Pupil & Family Support

We are a team of workers supporting pupils and their families throughout primary and secondary schools in the CHS cluster. Based in Clydebank High we offer a variety of services which help support vulnerable pupils into school.

Typically our day starts at 7.30 am with wake up calls to families who need a little help with morning routines. This is often followed up by pick-ups, collecting pupils who need a temporary lift to school to ensure that school attendance is at its maximum. All of this happens before setting foot inside the school.

Once in school we have pupils who come to our base each morning to have a settled start to the day before going off to registration (sometimes pupils register with us).

At interval and lunch we have a group of pupils who come to the base to once again re-settle ready for the rest of the school day.

During the day we offer a variety of activities and group work. Pupils are referred to us through the Pastoral Care and House system to come along and work on an intervention for a specific length of time. Groups that we offer include – Arts & Crafts, Self Esteem, Anger Management and Relaxation Techniques. We are also trained in Seasons for Growth, FAST (Families and Schools Together), Handling Teenage Behaviour, Active Listening and Communication & Social Skills.

Each day the team follow up on the attendance of highlighted pupils ensuring that they are in school and contacting home to find out why they are not in school and what assistance can be offered to get a pupil back into school. We are the contact point for many of these pupils throughout the day and they often pop into the base to report on how they are doing or to get some re-assurance that everything is ok. This year we have supported 550 pupils school and visited over 50 families!

Each member of the team works in 2 of our associate primaries each week. While there we work in partnership with the school preparing primary 7 pupils for transition to secondary school. Some of the pupils require enhanced transition and in the Easter to Summer term you will often see us out and about in CHS with groups of primary children – introducing them to secondary school life.

Over the Easter and summer holidays the Pupil and Family Team are busy working with pupils and families. There is an enhanced transition programme which allows pupils to become familiar with the school layout whilst the school is not busy. We work with timetables and pupils have their own version of hide and seek where they work out where departments are and take the team there. Throughout the year parents can ask for a visit to allay any concerns they have about their child coming to CHS.

During the summer, Clydebank High Pupil & Family Support open their doors to the Families, Food & Future Project, aimed to enhance young people’s knowledge of planning and cooking a balanced family meal. Running across all schools in West Dunbartonshire, this program has been hugely popular and in the past has seen the participation of professional chef Gary MacLean –of Masterchef fame!