Dear colleagues,

Last week boasted a wonderful week of diverse adventures and successes for Balfron High School.  It is both impressive and breath-taking to see the range of achievements and experiences that our young people and colleagues had in just one week. I am very grateful and proud! #findyourthing 

We had great achievements in a number of categories in the Active Stirling Awards.  Congratulations to Matt Campbell who won the School Staff Volunteer of the Year award for his work with school football.  Congratulations to Lucy Walkup who won the Sportability Volunteer of the Year.  Congratulations to new S6 pupil, George Thomson who won the Young Coach of the Year category.  Balfron parent, Thea Meridith won the Parent Volunteer of the Year category for her work in promoting cricket at Balfron High.

Thanks to Amna, Mark and S6 pupil, Adam Mackay, the culmination of a year's work saw our STEM On Track team compete in our own Balfron High kart against 45 other UK school teams. Thanks for the updates over the weekend.  My heart was in my mouth when I saw we finished 4th in the heats.  Brilliant effort and a truly unique experience for our young people.  Video and summary below.

Thanks to Oonagh for leading the very well organised science trip to London last week. Another amazing opportunity to take field work to a new exciting environment, experience culture and have fun with peers and staff.  There is a photo montage video for you to peruse below. 

Grease was a massive success.  While the best part for me was to see our performers clearly enjoying themselves, it was wonderful to get such positive feedback from parents and visitors about the high quality of the performances and live music.  Thanks to Grace, Anna, Cairi, Stephen, Ansley and Emma for their leadership, inspiration and organisation in pulling every aspect of the show together and to all of the staff who gave of their time front of house and behind the scenes to make the performances a big success.

Just when you think there can't be more to do, we have another busy week ahead. Form Class Leaders, please show the Head Prefect candidate videos on Monday at form time.  There are eleven great candidates competing for six places.  To ensure easy viewing, please download the videos to your PC in advance. As per the email, Phil has placed all of the videos in the Google Staff Shared Drive here, and on the school network:  

Staff shared Prefects 2025-26 Head Prefects Videos S:/_Shared/Prefects/202526%20Head%20Prefects%20Videos/

The link to the voting form is here: https://forms.gle/XC91qMVuZ63xPLga7

Those who get through the voting stage will be invited for interview on Thursday morning.  Joining Phil and I on the panel are Tessa Knowles and Robyn Youens and Penny Bath.  We wish them all well.

On Wednesday, Michelle has organised a lunchtime professional learning session to share our use of ActiveInspire, the promethean software.  Do try and get along if you can.  More details in the professional Learning section below.

Massive thanks and good luck to Alistair and Rachel who head with a group of new S6 to Zanzibar on Friday for some volunteering. The group will be working as a team on a sustainable community project. We wish them a safe and fun packed adventure and look forward to hearing all about their travels on return.

Meanwhile Friday is sports day for the rest of the school.  Thanks to Neil and the PE team in advance for the organisation of the track and field events and to Lesley and the S1 Form Class Leaders who have some fun stalls planned to run in the afternoon as a fundraiser for next year's S2 YPI.

Thank you for your input in another busy and fantastic week ahead.  I hope you feel as proud as I do of the work done collectively for the young people of Balfron. #buildingfuturestogether

As always, thanks for your hard work and professionalism. 

Have a great week. 

Elaine