Headteacher Update
Welcome to the May HT update. It's been great getting back into the swing of things after our Spring break and we're really proud of all our senior learners who are working so hard to finish assessments, sit exams and prepare for their next steps. Our learners in S1-S3 are also working hard and preparing for the final few weeks of their current timetables before we change at the start of June.
Staffing Updates
Mrs Aird (Pupil Support) will be leaving us at the start of June to take up a new post in another Fife school closer to home. We wish her well with her move. We hope to recruit prior to the Summer break to fill this important post.
Mrs Sharp (English) has been successful in securing the temporary PT Literacy post for the coming academic session - congratulations!
Ms Gassner (PE) will be leaving us at the end of the academic session to take up a new, promoted post in England. We hope the move goes well and are grateful for all her hard work during her time with us. We hope to have a replacement in post for the start of the new academic year.
Mrs Dick (Design & Technology) and Ms Neave (Art & Design) will share the post of PT3 Creative Industries and will lead our whole school focus on Interdisciplinary Learning. They will also develop the new Creative Industries curriculum for S1 and S2 as we move to our new faculty model in this area.
We're delighted to welcome (almost!) Mr Crawford to our Design and Technology department within the Creative Industries faculty. He will start with us for 2 days per week from the change of timetable.
Important Information & Updates
The next meeting due to take place on Monday 13th May has been rescheduled and will now take place on Tuesday 21st May, 7pm. A Teams invite and agenda will be sent out to all parents/carers in due course - all welcome to attend! We'll be discussing digital learning and seeking views on our new Mission Statement that we are developing across our school community amongst other points for discussion from the parent/carer body.
Remember you can sign up for the Balwearie Fundraising Lottery which you can enter for £2 per month. Sign up only takes about 5 mins and is available by clicking on the button below:
Getting in touch:
Email balweariepv@gmail.com for support or to share your views on to school staff.
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SQA Exams and Study Leave
We're well into our exam period now and we're really proud of how well our learners are coping with the demands of the schedule. We know it can be a time of mixed emotions (both for learners and parents/carers - I have an S4 at home too - I'm right there with you!) and we're always here if you need us during this time for any support. I'd like to extend a thanks to you, parents/carers, for your work at home to help prepare our young people for this part of their school life - it's not always easy, but we're really grateful for your ongoing patience and support.
As a reminder, the SQA Exam Timetable can be found here
School Uniform
It's good to see some of our new half-zip tops in circulation around school, as well as those learners who prefer to wear a shirt and tie. A reminder that we prefer hoodies are not worn to school and are expected to be removed in classes. We're also keen to minimise heavily branded items that are not school uniform and ask that these are kept for wearing out of school. School uniform is a great way to support building a positive culture where learners feel and show a sense of belonging and take pride in being part of a wider community. It promotes greater equity across our student body and is also a quick and easy way to identify who should be in our building for health and safety reasons. We are seeking your ongoing support in reiterating these messages at home and by ensuring your child wears uniform each day to school.
Planning for next session
There has been a great deal of ongoing work to plan our improvement priorities for next session and beyond. We're continuing with this throughout the term, following all staff sessions to gather feedback on our progress and next steps. We've also been considering how we work better with families to support learners when they are in the greatest need and will be sharing information about our progress here with our parent/carer voice group and with focus groups of learners.
Part of this development work has involved colleagues from the Local Authority who support our refreshed approaches and are pleased with the pro-active approach to interventions that will hopefully maximise attendance, attainment and engagement for all our young people.
ParentWise/PupilWise Survey Feedback
ParentWise
We have now received the feedback from these surveys and will take time to look over them as we build the information into the picture of our overall progress as a school.
We had 333 parent/carer responses and some key points are noted below:
70% of respondents said their child feels safe in school (14% neutral, 16% negative). This is encouraging but we need to do more to help our learners feel safe in school.
42% said they were asked for their views as a parent/carer (35% neutral, 23% negative). We're working on this and our communication group should help with the 2 way communication and sharing/celebrating successes too.
32% said they know about the school's improvement priorities (39% neutral, 29% negative). You are an important part of our school community and we're already making changes to share with you more clearly our improvement priorities and seek your input. We hope this will improve over the coming months.
While I've only shared some of the immediate 'highlights', from the parent/carer feedback, we will, as a senior team and whole staff body, be using all the information from the parents and pupil feedback to reflect against our progress and use the feedback to keep working hard on being even better. Thanks to all who took the time to share your views. We'll share more of the feedback in due course.
