Balfron Matters


19 April 2022

Weekly communication for staff

Dear colleagues,


I hope that you all had a very pleasant and restful break. It was certainly needed! Many thanks to those of you who gave time to run Easter School sessions. I know that young people and their families appreciated this. I have received some lovely feedback. with the remaining funding, we are now offering Saturday sessions - more details below.


As we adapt to changes in our day to day lives, I thought an update on COVID mitigations in school would be useful.


  • 19 April - no requirement to LFD test every week

      • Face coverings are encouraged in indoor communal areas, but not mandatory. We will continue to offer masks to pupils as they come in to school in the morning.

  • Pre-pandemic absence codes will be used on SEEMiS

      • Day trips and residentials permitted

      • No restrictions on parents and wider community entering the school

  • 30 April - symptomatic testing for most people ends - Testing sites will close



The last day for Senior Phase pupils is Friday. While S4 & S5 will be in classes, S6 will be in for a graduation type assembly, brunch and some games on the astro. They have missed out on such a lot over the last two years, that I hope we are able to give them a positive send-off. Your help and support in supervising this would be welcome and appreciated if you are free. We will start in the theatre, move to the atrium and then the astro.


Finally, congratulations to Andrew Burns who secured a permanent chemistry post with us at the end of term.

Have a great week.

Elaine

This week at Balfron High:

  • Team Meetings

  • Friday - S6 Leavers' Assembly & Brunch


BHS Assembly Programme April - May 2022.docx




From wb 25 April - S1-3 assemblies will run in the theatre.


Celebrating success assemblies will kick off the new term.



Reminder - Sharing Estimates with Young People


We will be sharing estimates with young people and their parents on 20 April. Estimates should be entered into the Tracking & Monitoring module.

The absolute latest submission is by 3pm on 19th April. Phil will generate reports after this time.

These will be genrerated from SEEMiS.

Ukraine Fundraiser Week

I would like to extend a massive thank you to Scott Perman and the many fabulous teaching and support staff who supported his idea to fund raise in the last week of term. Raising over £2200 was fantastic and it struck me that the range of activities and support that everyone gave brought the community together in a way that has been missing since pre-pandemic days. The wonderful mural on display, created by S2s (designed and led by the Art Team), send a powerful message and set the scene wonderfully for the week. Here are some photos of some of the many activities throughout the week, culminating in our non-uniform day. Thank you all so much!

Saturday Supported School Programme


Thanks to those of you who have already shared availability for Saturday sessions. Payment will be made in the same way that was managed for Easter School. The payment for sessions is £ 25.17 per hour. Each session is 2 hours. We used around half of our budget total (£6,400 aprox) for Easter school which leaves us a max of 64 two hour sessions.

  • They will run in mornings only from 10.30-12.30pm

  • If you are keen to offer a session, Check that the date you can offer suits your SQA exam date .

  • Sign up if you are available to offer Saturdays here

CPL Corner

More from Tips for Teachers. This episode is an interview with Kate Jones. Kate is well known for her work on pedagogical practice. I love that these are time-stamped. That means we can jump straight to a particular item of interest.

Kate's top tips are:

1. Sometimes it is better to review than retrieve (03:33)

2. Make use of the Encoding specificity principle (19:46)

3. Take a low effort, high impact approach to task and question design (34:28)

4. How to make the best use of technology for retrieval practice (48:34)

5. How to design good multiple choice questions (1:06:21)


Below is a link to all of the suggested CLPL resources from 2021-22

Calendar 2021-22

19 April Return to school

Team meetings

22 April Leavers' Brunch/Graduation morning

25 April SQA Exam Leave starts

Leadership Team Meeting

29 April In-service Day


Calendar 2021-22

2 May Holiday

11 May Working Groups- Tri-Learning



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

Supervision Rota 21-22
Reducing+Risks+in+Schools+guidance+-+version+6.1+-+September+2021.pdf
Extra-Curricular Programme 2021-22
BHS SIP & Recovery Plan 202-22.docx
Extra Curricular Poster Times.docx

Quality Assurance 2021-22 - Classroom Visits

Term 1 Classroom Observations


Our observation pro forma is based on the HGIOS QI, 2.3

Features of highly effective practice are on page 2 along with challenge questions.


Classroom Observation 2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment.doc

Quality Assurance 2021-22

Open Doors Dates

I will be joined by a PT for Open Doors this session as follows:


7 October Expressive Arts L McAllister

19 October English G MacKay

28 October Science N Macquarrie

9 November Health M Skinner

25 November Mod Languages A Barrie

29 November Technologies D Gormal

6 December Social Subjects S Boyle

10 February Maths M Young