Balfron Matters

6 September 2021

Weekly communication for staff

Dear colleagues,

Here is this week's edition of Balfron Matters. I have pulled together some information that may be generally helpful. Key documents can be accessed at the bottom.

You will note a focus on improvement and getting back to the activities that develop our craft. I strongly believe that understanding how young people learn linked to developing great classroom practice are central to what we do best. We should never take our focus away from that.

I hope that you manage to take a little time each week to listen to the podcasts. This is a particularly influential one for me.

Thanks to you all for your continued hard work and unwavering commitment. It has been great to see the school come back to life with you people enjoying many contexts for learning. The numbers in lunchtime and after school clubs speak for themselves.

Please share pictures and information. I am putting together a newsletter for parents so your input would be much appreciated.

With thanks,

Elaine

This week at Balfron High School:

Parent Council - Tuesday 7pm Parent Council Meeting https://meet.google.com/ehu-ymkh-not

Science Club is back!

Because making slime never gets old and playing with it is great fun.

Info for all - Setting Homework

Please ensure that you set homework as an assignment so that parents get the notification through Google Guardian

Create a Google Classroom assignment with the prefix (HW) in its title to differentiate between classwork tasks you are working on in school and those to be completed at home (unless the title is self-evidently homework e.g. "Homework Task 1: Dimensioning Standards")
Ensure the post includes task instructions and any necessary attachments (if being completed online) or details of what resources to use e.g. text book pages and jotter/worksheet to complete task on (if being completed on paper)
The assignment post must have the due date specified in order that guardian summaries going to parents are accurate. To reduce confusion, set the due time as 9AM so pupils don't think they can submit it after school on the due date. This also means pupils can use the "To Do" list in classroom to manage their workload (worth reminding your FC to do this at the start of the year to encourage good habits)

Our homework policy is here if you haven't looked it over in a while.

Even if you are grading work completed on paper, it can be useful to record marks in classroom. There are a few handy features like rubrics and the class gradebook to help you mark and track progress. I have found the pupil summary this provides to be hugely beneficial as a reference at parents night.

Also, remember you can reuse posts from previous classrooms (even if they have been archived). Creating a template classroom to be shared within your dept. is a great way to pool these resources for easy reuse in the future.

If you would like any help with the above, or anything else in the digital sphere please just get in touch!

Dougie Scott

Improvement Groups

We will use staff meeting time to support improvement group activities as follows:

Wednesday 22 September: 3.45-4.45pm
Thursday 13 January: 3.45-4.45pm
Monday 7th March: 3.45-4.45pm

All teaching staff should contribute to at least one working group. Where possible every team should be represented in improvement groups in order that communication is strong and everyone's curricular context is represented. Some working groups will be short life, others core and will drive research based improvements.

Improvement Groups 2021-22 are:

Learning, Teaching & Assessment Digital Literacy Equity STEM

Behaviour /Relationships (SLWG) Health & Wellbeing LGBT Charter DYW

Please confirm your working group here

Quality Assurance 2021-22 - Feedback & actions from Fire Drill 27/8/21

Staff without Form Classes

Report to Karen McColl (or Susan Wilson on a Friday) at the front of the building

Await deployment from SRO (Jennifer McNeillis) who knows absent staff

Fire Wardens*

Report their area clear to the House admin assistant

House Admin Staff

Jaccqui Atkinson – Campsie

Jen Heslin - Endrick

Lesley Edwards – Lomond

*Art & Music fire wardens without form classes should report to Jacqui Atkinson to report on their areas and then report to Karen and Jennifer to report themselves and await deployment to cover for absent teachers.

Science Staff - Evacuation of classes

Front Lomond 2 Area – front Maths stairs

Back (old Lomond 3) – out the back stairs

- Then rear exit through back (polytunnel) area - and along the road – not through the car park – and onto the pavement between the hedge and fence.