Celebrating Success
Duke of Edinburgh
Bronze Duke of Edinburgh
We have 28 pupils who have worked tirelessly throughout the year towards achieving their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. Pupils are now completing expedition training including tent pitching, cooking on a stove and navigation using a map and compass. This will allow our pupils to complete the Bronze Level Expedition on 30th and 31st May.
Department of Additional Support
11 pupils from our Department of Additional Support will also take on their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze expedition this year. All pupils have been learning life skills and gained lots of fantastic experience taking on Physical, Skill and Volunteering challenges.
World Book Day
As part of Balwearie’s annual World Book Day celebrations all of our S1 and S2 pupils were invited to take part in a competition to design a new book token. The theme of this year’s competition was ‘Read Your Way’. The standard of entries was very high and I was given the tough job of selecting the winners. Our S1 winner, Maya Johnston, S2 winner, Isla Laird and overall runner-up, Kristin Greig are pictured here with their winning entries and their well-deserved prizes. Well done to our winners and to everyone who took part!
FOLA (Forest Outdoor Learning Award)
Our FOLA (Forest Outdoor Learning Award) sessions are well underway this term! The group have been building their understanding of our natural environment while building up their confidence, curiosity, resilience, problem-solving skills and creativity, compassion, care, sustainable dispositions, and healthy bodies and minds. Lately, they have been learning how to build fires responsibly. The art of making fire is something that humankind mastered millions of years ago, and our FOLA learners were enthused and engaged. The task has instilled self-confidence and promoted self-esteem. The group celebrated their success with some handmade pizzas! They were delicious! Our outdoor learning space on campus is also looking good and ready for some activity soon!
Lego League Update from Dr Rose
This year for the first time a team of two S2 pupils participated in the FIRST LEGO League Challenge – a global STEM programme to encourage an interest in real world themes and develop key skills that are crucial for their future careers.
They have been working together to explore a given topic and to design, build and program an autonomous LEGO® robot to solve a series of missions whilst embracing the core values of discovery, inclusion, innovation, teamwork and fun. The team presented their work including an innovation project, robot design and robot game at the Fife regional tournament and were delighted to win the Championship award, qualifying them to compete in the National finals in Harrogate.
The final was a fantastic experience, with over seventy teams from all across the UK competing on the day. The event was a high energy, fun filled day which was broadcast live on YouTube. The Balwearie team gave a great performance and were praised by the judges for their innovation project presentation and gained their highest score yet at the robot table. They came away discussing team tactics for next year’s challenge already! If you are S1-S4 and interested in getting involved watch out for information coming soon.
Young Stem Leader
Our S6 Young Stem Leaders were very busy last term running ‘hands on’ STEM activities with some of our feeder primaries. In February they visited P7’s from Strathallan and Auchtertool. It was a jam-packed afternoon with pupils trying out ten different experiments covering all aspects of STEM. In March they visited Dunnikier Primary as part of British Science week and had lots of fun carrying out experiments based on the theme of ‘time’ with primary three and four classes. We are looking forward to meeting all of the P7 pupils again at Balwearie after summer.
Career Ready - Class of 24!
Many congratulations to Rosie Nield, Katie McEwan, Helena Thomassen, Callum Paton, Zaheer Nadim and Kaden Matheson who recently graduated from the 2022-2024 Career Ready Programme, held at the Old Course Hotel, in St Andrews.
Of the original cohort Callum is currently pursuing an engineering qualification at College and Kaden has employment within the construction Industry.
The photograph shows those who were able to attend the ceremony.
S6 Sports Leaders
The S6 Balwearie High School Sports Leaders have had a very successful and rewarding year.
Working in partnership with Fife College, the Students gained Higher qualifications through Investigating Activity Development and Researching Activity and Participation Opportunities in the Community.
Integral to the research topics, was the teaching and learning experience offered by the Group which ran for 12 weeks. Over 130 pupils from both Kirkcaldy West and Burntisland Primary Schools, benefited from the Sports Leaders delivery of their Physical Education programme.
Netball Round-Up!
What an amazing season we have had, so a massive thank you to each and every player for all your hard work and dedication and to the staff who have worked so hard and supported them every step of the way! All teams had outstanding performances but special mention goes to:
Senior A team: Overall winners of the District Tournament and runners up in the League with a very close final. Our very own Charlotte Marshall also received an award for player of the Tournament.
S3 Team: Winners of the Plate in the District Tournament and overall winners of the S3 District Development League.
S2 Team: Second place in both the District Tournament and League (a nail biting final only 2 goals in it).
Some of the girls even made it out to Spain in the Easter holidays to represent their club in an international tournament and were 2nd overall.
The S1 Team are just about to start their Balwearie Netball journey - good luck to them on the 17th at their first District Tournament. Well done everyone!