Balfron Matters

Picture with Jamie Millar of the Paul Trust and Iain Graham from Cab Direct, the minibus supplier

Massive thanks to Emma McCann for reconnecting us with the Paul Trust & making the initial bid.

28 April 2025

Weekly communication for staff

Building Futures Together

Dear colleagues,

Thanks for your input in making a busy first week back so positive. The Final Countdown and Graduation events for S6 were excellent (pictures below). I know that these require significant planning and energy to deliver to such a high standard, so please know that all efforts are very much appreciated. I received much positive verbal feedback about the Balfron Staff at the graduation. It is great to hear that everyone's input is recognised and does make a big difference.

The Leadership Team Meeting is on Monday after school. If you have anything to add, please let me know. The current agenda includes:

Transition arrangements
New Timetable & course choice
BGE attainment driven choices for 2026-27
Short Life Working Groups for study leave
Cultural Capital - BGE skills (discussion item)

(What skills do our pupils need for success in senior phase but do not have that we could focus more specifically on developing?)

I have bought a place on a 'Progressive Masculinity' twilight being run by SLS. The twilight is online and runs on Wednesday from 4-5.30pm. I am going to log-in in the Lower Conference Room and invite anyone interested and available to join me. I have heard Mike Nicolson speak about their programme and was impressed and interested. We are well aware from ESAS surveys, MVP and dealing with very challenging situations that misogyny is an issue in our community, and some of our boys are routinely using aggressive, inappropriate language to and about girls. I have bought the company in for a day of assemblies on Friday September 19th. Four assemblies will be delivered on the day. In addition to the great work of the Equalities Committee, ESAS and MVP, I hope that this input will go some way to improve our culture. We will discuss and agree which year groups are best to target. All views are welcome.

Here is our in-service programme. Massive thanks in advance to Michelle and the working group leads who have worked well to support and inspire us to develop on our 'plus ones'. They have promoted collegiality while preparing us for 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. An overview of the programme is below.

Dates for your diary

To support our priority to continuously focus on and improve learning and teaching, Michelle and I have scheduled follow-up sessions with this Mark Burns. The purpose is to support the evaluation of our work and to look at how we can look at assessment and feedback to support learning, teaching & assessment in the BGE. Mark will spend the day with Working Group Leads on 8th May and PTs L&T on the 9th.

Behaviour Matters (S1-3)

S1-3 behaviour data has been analysed for the last four weeks and is below. Please could FCLs and PTs PS pick up with individuals who have reached a threshold (discussion with young person and parent/carer if required). I am looking for one person from each team to form a short life working group during study leave to review our systems and improve/develop how we monitor participation and celebrate success across the school. If you have ideas and would like to be involved, please let me know.

Learning Matters

Come along to C8 at lunchtime on Tuesday for Lunch & Learn. Connor Heath will be sharing some active learning favourites including Race Around The table.

Parents Matter

Balfron Highlights the monthly parent newsletter is due to go out next week. If you have information to share, please forward it to me next early this week.

Thanks for your hard work and professionalism.

#buildingfuturestogether

Have a great week.

Elaine

This week at Balfron:

SQA Exams

Mon: N5, H Music

Leadership Team Meeting

Tues: N5,H, AH Geography

Wed: N5, H, AH Graphics

Progressive Masculinity,

4-5.30pm

Thurs: N5, H, AH Chemistry

Fri: Inservice Day: Pedagogy Festival

H Photography

Notice Boards

Assembly Programme

Supervision Rota

Parents: What's on at Balfron

BHS L&T website

Equally Safe At School (ESAS)

Expressive Arts Team

Pupil Equity Matters

Leadership Reflections

Maths Team

Pupil Support Team

Science Team

School Counselling Service

Pupil Landing Page (Inc notices)

Collegiate Calendar 24-25

Last week (of term) at Balfron - Wider Achievements

Photos include:

Our outgoing S6
Balfron Aquathlon competitors. Thanks to Lucy for taking them along.
Our new minibus
The Final Countdown (S6)
Congratulations to Scarlett Haddow and Eve MacKay who recently represented Scotland in the Six Nations Rugby as part of the U18 team.

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

Behaviour Matters

Here is the full data set from 17 March to 25 April for S1-3. There are 3.6 times more merits across the board than demerits. Areas for us to look deeper into are cooperation and latecoming. PTs PS and FCLs, please pick this up with the individuals who are highlighted regularly in these areas. In the interests of fairness, one of our school values, please ensure that you regularly log merits and demerits as per our policy (also below).

Thanks for your help with this - all of us doing the same thing makes it much easier for each other.

Behaviour Data March 17th - 25th April

March 17th - April 25th 2025 Behaviour Stats by Year

Uniform Guidelines Learning, Teaching & Assessment Policy Mobile Phone Policy

L&T Policy Draft

School Uniform, updated 2025Why the adults should insist our young people wear school uniform? Wearing school uniform can: contribute to the school security and personal safety instill a pride in the school and contribute to its value encourage identity with, and support for, school ethos encourage equality and social

Mobile Phone Policy (v6 1/12/2024)

Inhouse CLPL 24-25

active learners - active thinkers

Active Learners

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

This week: Tue 29 Apr

Connor Heath presents a few of his Active Learning faves, including

Race around the Table:

A Coop quiz domino game. Pupils work together to make a string of questions with answers.

Show me boards

Revisiting all the good tweeks to maximise their effectiveness - and a few new ideas

Stand and Deliver

A classic MTV technique that gets the whole class active and keeps learners on their toes

Race around the table

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