Balfron Matters
The Owen Briton Debate - Congratulations to winner, Rose Simons
Great to welcome back to Balfron Owen's mum, Linda, along with former pupils, Jasper, Katie and Harry
The Owen Briton Debate - Congratulations to winner, Rose Simons
Great to welcome back to Balfron Owen's mum, Linda, along with former pupils, Jasper, Katie and Harry
22 April 2025
Weekly communication for staff
Building Futures Together
Dear colleagues,
Welcome back! I hope that you have all had a good holiday and have been able to recharge after a busy and positive winter term.
Attainment Matters
Thanks to all of the staff who were able to give time to deliver our Easter School. I know this was much appreciated and will have made a positive difference to the confidence and progress of pupils who were able to attend. If you delivered sessions, please could you complete this short evaluation to help me report on the short term impact of our Easter School: Evaluation
Leavers
It is the final timetabled week for our seniors. S6 brunch and graduation is on Thursday. Thanks to all involved planning and running this. Staff are welcome and encouraged to join us in the atrium first thing and the theatre between 930 and 11am. Your presence to say goodbye at 11.15-ish in the atrium would be lovely for the leavers.
Your support to keep an eye on the behaviour of leavers on Thursday morning and Friday throughout the day in corridors and the atrium is much appreciated. As well as the usual focus on S6, I am aware that we have some pupils in S4 and S5 who are leaving on Friday. If you hear of any planned high jinks, please let one of the senior team know immediately.
Improvement Matters
When the seniors are on study leave, we will be focussing our time on improvements and completing plans on our SIP and TIPs for next session. To support some whole school improvements, the following short life working groups will be running. Where possible, it will be helpful to have someone from each area to contribute to these. Details will follow.
Bereavement
Celebrating, recording and tracking achievement/participation
Uniform
Here is a draft of our inservice programme. Massive thanks in advance to Michelle and the working group leads who have worked hard to support and inspire us to work on our 'plus ones'. They have promoted collegiality and planned our 2nd annual Learning Festival. I am really looking forward to it. As always, support staff are welcome to join in and see what teaching staff have been working on.
I am so pleased to confirm that our new minibus will be delivered on Tuesday. Given that it has been funded by The Paul Charitable Trust, we have planned for the Stirling Observer to do an article and some pictures on Wednesday at 10am. Congratulations and thanks to Shona Hyde who designed the graphics. She and some young people representing school teams will be needed for the photos. The bus will be available for school use after the photos are taken!
Good luck to our rugby teams who are competing in the Glasgow Warriors Semi-Final Championship on Tuesday.
Thanks for your hard work and professionalism. Every small act makes a difference. #buildingfuturestogether
Have a great week.
Elaine
This week at Balfron High:
Team Meetings
Mon: Holiday
Tues: Warriors Semi-Final
Wed: Mini-Bus, 10am
Thurs: S6 leavers Brunch
S6 Graduation
Fri: S6 Study leave begins
Final day for S4/5
Notice Boards
Photos include:
Grease rehearsals in the sunshine.
First Expedition session for the new S3 Duke of Edinburgh Bronze cohort.
Congratulations to Balfron A and B teams who placed 1st and 2nd ahead of Dunblane and Stirling High Schools at a netball tournament on the last week of term.
Solve for Tomorrow - S1 STEM competition winners. The winners from each practical class presented to each other and judges, Claire Appelquist, Neil Cameron and Adam MacKay. Thanks to the science team for guiding pupils to such innovative ideas.
The Owen Britton Debate. Competitors were Rose Simons, Gabriella Treglia, Eva Gardner and Izzy Griffith. Former pupils (and star debaters) Katie McDonald, Jasper Burnside and Harry Braid came along to judge. Owen's mum, Linda Barclay was also able to be there. Thanks to Kate and Emma for organising this important event.
Preparing food parcels for the holidays for some of our PEF families.
YPI Finals - congratulations to Fiona & Morven who represented Aberlour Children's Charity and secured £3000 for them.
Please take photos and share with me directly via email or Whatsapp (with each pupil's permission). Let's recognise and celebrate all the good stuff. We will also share in the Parent newsletter, Balfron Highlights. #wearebalfron #buildingfuturestogether
The video on the left shows some highlights of the fantastic Spring Concert on the last week of term. Photos by Tessa Knowles.
On the right is a short clip of our rock band. Wit the support of the music team, two of our bands played at a Strathblane gig on Friday evening (4th April).
Inhouse CLPL 24-25
active learners - active thinkers
This term we'll continue to explore techniques to add to our repertoire to keep our BGE learners Active!
Most can be added into lessons for a 5-10 min activity to boost engagement
Find lots of ideas previously explored this session in the Active Learners Classroom: 6a7mbjk
Coming up this term
Revisiting all the good tweeks to maximise their effectiveness - and a few new ideas
A classic MTV technique that gets the whole class active and keeps learners on their toes
A versatile retrieval technique
The Walkthrus Series
As a school, we have purchased the excellent Walkthrus series.
The full collection can we viewed on our BHS L&T website.
As our seniors move onto study leave, its an opportunity to grab a bit of time for professional development, and the self-study nature of this resource is perfect for this.
The Formative Assessment and Relationships & Behaviour Clusters are shown here but there are many more to choose from
Focus on Feedback
We continue to discuss strategies around feedback, one of our most powerful drivers of improvement for learning
Have a look at our discussion so far on the slides and come join us for more sharing of great practice around feedback
Key Messages Around Feedback
Adaptive Teaching is simply our
Everyday Excellent
Scaffolds:
A temporary support to reduce
the complexity of a task
writing frames ◾word banks ◾ structured study mats ◾help sheet how-to◾ number lines◾ worked examples ◾graphical organisers
Scale:
Flexibility within the scale of output required
Can build this up over time
Challenge:
Meaningful ways to extend learning that isn't just 'more of the same'
All resources in the Classroom
code to join: 6a7mbjk
Promoting Study Skills
Head Prefects will be promoting all things
Good Study this week at lunchtime
Direct your seniors to the stall for:
BHS Core 4 steps to Study Success
QR links: How-to Techniques
QR links: e-sgoil support pages
Grab n Go Study Planners
Grab n Go Flashcards
Top tips on the best Study Apps
Positive physical & mental wellbeing
Powering up our seniors for successful studying
Quick links for form and class resourcing
This Week: Display in S4/5/6 Form Class
Sharing our Resources
Feedback from our festival was super positive, it was clear we all enjoyed sharing and learning from one another
Please share useful resources here
Accessing our digital resources
Professional Reading Library - Strathendrick Suite
More Digital CLPL
always available through the links below:
Education Scotland:
Professional learning modules
to work through at your own pace.on Scotland: Professional Learng Modules
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