Balfron Matters

6 December 2021

Weekly communication for staff

Dear colleagues,

It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas.... Although we are not able to have Christmas Dances, we will have decorations and tree up in the atrium and join in with Christmas Jumper Day on Friday. This is a fundraiser with money raised going to Save the Children.

Many thanks to colleagues in Technologies who welcomed Debs Gormal and I to their Open Doors. Unsurprisingly, we some some brilliant use of ICT and a range of pedagogy. You can have a quick look at some highlights in the Technologies Open Doors visit in a minute.

We had a Health & Safety spot check visit last week. All was in order in terms of COVID mitigations. It did highlight that our Fire Warden training needs to be updated. Jennifer McNeillis will prioritise this.

The Leadership Team met after school on Thursday. There was discussion about the S3 curriculum for 2022-23. The number of subjects was narrowed to eight to compensate for time lost in the last two sessions. It was recognised that the amended model does not meet the CfE entitlements for BGE while also recognising that we are still in a period of recovery. The team can see pros and cons for each model. Amanda Short and Neil Macquarrie will update on the decision made this week once all points have been fully considered.

A review of the online parents meetings will be done in the new year. Your views on that will be most welcome.

It was agreed that where suitable, the prelims would be used to collect evidence for AAA. It is important that pupils get the additional time for prelims while the check is in place to confirm that it is needed. PTs will update you at team meetings.

You can read the full set of notes from the meeting here.

Good luck to Tess Hand who is competing in the Articulate final at the University of Stirling on Wednesday evening. Thanks to the Expressive Arts team for organising her entry.

Have a great week.

Elaine

This week at Balfron High School:

Wednesday - S2 Parents' Meeting
Wellbeing Wednesday nominations
Friday - Christmas Jumper Day

Christmas Jumper Day 2021 | Save the Children UKGet involved and raise money for children with Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day 2021! Anyone can take part, so tell your friends, family, and everyone!

Supervision Spaces for School Leaders

Education Scotland is working in partnership with Barnardo’s to offer anyone in an education leadership role three reflective supervision spaces which will focus on looking after their mental health and the mental health and wellbeing of those they lead. These three workshop-style sessions will take place mostly on Wednesdays and last 90 minutes per session and there are a range of date and time options to choose from between now and June 2022. Sign up for the sessions here.

Supervision Spaces - Barnardos Education Hub

Aspiring Middle Leaders - CLPL Opportunity

Education Scotland are delighted that to announce that they are opening the Aspiring to Middle Leadership Programme in January 2022. Recruitment opens Monday 22^nd November 2021 and will remain open until 17^th December 2021. They will be keeping an eye on numbers and if places become full we may close the application form early.

The application form is below and is also available on our website along with further information on the programme.

Application Form

Programme Information

If you have any questions please contact EDSPLL@educationscotland.gov.scot

live-n-learn.co.uk/courses/the-significant-6

Here is the link to the NELO - please share with pupils .

Project Lead (Recovery) - Update on progress and plans

We analysed the data (tracking reports, SEEMIS data, Attainment concern Google forms) and have created S4 and S5 groups who are struggling in 3 or more subject areas. We have called this group the 'Attainment Support Group'. You can access the data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1weM1tLKkyNyqtw-PKQt7pO_C7fIKsN1-J-JH0yVQBFM/edit

We are offering study skill sessions to each group in person on Tuesdays for an hour after school, alongside online check-in sessions on Thursdays. These start on Tuesday 7th December and will run for the academic year. The idea is that we teach them a study skill and they get a chance to use this with support on Tuesdays, with the Thursday session offering them another opportunity to use the skill with guidance.

We have created a Google form, which includes questions surrounding studying and wellbeing indicators. We are going to use this at various points to evaluate the sessions and whether we need to make changes or offer further after school sessions (e.g. more sessions surrounding mental health)

Live-n-learn plan in place to offer study skill sessions to S4-6 prior to prelim with the potential to work with the Attainment Support Group later in the academic year.

Ongoing:

Creating a study skill hub for parents and pupils with videos to model study skills.
Once we get access to the BeingMe app for our groups, we are going to use the data from this to allow us to create Wellbeing interventions, depending on what the data shows, will allow us to create sessions (e.g. resilience sessions)
We are building a parental engagement plan, with online sessions with outside agencies to help to support parents in the build-up to prelims and exams. (TBC)
Working with Karin Figliolini to identify a small group of S4-6 girls who are struggling with mental health and deliver some group work to support them.

