Balfron Matters
Monday 18 September 2023
Weekly communication for staff
Good morning,
I hope you have all had a relaxing weekend and you‘re ready for another busy week at school.
In my first week as Acting HT it has been really good to see extracurricular clubs and the Interhouse Programme up and running. Thank you to all involved, your commitment is much appreciated.
The Equally Safe at School (ESAS) programme was launched through assemblies last week and young people are being asked to complete the surveys. Thank you to Nikki Buchanan, Andrew Burns, Connor Heath, Elaine Johnstone and Andrew Lauder for presenting at the assemblies. The information generated is important as it will be used to inform our next steps. Please encourage all young people, who are interested, to get involved; if they would like more information they can speak with Elaine Johnstone or myself.
On Wednesday morning S5/6 were involved in a variety of health & wellbeing workshops through their PSE Programme. The guest speakers included Organ Donation, Kooth talking about managing stress and anxiety, a talk by Breastfeeding Network Scotland and CPR training. A Google form is on the S5/6 Year Group Classroom to seek the views of our young people.
Following the initial session at the beginning of term, the Learning & Teaching Workshops met again last week; thank you to our pedagogy leads for their input. There were some great discussions and interesting ideas to improve practice which we will look at in the coming weeks.
In the week ahead, we will be hearing about Reading Schools in assemblies and the Expressive Arts Team are launching the school show. The latter has always been a real success for Balfron and again I ask that you encourage participation where you can.
Thank you for your continued hard work and professionalism. Have a good week.
Claire
This week at Balfron High:
Team Meetings
Mon: S3 Assembly
S4/5/6 Tracking & Monitoring
Tues:
Wed: S4 Assembly
Reading Cafe, Library (1400)
Thurs: S5/6 Assembly
Fri: S1/2 Assembly
Last week at Balfron
Our Priorities for improvement 2023-24
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
New for session 23/24
Learning & Teaching Working Groups
We will celebrate our learning in a Pedagogy Festival, at April In service 2024.
The groups and their leads are as follows:
Climate for Learning - Routines and Relationships for inclusive, productive learning environments - Connor H, Andrew L & Shari L
Digital Technology - Exploring technologies to enhance learning experiences - Dougie S & Cari M
Lesson Structure - What we do and how we keep can doing it even better - Pam G & Fiona F
Meeting Learners Needs - Exploring the practices that make our lessons more accessible - Nicola D & Oonagh M
Formative Assessment - Developing our feedback loops and increasing challenge - Andrew B & Alistair B
Assemblies - August-October 2023
CLPL Corner
CLPL opportunities
Leadership courses for session 23/24
Sign up now!
There are a number of fully funder professional learning programmes available from Education Scotland for next session. Applications are now open. Of particular interest, I wanted to highlight the Educator Leadership Programme (ELP):
Have a look at these enquiry posters from our 2022-23 ELP Cohort: ELP 22/23 | Flickr and our 2021-22 TLP Cohort: TLP 21/22 | Flickr
There is also a wee Blog post that tells you a bit more about the programme. So if these posters or the Blog inspired you then why not join our growing community by signing up here.
For aspiring middle leaders, applications are open to the Aspiring to Middle Leadership course.
For Middle Leaders, applications are currently open for Middle Leaders Leading Change – Education Scotland (Rona Grant) has written about the programme here and for even more inspiration; have a look at her brilliant February Blog post: Middle Leadership Glue (education.gov.scot).
Digital CLPL
always available through the links below:
Below is a link to Dougie's Tech Tips Play list. Always worth a look - great tip on getting rid of adverts from presentations using YouTube this week.
External CLPL
BHS Professional Learning Notice board.
Search. Click. Book
Powering up our seniors for successful studying
Study Skills Resources
National weekly study sessions: https://www.e-sgoil.com/
BHS Study techniques website: https://sites.google.com/stirlingschools.net/bhs-study-skills/home
NeLO Learning Spaces: https://www.thinglink.com/card/1421866155961745410
Achieve: https://achieve.hashtag-learning.co.uk/user-start/?next=/
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Teachers Guide to the BHS Study Planner - 3 min watch
![](https://www.gstatic.com/images/icons/material/product/1x/docs_32dp.png)
BHS senior study planner
e-sgoil weekly online supported study timetable
One portal to hold all information
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Health & Wellbeing - Counselling for staff
Did you know counselling is available through Stirling Council?
Employee Counselling is available through our Occupational Health provider, People Asset Management (PAM)
There are a few ways employees can request Counselling.
Stuart Shaw on shaws@stirling.gov.uk
Contact hr@stirling.gov.uk
Call Ann at PAM on 0800 882 4102
If you want some more information about counselling, what to expect or looking for self-help resources then please pop in and see Karin Figliolini or drop her an email.
Useful Links