Dear colleagues,

Thanks for your contribution and commitment to a very positive and purposeful return to school. In particular, thanks to Claire, the uniform group and admin team for your hard work and follow up with the uniform policy. There has been a marked improvement. Support from the team, and anyone who is free, is welcome to set the tone in the atrium from 830am when the buses start to arrive.

As always to keep the school calm and safe at breaks, I am keen to have your help, where you can, in supervising.  I have put together a Supervision rota.  Thanks to those who have already added their name - we need more help!  Either drop your name into a place on the rota that suits you, or send me an email with your availability and I can add you.  It is most enjoyable where there are two of us on at one time, so bear that in mind.

I hope that you found the Inservice days helpful and enjoyable.  I know that in everything we do there is always room for improvement, so your feedback would be welcome.  Please do complete this anonymous, follow-up Evaluation. There is also a link below to the confirmation of mandatory training form.  The e-learning deadline is September 12th. I have left easy access to the Safeguarding, and other inservice day info below.  Also note that we will be looking to conduct a fire drill in the next week or so.  

The Head Prefects are looking forward to starting the Pupil Council.  With this in mind, please could FCLs organise a vote for two pupils per form class who will represent the class. Please confirm your reps via this form. The first pupil council meetings will take place week beginning 1st September.

Raising Attainment 

To help us focus on the improving our courses and approaches, our SQA results analysis is on everyone's agenda right now. The first key priority to ensure we maximise attainment is to get our learners into the most appropriate courses and levels.  We have shared the importance of coursing and subject combinations with young people in assemblies. Coursing should be checked and confirmed by the end of this week. 

Learning & Teaching

We are proud of our relentless focus on improving learning & teaching at Balfron High.  The first stage of our Learning & Teaching cycle is for every teacher to identify a focus for research and improvement.  This is our 'Plus One' for the year.  Working group leads will support us on our evidence based research journey towards our sharing twilight in January. 

To help identify an area for your plus one, reflection is useful using our:

• Balfron High Learning & Teaching  toolkit 

• Our digital resource library 

• Walkthrus can be found here

• For further inspiration, links to the Pedagogy festival PLUS one presentations can be found here.

If you have not yet identified your plus one, please do so as soon as possible.  Michelle is allocating you to a group based on your plus one.  The first twilight meeting is scheduled for 27 August

I am looking forward to a very positive and successful year for everyone.

Thank you for your hard work and professionalism.

Elaine