Balfron Matters 

Dear colleagues,

I hope you have had great weekend. News hot off the press... We have achieved Bronze Reading School Accreditation! Congratulations to Nicola Douglas who has done a great job getting us there.

It was great to see and hear about such a positive S3 geography trip to the Yorkshire Dales last week. Thanks to Alistair, Bethany, David and Heather for their time and care in running the trip.  They reported that our young people were fantastic throughout.  Pictures are in 'Last week at Balfron' below.

This is national Mental Health Awareness Week.  The flag flying on our campus is the mental health awareness flag and has been flying since our male mental health event.  Mental health awareness will be the focus of assemblies this week too, where we will be sharing information and tips on how to 

This is the time of year where we should focus on school improvement and planning for next session. I know that you have been awash with surveys and appreciate you finding the time to fill them in.  Patterns that emerge in responses allow us to follow up with conversations and focus groups.  This along with data and observations give us a clear mandate for improvement.  So please do share your views when asked and don't worry about my feelings - improving the school is the priority! 

I have replicated the HMIe questionnaire exactly as it will be done when they next visit.  I am hoping that it will be a couple of years away and want to show our best.  We're getting ready now.  The timescale affords us the time to sharpen up our improvement cycle so that we are working on the right things. I shared the parent/carer survey last week.

Here are links to the staff surveys - please complete them honestly.  I firmly believe that all feedback is a gift. I am keen to properly understand where we are and what needs to be done. The surveys will be open for one week.

Teaching Staff Survey - May 2023

Support Staff Survey - May 2023  

We have a strong focus on Learning and Teaching having had the Science of Learning input core and twilight sessions, tri-learning, peer visits and now open doors.  

Massive thanks to colleagues in Technologies for the warm welcome for Open Doors.  Lynne Rice and I had a positive time observing and chatting with staff and young people.  There is a short video below. 

I am looking forward to visiting Expressive Arts (Monday with Neil Macquarrie), Science (Wednesday with Debs Gormal), Social Subjects (Thursday with Roy Pearson) and Health (Friday with Matt Harvey) - another busy week ahead. Thanks in advance to everyone involved.

Have a great week.

Elaine