Dear colleagues,

Happy new timetable!  Massive thanks to David, the Admin Team and PTs for creating and coordinating our new timetable. The school curriculum, timetable and courses we invest in reflect our purpose and values.  Given the addition of some more new vocational and level 5 courses, we can safely say that we are building futures together.

It is a time for setting the tone, expectations and routines in our classrooms.  Our Climate for Learning Working Group created a set of slides to set expectations for the start of each new term. This was shared at the Pedagogy Festival.  Please use /amend these to suit your context. It is imperative that we help each other by consistently applying our expectations.  Here is the link to the slides.

To ensure a consistently positive start in each class, best practice would include:

• having a starter activity ready

• meeting young people at the door

• careful consideration to seating plans

You will find some great advice in the Walkthru section of our L&T website.  I have copied three helpful graphics from there and shared them below.

Some great things happened last week. Thanks to Rachel and Lesley for delivering a successful and engaging Cooperative Learning refresh.  They shared a wide range of excellent techniques that support effective group work.  We will plan to run these again in the new session.

Our Working Group Leads attended the first Collaborative Leadership session on Thursday.  They had time to consider frameworks and strategies to design, facilitate impactful, research informed CLPL that sustainably develops teaching performance and its impact on learning through rich, open dialogue. I am confident that this will support us in our working group model next session. 

Finding Your Thing Matters #buildingfuturestogether 

Thanks to Neil Cameron, Fiona, Karyee, Kelly-Marie and Lesley for a great Future Pathways event.  It was fantastic to see such a wide range of providers that covered apprenticeships, colleges, universities and the world of work.  It was particularly positive to see former pupils  back at Balfron in their new roles, doing so well.  Informal feedback was fantastic from providers and young people.  This is an important input for our young people to help them consider and find their thing and plan for their pathway.  Thanks again to Neil and the team.

Thanks are also due to Ashley Edwards for organising and supporting the smooth running of the Rock Gig on Friday.  This was a fabulous example of providing an opportunity for a group of young people, who have found their thing and been confident to share it. It was really super to see so many staff in the theatre supporting both groups. I loved it!

An opportunity has come up to offer 12 pupils an Ocean Youth Trust Voyage at a heavily reduced price (approx £400 per pupil). If this might interest you, please drop in or send me an email.

Another busy week ahead with P7 transition and more collaborative leadership CLPL. 

Thanks to everyone for your hard work and professionalism.

Have a great week.

Elaine