Dear colleagues,

It's House assemblies this week starting with Endrick on Monday.

Thanks to those who gave inservice day feedback. The main points for improvement are around the structure of the day. In future we will:

• ensure that meetings have built-in breaks to avoid overload

• build in time for staff to use ASN info from magic dashboard for planning

• hold case conferences for those more complex/vulnerable young people separately

Our Thematic inspection has been confirmed for Tuesday 20 September. The Lead Inspector is Trish Cameron. The focus is

• the approaches taken by schools to record incidents of bullying;

• the arrangements for monitoring incidents of bullying;

• the effectiveness of measures taken to respond to incidents of bullying and in supporting children and young people.

We are launching a Columba 1400 Leadership Academy for S4 pupils on Thursday, period 1. That means there will be an extra assembly at that time with the possibility of those who are interested being invited back to the theatre through the day to get further information. There are places for 16 pupils to take part. Pupils will be invited to apply for a space. The final 16 should represent a broad spectrum of the yeargroup. We have already targeted a few of our hardest to reach S4 pupils for this.

Stirling Council are delivering an event for young people on 12 September called 'The Voice'. 25 pupils will represent Balfron High School. They will be selected from the Pupil Council on 1st September. The purpose is to hear and share pupil led initiatives in schools across the authority and to hear from young people about the issues that are important to them. I will update you on who is going in due course.

Thanks for your hard work and professionalism. Here's to another busy and positive week.

Elaine