Dear colleagues,

When I reflect on the previous week and consider the week ahead, I am left in no doubt that our young people have fantastic opportunities beyond the formal curriculum. This is down to you, the staff, who share your interests and passions with learners, inspiring them  broaden their horizons.  They get the chance to find their thing and grow as interesting young people.  The pictures in the 'last week at Balfron' section recognises and celebrates this.  

Behaviour Matters - Setting the tone

At the Pedagogy Festival, it was great to see the work of the Climate for Learning Working Group.  It is important that we build on the work done.  The group have suggested that we reinforce a common approach to managing behaviour across the school.  To help with consistency, they have created an input that can be delivered through assemblies and in your classes/teams at the start of every term.  Aspects can be amended to reflect your context.  There are explanatory notes on some of the slides.  Please review the Expectations slides and feedback on this Google Form by May 22nd.   We plan to implement the final version at the change of timetable in June.

 I have seen some great practice in our school while out doing Open Doors. In the classroom, routines matter.  Set the tone that will best support the behaviour you want. Here are the common features:

• meet young people at the door

• have a starter ready

• resources issued in advance or in the same way. Eg some pupils (not all) given the task of collecting

There is some excellent advice on the Walkthrus section of our L&T Website: Establish Your Expectations 

Linked to the Climate for Learning work, the mobile phone policy has been updated given feedback from all stakeholders.  Here is a link to Mobile Phone Policy v2.  To help, changes/additions are in green.  If you note any typos, errors, or have anything further for consideration, please let me know.  In the mean time, please do all that you can to ensure young people do not have a mobile phone out in class. This is part of our behaviour policy - again, lets contribute to the whole school ethos by getting behind the policy.

Pedagogy Matters

Following the success of the sessions delivered at the festival, I am pleased to let you know that we are offering a morning of Coop Learning (21 /22 May) and a morning of CLPL on AI (23 May).  Please scroll down for more detail and a link to the sign-up form. 

Literacy Matters

While we have a little more time, please do take a look at Nicola's Literacy Toolkit (below in the CLPL section). There has been fantastic feedback on the session that she ran.  the importance of literacy for effective learning cannot be underplayed.  The slides make clear why we all must take our responsibility to promote and develop literacy very seriously.

And finally, lets get behind the Languages team with this week's word - plethora.  There surely is a plethora of ways we can support that! 🫣

Have a great week.

Elaine

• Increased consistency in Learning & Teaching

• Improved Wellbeing & Inclusion of all young people

• Increased offer in Curriculum

• Increased Attainment & Achievement

• Increased influence of Pupil Voice on Improvement