competition!

The school is immensely proud of her achievement and we wish to share her winning review of ‘Away’ with you all.

A link to it can be found here.

As part of winning, she has been offered to become an EIFF programmer for 2017. This is an excellent oppurunity to learn about about film curation, write for the brochure, website and catalogue and host screenings and events during EIFF.

More information about EIFF can be found here: www.edfilmfest.org.uk/learning

To mark the official opening of the 5th session of the Scottish Parliament, a host of events will take place at Holyrood on Saturday 2 July 2016.

From 2pm to 6pm: Holyrood’s ‘Big Day Out’ – a fun-packed afternoon for all the family.  The gardens and doors of the Scottish Parliament will be open to everyone to explore.  All events are FREE and there is no need to book – just come along for the afternoon to enjoy and celebrate with us.

http://www.visitparliament.scot/big-day-out/

Higher Geography in the park! Getting some fieldwork practice in.

The Portobello High School Open Team won the Scottish Schools Water Polo Championships in Stirling on 10th June 2016. The team won a dramatic penalty shoot-out 9 – 8 in the final. 16 teams from across Scotland took part in the competition

Deadline for deposits for the Battlefields Tour has been extended to 24^th June 2016

Any S3 pupil interested in a College Course in Hairdressing or Construction as part of their timetable should give their names to Ms McGhee or their Pupil Support Leader as soon as possible.

We have reached the end of an era as our S6 pupils leave us as young adults and take their next steps in their lives.

We would like to ask for your support in our final task with S6 which is recovering their iPads so we can reissue them to another year group.

We still have a significant number to be returned. Each pupil should have received a note on the day of their last exam asking them to see our IT Technician (Mr Russell), Mr McKee (CL Computing) or Mr Cotter (Depute Head) to return this iPad.

If your son / daughter has returned their iPad, please pass on my thanks for doing so promptly. If they have not yet returned it, could you please ask them to do so by close of School on Monday, 13^th June?

We will need to continue to pursue the recovery of the iPads and your support in reducing the administration time it would take to do this would be very much appreciated.