Page 2 of 9 Interim Newsletter September 2016
Headteacher ’ s Update on School Developments
� Daonnan ri sàr-ghnìomh ( Striving always for excellence !) One thing that is a common point of agreement across stakeholders is that the school should set high expectations , and ensure that our young people are supported and challenged to do the best they can - or as our motto puts it : striving always for excellence ! In order to support this in the primary last year we introduced an approach to monitoring pupil attainment that is being trialled in a few schools across the authority . This involves staff using an electronic system to set targets and track progress in discussion with school management over the course of the year . I would hope that this has allowed us to have a greater insight into how individuals and classes are progressing and to take remedial action where we feel it is required . Indeed , I would like to think we might be able to attribute some of the overall improvement in primary attainment this year to this development .
We also last session introduced a greater level of internal tracking for senior secondary pupils which allowed us to review regularly progress against expectations by pupil , department and year group . It may also be the case that this contributed towards our young people in S5 / 6 achieving the strongest set of results in several years . We marked this achievement this term by holding a special lunch reception for our high achieving secondary pupils .
� The Great Outdoors In our review of vision , values and aims , parents and staff stressed the idea of creating ‘ rounded ’ individuals . There was agreement that , as well as offering academic learning , we should be trying to provide a broad range of experiences for our young people that combine to develop them in body , mind and spirit . One such area that is underdeveloped - particularly given the school ’ s spectacular location – is outdoor learning , and this is something we will seek to address over the coming three years . This process has already started with the creation in June of a Department of PE and Outdoor Education in the secondary – the only one of its kind in Perth and Kinross . The new Principal teacher of that department , Mr Douglas , has already been making progress on our vision that all our young people should be guaranteed outdoor experiences as part of their core curriculum in primary and secondary , and he will lead a working group of staff and other stakeholders looking at this in Session 16 / 17 . Although we would plan to roll out this development over three years , parents can expect to see changes in this area as soon as this session .
� Engaging with Parents The school enjoyed an excellent collaboration with Parent Council representatives last session which resulted in some significant changes to our procedures for dealing with parental enquiries and complaints . The new Parental Communications policy , which is available on the school website , provides a comprehensive guide to parents on what they can expect of the school in terms of communications , as well as information on what the school would ask of them . The policy also speaks of the school ’ s commitment going forward to involving parents in our processes for the planning and quality assurance of our work . This was reflected last session in the Strategic Planning Day during which parents , staff , pupils and local employers spent a morning reviewing the work of the school and considering priorities for the future . In the coming session , we would hope to have more engagement events with parents to allow them an opportunity to influence the direction of the school . We will also reissue our annual parent survey , which we introduced for the first time in June .
( Please note : I am keen to hold some focus group meetings with parents this session to get a more detailed understanding of issues arising in the parental survey . If you would be interested in taking part in a group discussion of no more than one hour , please contact me at the school .)