Balfron Matters
Monday 30 January 2023
Weekly communication for staff
Dear colleagues,
You will have seen David's email regarding last week's exclusions. It is always with a mixture of anger, sadness and massive disappointment that we reflect on racist or any other discriminatory incidents in our community. Next steps will be to focus on restorative and solution focused approaches to prevent this happening again.
There is no place for racism at Balfron High School. Our role as teachers is critical and clear. We must:
raise awareness & educate
be vigilent & intervene
report & support
Please take every opportunity, formal and informal, to reinforce our inclusive values.
FCLs: Please take the opportunity this week to re-show this short clip 'Your hate is not welcome here' and reinforce our collective duties:
to call discrimination out
to support friends - not be be a bystander
to report
I am keen to get feedback and hear pupils' views and experiences.
It is timely that Humanutopia are with S3 on Tuesday. They are delivering the Who Am I workshop that had a positive impact last session. I will brief the leaders on our context. If you have time and would like to pop into the session, you are most welcome. It is taking place in the games hall.
Addressing Inclusion: Effectively Challenging Racism in Schools is a resource developed by the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER) and RespectMe, Scotland’s anti-bullying service. The resource provides information and guidance to school staff on addressing racist bullying in Scottish schools and has been written to complement ‘Respect for All’, the national approach to anti-bullying.
I know that it is a busy time with marking and tracking. Thank you for your rigour. The seniors return on Wednesday and will be keen to know how they have done. As is the case every year at this time, some aspects have slipped I plan to hit the ground running with a back to basics message:
uniform
focus on learning (no mobile phones in class)
respectful behaviour
I will highlight this in a tannoy first thing on Wednesday to set the scene - apologies in advance for the interruption.
I am so pleased to be able to share that Anna Barrie gave birth to baby Charlotte Alice Ross Barrie last week. I have included a photo in the 'last week at Balfron' section below.
Have a great week.
Elaine
This week at Balfron High:
Mon: AH English
N5/H German
Tues: S3 Humanutopia (all day)
N5/H/AH Physics
H RMPS
H Photography
Wed: S4-6 return
Harris Academy visit (am)
Pupil Council
Thurs: CLPL Twilight, 3.45pm C8
Self regulation: Promoting
metacognitive skills in learners
Fri: CfE: SLT & Expressive Arts
Leadership Reflections
Simply by showing up, we have an impact on our young people. This #1minwalk2work challenges us on how we set ourselves up to do that well, recognising the impact and looking after ourselves.
Another great #1minwalk2work.
How do you give yourself the best chance?
How do you start and end your day?
Where do you find purpose?
Remember all of what we do has impact.
Prelims 10 - 27 January - Two more days to go!
(a link to week 4 supervision is on the left below)
Equity Matters
Our Young People
We have 50 pupils receiving Free School Meal (FSM) entitlement (Jan ‘23). These pupils are supported by our Pupil Equity Funding (PEF). Please have a regular check of the list. It is particularly important that these pupils are considered when planning any trips or activities which have a cost. Please use the 'Equity Checklist' to guide planning regarding reflective questions to ensure we are fully supporting these young people.
PEF list & Checklist (reflective questions): FSM 22/23
Targeted Interventions
Literacy Project
Nicola and our S3 targeted pupils have continued their work with Drymen primary school building reader confidence and reading culture. From cycle one this year she has gathered some very positive information on impact Group 1 - Impact Monitoring. All pupils are demonstrating an increase in identification of ‘common words’ in comparison to the control group.
Targeted FSM pupils in S1 are taking part in ‘That Reading Thing’ 1 to 1 sessions. This programme allows pupils to work from sound to print using age-appropriate vocabulary and real reading material. The method has its roots in linguistic phonics but has grown its own way of working with older learners for the fastest possible results.
We are also very excited to share that Balfron High’s first pop up Reading Cafe will take place in March. Pupils and their families from Drymen PS, the paired reading programme and the phonics group will all be invited to join us for an afternoon of literacy, good food and inspiration from author Maisie Chan!
Family Learning - ‘Good Food Project’
Last year David secured funding from the ‘Good Food Fund’ to pilot a family learning project where parents/carers and their children could take part in cooking sessions with our wonderful home economics team. The first sessions take place in February where families will cook a range of budget friendly meals, receive a recipe guide and a take away food bag for future cooking. We are hopeful that the project not only promotes a culture of learning, but allows us to continue to build relationships with our targeted families.
