Balfron Matters

4 October 2021

Weekly communication for staff

Dear colleagues,

It's a busy week to end an exhausting but positive term. It has not been easy and I very much appreciate everyone's combined efforts and commitment. Thank you all.

Great news - Funding has now been transferred to the school fund from the Parent Council in support of the bids that were put forward.

Many thanks also to the working group leaders who transferred actions for the year to the new School Improvement Plan. You can access the plan here as well as through the useful links section at the bottom.

It is certainly an interesting time once again in Scottish education. As you know Prof Ken Muir has been appointed to act as an independent advisor to the government. Functions currently being delivered by the SQA and Education Scotland are under review. It is important that teachers have their say and are listened to. Ken Muir's slides and questions for consideration are available on the Government website The questions are on slides 9-12. You can access the whole thing through Schools: Education Reform. Go on.... your opinion is very important.

I wish you all a restful and relaxing break.

Elaine

This week at Balfron High School:

S1 FCL Interviews
L&T Group, Wed 1.15pm C8
Positive Behaviour Group, Wed 1.15pm B22
Wellbeing Wednesday nominations
S3 Parents Meeting, Thursday
Senior Phase Tracking due Friday
Non Uniform Day for Refuweegee (Friday)
Swimming Gala (Friday)

Day to Day Pointers

Re-setting Google or Glow passwords

Here is a quick reminder video

Resetting Google & Glow Passwords for Pupils.webm

How to help pupils keep track of their homework and assignments

If you have any questions or would like some help with anything digital, just ask Dougie.

Classroom - Keeping Track of Homework etc..webm

Wellbeing Week at Balfron High

week beginning 25 October

The week will run from 25th October. Incorporated into the week will be:

Form class tasks
HWB theme across curriculum for S1-3 pupils
Active Girls Day
Boys Positive Mental Health Day
Parental engagement through a video
Staff Activities

We will supply form class leaders with tasks for each day covering a variety of topics.

The IDL will be lesson inserts or a theme for the week of wellbeing. The HWB Working Group will coordinate this, but each team will be responsible for planning this.

Active Girls day is a Sport Scotland project to promote girls' participation in Sport and Physical Activity. This will be led by Fiona Fisher and Sarah McLay and will take place on Thursday 27th October.

Boys positive Mental Health Day will will take place on Friday 28th October. Andrew Lauder is taking the lead on this one.

79: Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You're Not UsingListen to this episode from The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast on Spotify. The research is clear: Retrieval practice is one of the most powerful ways to learn. In this episode, I talk to Pooja Agarwal about what retrieval practice is and how teachers can start incorporating it into their teaching tomorrow.

CLPL Corner - What makes a difference in the classroom?

With gaps in knowledge as a result of varying engagement over two disrupted sessions, it is critical that we use the most powerful and effective strategies. This week my podcast suggestion is 'Retrieval Practice: the Most Powerful Learning Strategy You're Not Using' from the Cult of Pedagogy. The link ison the left.

Retrieval practice boosts learning by pulling information out of students’ heads, rather than cramming information into students’ heads.

These strategies help us know what students know or have learned. Many require little prep. Eg Brain dump, two things, think-pair-share

If you'd like to find out more, there are some interesting tweets on @RetrieveLearn and @Poojagarwal

Below is a sketchnote from @ImpactWales

Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSA) 2021-22

A quick reminder that SNSA - Scottish National Standardised Assessments – are carried out every year with P1, P4, P7 and S3 pupils.

- There are 3 assessments – Numeracy, Reading and Writing Skills.

- Assessments are online and standardised against accepted levels nationally.

- The feedback in the SNSA reports is very impressive and very detailed.

- They can/should be used by all staff to inform levels of literacy and numeracy demonstrated by pupils.

You can access the reports for any pupil by clicking on the green text on the Magic Dashboard here:

We carry out S3 assessments in Oct/Nov of each session.

The data from this, and the data from the previous P7 becomes available at the start of the new session.

- I am currently working on this data for our new S1 and S4, and it will be on the Magic Dashboard soon.

All staff have individual access to SNSA. Just log into the Glow Launchpad, then find the SNSA tile.

You should be autologged on.

If you have any difficulties, please email me.

CLPL

– available online via SNSA website , SCHOLAR & additional Using SNSA and Deeper Dive into SNSA sessions via Michaela McDonald, the RIC Data Coach who has been developing user friendly CLPL to reach more classroom practitioners.

- https://standardisedassessment.gov.scot/teachers/training-information/ is direct link to SCHOLAR SNSA training framework. Staff can go through the videos.

- Quick Start Training is here: https://delivery2.standardisedassessment.gov.scot/training/quickStart1819.html

Delivery of SNSA this session

- Should take place in English & Maths S3 class time after the October holidays and completed before the end of November.

- Guidance for AAA and EAL is here: https://schools.standardisedassessment.gov.scot/help/asn-and-eal-guidance

Any queries, email me!

Phil

STEM at Balfron: 7 Cities Hydrogen Challenge

Massive thanks to Debs Gormal for organising the event. Our in-school winners were Murren, Lucy and Nina who went on to represent Balfron High in the finals at the Falkirk Wheel.

This Tuesday an S1 group will be taking part in the National Spaceport Competition. Best of luck!