Quality Assurance 2021-22

Open Doors Dates

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

5 October Expressive Arts with L McAllister

19 October English with G MacKay

28 October Science with N Macquarrie

1 November Social Subjects with S Boyle

9 November Health with M Skinner

19 November Maths with M Young

25 November Mod Languages with A Barrie

29 November Technologies with D Gormal

Tri-Learning 2021-22

The Rationale

· Based on aspects of ‘Learning Rounds’ model.

· Allows staff to observe and discuss key areas of learning and teaching as well as sharing good practice and ideas.

· All teaching staff involved in observations.

· Groups of 3; each will be observed once and will observe twice.

· Focus will be on a specific aspect of learning and teaching.

· Non-judgemental approach using a set pro-forma.

· Each trio is part of a wider group of nine and the process culminates in a discussion involving all nine during staff meeting in May.

Launch:

Tuesday 15 February (in-service day)

Feedback and sharing practice: Wednesday 11 May 3.45-4.45pm

PRDs - to be completed by the end of September

Many of you will have completed your PRD for this session at the end of last. For those who have not yet, please organise that with your line manager as a priority. The PRD paperwork can be found in the staff shared drive. Please direct any questions o Amanda short.

CLPL Corner

This week's suggested podcast is How Teaching in our Schools can get Better and Better with Bruce Robertson Podcast This is really worth a listen and will influence the improvement agenda for Balfron High this session. The L, T & A group will use Bruce's work and research in addition to our own self evaluation to drive improvements.

Bruce Robertson is the Rector at Berwickshire High School in the Borders. He has written a series of books, the first, 'The Teaching Delusion: why Teaching in Our Schools Isn't Good Enough (and how we can make it better)'

Schools are filled with great teachers, but is great teaching taking place in every classroom, in every school? Bruce Robertson doesn't believe it is. Why not? This book argues that there are two reasons. Firstly, because there isn't a shared understanding of what makes great teaching. Secondly, because schools haven't developed the strong professional learning culture necessary to drive the development of great teaching in every classroom. Through discussion of key messages from educational research, and drawing on a track record of success, this book explores how these barriers can be addressed, leading to transformations in teaching practice across classrooms and schools.

This session we will be building on our shared understanding of what makes great teaching. We have previously created the resources below to support that shared understanding. We will also invest in our professional learning culture through In-service input, team meetings and twilights. We are good, and as professionals, we should all work to better our craft.

Is your classroom a place where young people feel that it is safe to fail?

'If the goal of teaching for understanding is to bridge the gap between I taught it and they learned it, that goal is far easier to accomplish if students want us to find the gap, if they are willing to share information about errors and misunderstandings - and far harder if they seek to prevent us from discovering them.'

Jeremy Denk

Balfron Lesson.pdf

LTA Policy 2017.docx

Balfron In-house CLPL Programme for New Teachers

The in-house CLPL programme has been put together for new staff and probationers. Anyone who is interested is welcome to join the in-house sessions.

Thanks to Anna Barrie for pulling this together.

Balfron High School (1).docx

Thinking about a promoted post in Pastoral Care?

We all have a pupil support responsibility at Balfron and are proud to contribute to the wellbeing and care of our young people. I know that some of you are interested in taking that to the next level and others may just be interested in enhancing your knowledge. This free CLPL might be of interest.

It is taking place on Wednesday 15 September and is being recorded for later access at a time that suits.

The sessions are designed to be short and you may be able to manage a session with non contact. If not, you can access later.

For more information follow the link Glasgow Academy Pastoral Summit

Congratulations to Sarah and Neil!

Massive congratulations to our colleagues Sarah McLay and Neil Cameron who both competed in the Go Swim Loch Lomond Swimming 3K and 10 K competitions.

Sarah completed 3K in a very respectable 1 hour and 17 minutes.

Neil came 2nd overall in his category with an amazing 5K swim. Neil's time was 1 hour, 15 minutes and 18 seconds.

Congratulations to both!