H&WB Group - Community Partnerships
We have now begun project work with Endura Lifestyle Trust. 6 pupils are currently taking part in the ‘Chills & Thrills’ programme to provide opportunities to engage in new health and wellbeing activities, including mountain biking, yoga, orienteering to support confidence growth. The group will also be involved in delivering early years physical activity sessions with Croftamie Nursery after the February holiday.
Senior Phase Coaching & 1 to 1 Tuition
Senior phase coaching meetings are on-going in the build up to SQA examinations. The meetings are very attainment focussed this year and we will utilise tracking and monitoring data along with prelim data to establish key priority areas to drive attainment. Coaching will also include one to one tuition for our targeted senior phase pupils. This will take place for 30 mins, twice a week. One to one tuition will offer greater levels of interaction and feedback compared to whole class teaching which will support pupils to spend more time on unfamiliar or challenging content.
If any staff would be interested in working one to one with a PEF pupil one hour a week for an 8 week period please let me know. This could really make a difference to young people who are impacted by low income. Prelim results will confirm targeted subject areas however T&M data suggests support may be required in: maths, French, physics, physical education, English and modern studies.
Families First Support Service
We are on month 3 of trialing our Families First SMS text service to directly support our FSM families and reduce the impact of the Cost of School Day. This service allows families to access:
Balfron Larder (emergency essentials)
School uniform
Sportswear and 'Kit for All' funding
Support with applications such as Educational Maintenance Allowance & NEC Free Bus Pass scheme
From our free school families 43 percent of parents have engaged with the service between launch during November ‘22 and January ‘23. The majority of support requests are for Larder provision and school uniform. This reflects the current economic crisis. We did not anticipate this number of requests in such a short period. Thank you to staff who have donated to our larder provision and for their ongoing support of our PEF pupils.
Fiona Fisher & the Equity Team
Balfron's Burns Supper
As part of their Foundation Apprenticeship, the Hospitality class will be running a Burns Supper. We would like to invite all staff along. There is not cost - just your time.
The Burns supper will take place on 9 February 2023 at 4 - 5.30pm.
Starter: Ham and Lentil Soup
Main: Haggis, Neeps, Tatties
Desert: Cranachan
Along with musical entertainment and Burns poetry.
We hope you can join us for this evening.
Numbers to Neil Macquarrie by Tuesday 31st at 3:30p.
Last week at Balfron
When people outside your walls know what you are doing, it gives value to those inside.
Photos include: Katie & Jasper are through to the semi-finals of the Donald Dewar debating competition, modelling of DNA in science, Balfron teams (1st and 2nd place) in the Stirling Schools netball comp, Caelan with medals and trophy from the Stirling winter swim meet, brain dumps in science and U12, U14, U16, U18 girls rugby, baby Charlotte Barrie.
10 mins Pedagogy Power up
This Week:
Think-Pair-Share
Next week:
Cold call questioning
Ongoing CLPL opportunities
What's on offer?
In house CLPL
Thursday
3.45pm C8
Self-regulation: Promoting metacognitive
regulation in our learners
With the talk around tracking and assessment in our BGE at the minute we've had some interesting discussions in Science around how sure we are that out learners know their next steps.
As well as summative assessment experiences, this is happening in the classroom lesson to lesson, minute by minute, those hundreds of formative assessment and feedback
moments we are constantly having back and fourth with our learners.
Self-regulation is about the extent to which learners are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and the strategies they use to learn. Some of this is cogniitve and some of this is metacognitive.
Promoting metacognition is rated as the 2nd most impactful strategy we can use to increase attainment. (What's the first I hear you ask? - come on Thursday and I'll tell you!)
There will be a twilight CLPL session next week, Thursday 2nd, at 3.45pm in C8.
It will be an interactive workshop style.
The topic will be on Self regulation: Promoting metacognitive skills in our learners.
Please click here to sign up.
In house sessions Coming Soon....
A teacher is always
a student of learning
Feb Inservice:
Working memory and it's classroom applications
April Inservice
Moving information into Long Term Memory
Voluntary Offers:
Increasing Challenge
Adaptive teaching using the working memory model
External CLPL
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
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BHS senior study planner
e-sgoil weekly online supported study timetable
Pupil Council Meetings
Tuesday 6 December
Wednesday 1 February
Tuesday 28 February
Wednesday 15 March
Tuesday 18 April
Here is the link to our school improvement plan. It is a real, working document that will be updated and amended as we go through the session. Thanks to everyone for input. If there is anything that you would like to add or ask, let me know.
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
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