Follow-Up Respect Focus Groups

Respect focus groups will start on Tuesday in the Strathendrick Suite as follows:

Period 2: Sexism (3 groups)
Period 4: Homophobia (3 groups)
Period 5: Racism (2 groups)

I will email the names of those who have signed up to be involved and mark them with permission on SEEMiS. Thanks for your support with this.

Respect Follow-Up Assembly.mp4

Spoken feedback is 3X quicker than written... Mote license for all staff now activated 😊

We have just activated a whole school license for Mote. For those who are new to it, in a single click, this allows you to record a voice comment almost anywhere you could ordinarily type a comment in classroom, google docs, sheets, slides etc. It also lets you embed audio into a slideshow or leave audio clips as a question prompt (or a response) in Google forms. If you are setting and receiving work digitally there are lots of possible uses... mainly feedback though.

From using mote for over a year, I can't overstate its value in terms of saving time as well as improving the depth of feedback. Marking assignments (which necessitate feedback) takes around half the time it used to, and I am providing more detailed, personal feedback in that time. Other colleagues in the school who use it have echoed this. It also has the potential to make feedback far more accessible for pupils with literacy barriers.

The license has been applied to all teaching staff and SLA google accounts as of now, so add the extension and you should have premium access. This has also been whitelisted for pupils and we can apply a full license to their accounts too. While pupils can listen to your comments without the extension, the process is more fluid if they have it installed. This is something we may install by default on pupil devices but, for now, you could simply suggest that your class install it if you are using mote regularly.

Here is a short video about mote which I made for this week's tech tips. I genuinely don't think it takes more than a few minutes to set up and figure out how to use but I will be offering more detailed training soon.

If you have any queries in the meantime, just let me know.

Dougie

Dylan Wiliams on what makes great feedback.

Does our feedback cause thinking?

"It's the Most Important Tool for Building Relationships," and Other Insights About Check For Understanding - Teach Like a Champion Yesterday was one of the most intellectually intense days I’ve had in some time, and I came to realize some important things about Check for Understanding. I’m going to try to summarize some of them here. 1) Check for Understanding is quite possibly the single most important group of techniques in terms of building relationships...

Ep 10 - Using mini whiteboards to check the understanding of everyone in the classroom, with Doug WelshIn this episode I sit down with Doug Welsh, MFL teacher from Northallerton School, to talk about how he is using mini whiteboards to make his questioning far more effective, and in turn, finding out what everyone in his classroom knows, rather than just a ...

CLPL Corner - Read, Listen or watch. You choose.

How do you know what everyone in the class knows or has learned?

Our L&T focus has been questioning and checking what young people have learned. Here are some resources to help shape our thinking and promote reflection and discussion.

This week, read about the key features to consider when you want to check for understanding. We do this every lesson in a range of ways. The link is on the left.

Or if you'd rather listen (33 mins):

Listen to the ALT: Learn podcast on low stakes quizzes and use of mini-whiteboards to check for understanding podcast

Or, if you'd rather watch (6 mins):

Watch the link below, Tom Sheringham in his Kitchen Pedagogy series talk about how to ensure all students are engaged in rehearsing their knowledge, checking their understanding and building fluency with vocabulary.

Checking what they know in science

Pupils in science have been enjoying sharing what they know by using a whiteboard pen on their desk. This is a brain dump straight onto the table. It has been really motivational for pupils - they love it! They then go around the desks and peer assess each other's work.

L, T, A TM Oct 2021

Learning & Teaching Follow-up

What have they learned?
How do I know?

These are the two key questions we are reflecting on.

Our questioning strategies are perhaps the most important thing we do to really force pupils to think.

"The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions." Claude Levi-Strauss

Here is a quick easy to access resource that is worth a look Ten Questioning Strategies

Calendar 2021-22

wb 6 December Respect Focus Groups

7 December Young Musician of the Year (postponed)

8 December S2 Parents' Meeting

Calendar 2021-22

wb 13 December Team Meetings

17 December S4/5/6 Tracking (2nd unit)

21 December School closes for holiday

Senior Phase Courses - Please ckeep encouraging pupils to stay in courses

I appreciate that you are working hard to keep young people in courses. More than ever, we are receiving requests to have pupils with draw from courses.

There is much at stake for young people, and it is important that we do all be can to support them through before we agree to them waithdrawing. Where possible the focus should be on building resilience. SLT will: