Stirling High SchoolStandards and Quality Report

June 2019

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Contents

Context

Report on Progress

Priority 1

Priority 2

Priority 3

Priority 4

1.3 Leadership of Change

2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment

3.1 Ensuring Well-being and Inclusion

3.2 Raising Attainment and Achievement

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Background

Stirling High School is a six-year non-denominational comprehensive school serving Stirling. Our learning community comprises of our associated primaries; Allan’s Primary, Borestone Primary, Braehead Primary, Cambusbarron Primary, Gargunnock Primary, St Ninians Primary and our associated nurseries; Hillview Nursery, Wellgreen Nursery and Baker Street Nursery. At Stirling High School, we work closely with our nursery and primary colleagues to maintain effective and productive links that benefit our learning community and ensure effective transitions.

Context

Stirling High School has a roll of 944 and serves a truly comprehensive community with 45% of our cohort from deciles 1-5 and 55% from deciles 6-10. The deciles are based on Scottish Government’s Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation where decile 1 is the most deprived and decile 10 is the least deprived. The illustration below describes our context.

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The ‘Wordle’ below illustrates the values that are important to our school community. Our 3 key values are Respect, Responsibility and Achievement.

Stirling High School is a community committed to doing our best. We REACH out to support everyone through developing:

Resilience – We strive to instil confidence and determination in all members of our school

Ethos - We strive to develop respect understanding and acceptance of everyone

Achievement - We strive to enable all of our learners to achieve their best

Community - We strive to prepare our pupils to contribute as local and global citizens

Health - We strive to inspire healthy, happy, creative and aspirational young people

Through developing resilience, ethos, achievement, community and health, the school aims create the support and environment for our young people to be the best that they can be.

With the support of Stirling Council, our goal is to improve the life chances of all of our young people, working in partnership with parents, carers, employers and the wider community. We also have a supportive Parent Council that provides a vehicle for strong and effective partnership with our parents and carers. Our Parent Council recently rebranded itself as our School Community Partnership.

The school is fully committed to meeting the needs of all young people and to providing a wide range of opportunities for all members of our school community. Supporting learning and learners are core responsibilities of all members of staff.

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There are eight curricular faculties in the school:● Numeracy (Maths and Numeracy)● Modern Languages and Confucius Hub (French, Spanish, German and Mandarin)● Communication (English and Religious and Philosophical Studies)● Science (Biology, Chemistry and Physics)● Social Sciences (Geography, History and Modern Studies)● Creative Industries (Art and Design, Food and Technology and Music)● Business and Technology (Business Education, Design & Technology and Computing)● Physical Education (PE, Fitness and Sport and extra-curricular)

Our school has a Pupil Support Team comprising of three Principal Teachers of Pupil Support, a Principal Teacher of Additional Support Needs (ASN), a Principal Teacher of Pupil Support (Equity), 3 ASN teachers and 5 Support for Learning Assistants (SLAs).

Report on ProgressThis report provides an evaluation of the overall quality of educational provision within our school. It shows the positive aspects of our provision and highlights the areas that the school is planning to improve. This report references Education Scotland’s How Good Is Our School 4 (HGIOS 4) document and its quality indicators as benchmarks of how well our school is doing.

In session 2018/19, the school had 4 priorities that are evaluated in the next section. Each evaluation is supported by evidence from the school session. This is generated in a planned and systematic way throughout the year. This session we have used a wide range of approaches including:

● Classroom observations - formal and informal● Young people, staff (teaching and support) and parent and carer surveys● Young people focus groups● Staff focus groups● Parent and carer focus groups● Data analysis, including Insight● SQA results● Discussions between the Senior Leadership Team and Principal Teachers● Review and improvements led by improvement groups of staff and young people

Information is shared frequently with our parents and carers. Our school website is kept up-to-date and contains all our key information. The school also publishes our Stirling High News e-magazine regularly, edited and published by young people. Stirling High News keeps our community up-to-date with the work of the school, and young people’s experiences and achievements that have been celebrated. The school posts regularly on Twitter and Facebook. Our school is regularly featured in the Stirling Observer.

TerminologyIn this report the following terminology follows Education Scotland’s definitions:‘Almost all’ means over 90%‘Most’ means 75% to 90%‘Majority’ means 50% to 74%‘Less than half’ means 15% to 49%‘Few’ means up to 15%Our report refers to our Young People’s Improvement Plan (YPIP) and our Parental Improvement Plan (PIP).

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Priority 1

School Priority 1 (a) Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy(b) Learning, teaching and assessment

National Improvement HGIOS 4 QI(s): 3.2, 2.3Framework Priority 1 ● Improve our results in Literacy and Numeracy for our S5 leavers to

match virtual comparators.● Develop pupils’ skills for learning, life and work. Most pupils should

Targetsreport and demonstrate an understanding of these.

● Implement changes to CLPL evaluations to measure impact it has onyoung people.

● Use monitoring and tracking S1-S6 to create interventions to increaseattainment through Progress

● Develop short reports with targets● Develop learning and teaching approaches to fully embed AiFL

strategies focussing on feedback● Develop improvements in parental engagement including parents

supporting parents.● Development of ASN staff’s use of digital tech to support SQA

assessments and exams● Develop the use of Sustainable Development Global Goals within the

learning experience and implement tracking system.

Progress & Impact in Outcomes in literacy and numeracy remain strong for almost all pupils - in2018/19 addition, almost all of our pupils leave having achieved a minimum of level 4

in both literacy and numeracy.

Our Insight data shows that literacy at level 4 and 5 in S4, S5 and S6 is aheadof our comparators. Level 5 literacy has improved compared to the previousyear in S4, S5 and S6. Overall, our leavers performance in literacy hasimproved compared to last session (2017/18) - almost all of our leavers haveachieved level 4 literacy and most have achieved level 5. The results of ourtarget group of S5 leavers are greatly improved; 74 % of our S5 leaversattained level 5 literacy compared to 47% the previous year. In addition, wehave changed our presentation policy in English to ensure that as many pupilsas possible experience National 5 in S4.

Pupils’ performance in numeracy at level 4 and level 5 in S4, S5 and S6 iseither in line with, or ahead of, our comparators. The performance of ourleavers was stronger than previous years at both level 4 and level 5. Inparticular, our S5 leavers (our priority area for improvement) were thehighest performing group of the past 3 years at both level 4 and level 5.

We continue to intervene early, based on tracking and equity information, inboth Maths and English to ensure that all pupils can reach their potential.

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Our literacy and numeracy individual and small group interventions in S1-S3 are supported by pupil equity funding and by our ASN department.

This session we introduced a system called Progress for tracking, monitoring and reporting on pupils’ progress in all subject areas. We have used Progress to identify target groups of pupils for intervention, particularly pupils at risk of underperforming in S4 and pupils at risk of not achieving 5 highers. We now provide regular short reports for all year groups based on our positive feedback from pupils, parents and staff on our Senior Phase short reports. In the BGE we now report on pupils’ progress towards Curriculum for Excellence levels in all subject areas. Staff, pupils and parents are being consulted about the implementation of Progress and we are working with the developers to tailor the system to allow staff to use the data to support pupils and to improve communication with parents.

Pupils are being encouraged to use Read Write Chrome, (a function available on Chromebooks) where appropriate, to support them to take part in assessments and classroom activities. Evidence from classroom observations has shown pupils taking responsibility for their learning and more seamless differentiation of activities. This session a small number of pupils used Read Write Chrome in their SQA exams. We plan to build on this next session.

We engage with targeted groups of parents and the wider parent body in a variety of ways. For session 2019/20 we have allocated staff time in both Maths and English to engage more with parents of targeted groups of pupils to support improvement in literacy and numeracy. This is in response to feedback from parents and we plan to provide further support for our online reports.

We have continued to develop our approaches to embedding the Sustainable Development Global Goals in our curriculum. Each week Stirling’s Neighbourfood community of local food producers meet in the school to sell their produce. This has led to curricular events and partnerships with Health and Food Technology. Our Bee Project has gone from strength to strength with young people tending our hives at Stirling Castle, collecting honey and devising enterprise activities to sell honey-related items. This project has been made in partnership with Plan Bee, Historic Environment Scotland and our Community Partnership (Parent Council). We recognise that we have to do more work towards embedding our Sustainable Development Global Goals.

Although the school has a high Eco profile and many of our young people have contributed to eco-based learning projects we acknowledge that sustainability is an area for further development within the curriculum. All classes have volunteers who participate in weekly litter picks of our neighbouring area, including Beechwood Park. An audit of sustainability in the BGE curriculum has been carried out and we plan to develop this next session.

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This session we hosted a sharing practice session for staff from across ourlearning community where several of our staff presented their researchfindings on the Growth Mindset projects that they have undertaken withtheir classes.

We have continued this session with our in house CLPL programme where allstaff have the opportunity to attend a wide variety of CLPL. A main area ofstaff development days focused on Pivotal behaviour management trainingwhich has had a significant impact on our consistent approach to behaviourmanagement.

A key focus for our Learning Community this session was focussing onembedding Formative Assessment, with a particular focus on feedback forimprovement. Two members of the group have been working on tests ofchanges focusing on feedback. We have met with a group of S1-3 pupils inorder to hear their views on what they feel is effective feedback, and how itcan help to improve their learning. This information will feed into our staffProfessional Enquiry Group focussing on feedback for improvement insession 2019/20.

We continue to develop skills in our curriculum with a focus on ‘The Five Cs’skills for the 21st Century: Creativity, Collaboration, Communication andCritical Thinking. Information and resources have been developed and wehave piloted this focus with our Learning and Teaching working groupmembers.

Next Steps for 2019/20 ● Ensure learners progress because our staff make effective use ofassessments and their shared understanding of standards to makeconfident professional judgements about how well children andyoung people are learning and progressing.

● Ensure continuous progress for learners across the curriculum andat all phases in their education, including points of transitionthrough our robust tracking system together with effectiveinterventions.

● Focus on key skills to be embedded in learning and teaching withinS1 and S2. Pupils will reflect on the progress of these skills inDidbook.

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Priority 2

School Priority 2 Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantagedchildren

National Improvement HGIOS 4 QI(s): 3.2 Raising attainment and achievementFramework Priority 2 ● Improve targeted pupils’ literacy and numeracy.

● Improve Health and Wellbeing outcomes (including attendance) fortargeted young people.

● Young people and their families are more included in school life.Targets

Progress and impact We continue to work towards closing the gap between our most and leastin 2018/19 disadvantaged young people in a variety of ways. Our literacy and

numeracy targeted interventions in the BGE are having a positive impact on pupils’ attainment and we are now working with staff across the school to encourage a targeted approach to closing the gap.

Our Insight data shows a generally positive picture in terms of how each SIMD compares to our virtual comparator across S4, S5 and S6. Our S4 pupils performed particularly well with most deciles ahead of their comparators - we believe this is partly down to the work of our Equity team and our targeted interventions.

Next session we plan to further embed the use of Progress for tracking and monitoring and to further encourage a culture of interrogating the data generated to develop interventions in the classroom to support learning and teaching.

We continue to update and refine our curriculum taking labour market information into account to ensure appropriate courses are offered at a range of levels. We had positive feedback from Education Scotland on our curricular offer during our thematic inspection this session. We are now working more closely with Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and Forth Valley College (FVC) to support young people and to provide a range of vocational courses. We now have college staff working with us to deliver Early Education and Childcare at N4 and N5, City and Guilds Hospitality, and next session we plan to run N4 Skills for Work Construction in conjunction with Historic Environment Scotland and FVC staff. Last session all of our leavers from SIMD 1-3 in S4 and S6 attained positive destinations and the majority of S5 leavers did too.

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This session our Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) has continued to support a widevariety of targeted interventions in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. Our Principal Teacher of Equity works together with our pupilsupport team, our counsellor, our Family Link Worker and our InclusionSupport Worker to provide targeted support where it is needed most. Weidentify pupils for targeted intervention through discussion with staff andfrom a wide range of data including FME, SIMD, attendance and attainmentdata. We use the model for improvement to measure the impact of ourinterventions and make improvements to them.

Next Steps for 2019/20 ● Ensure tracking and monitoring are well-understood and usedeffectively to secure improved outcomes for all learners, includingthe most deprived children and young people and those who arelooked after.

● Staff will work with parents and carers to reduce potential barriersto engagement and are responsive to the family circumstances.

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Priority 3

School Priority 3 Improvement in children and young people’s health and wellbeingNational Improvement HGIOS 4 QI(s): 3.1Framework Priority ● Pupil voice is further developed and young people can indicate the

impact they are having. Develop further opportunities for all youngpeople to lead on an aspect of school life.

● Our school community is more knowledgeable of our anti-bullyingTargets procedures.

● Young people and staff have shared understanding of school values.● Young people have a shared understanding of how health and well-

being is being supported.● PSE programme is developed with pupil input.● Improve positive behaviour universally and with targeted group.● Develop integrated pupil support strategy with ASN and Equity teams.● Develop Place Based co-working with social work colleagues and

others.● Develop further LGBT+ and diversity for young people.● Young people have improved support by Pupil Support Team.

Progress and impact in2018/19 Our five pupil voice improvement groups use How Good is OUR School to

research, plan and implement change. All five groups meet regularly todevelop their ideas. The groups meet with the Senior Leadership Team todiscuss progress and next steps.

Most pupils said they had been given opportunities to be involved aboutmaking decisions when moving from one stage of learning to another.

Anti-bullying week was marked with a series of assemblies and discussionsand videos in tutor group. Our ‘Respect Policy’ has been consulted on withpupils, staff and parents. Values leaders have collated ‘What do we mean byrespect?’ - work that was carried out with all PSE classes and this is part of thepolicy’s design. The ‘Respect Policy’ was launched during the LGBT historyweek at the end of February and is now available on the school’s website.90% of pupils surveyed responded that the school encouraged them to treatothers with respect.

The bullying log in SEEMIS is being used and staff have been asked to tick thebullying check box when referring. This log will help in measuring the impactof the new policy next session.

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The school values of respect, responsibility and achievement have been revisited at assemblies. Our new Progress reports to parents, track our values using Gold, Silver and Bronze. At the BGE graduation and S1/S2 prize-giving events certificates were given out for achievement but also for achieving gold or silver for respect and responsibility. 85% of pupils surveyed said they were encouraged to demonstrate the school values in everything that they do.

Mental Health week was marked by assemblies, work in tutor groups and stalls set up at lunchtime from various external groups. A competition to design a logo to represent promoting positive Mental Health in Stirling High School resulted in a winning entry which will be displayed around the school.

Mental Health notice boards have been set up with photos of the trained mental health first aiders and tips on keeping good mental health.

Our Panda Posse - a pupil-led group - have been piloting the Government's ‘free sanitary products’ initiative this session. The group have ensured our approach to sanitary provision included a programme to discuss the issues to dispel any perceived stigma. We recently had a Scottish Government ministerial visit to see our good practice and our young people who made a film to promote our approach to this important health and well-being issue.

The Personal and Social Education (PSE) programme has been rewritten for next session taking into account the new national Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenting Education (RSHPE) materials and the Mentors in Violence Prevention programme in which six members of staff have been trained. Some of the new lessons have been piloted with certain classes and we have feedback from staff and pupils.

At the start of the session three key staff attended Paul Dix’s presentation on positive behaviour strategies in Glasgow. As a result, we have been working with Pivotal to create a whole-school approach to positive relationships and positive behaviour. A behaviour health check was carried out by Pivotal on 11th October. The report was shared with all staff. The PT Equity has also been trained as a Pivotal instructor.

Chris Kilkenny talked to the staff at an Inservice Day in November followed by a presentation to raise awareness with staff of pupils experiencing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and how to develop strategies to support them through nurturing approaches.

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During the February Inservice Day all staff - including support staff - were given training by Pivotal and we agreed that our focus would be to meet and greet pupils at the door each lesson and also to shake hands if staff were comfortable with this. We also agreed to use ‘scripted conversations’ i.e. I notice that .., I need you to .., Thank you. The head teacher has introduced the Above and Beyond approach whereby nominated pupils have a hot chocolate with the headteacher on a Friday.

There have been fortnightly meetings with the integrated pupil support team i.e. DHT Pupil Support, PTs Pupil Support, PTs ASN and PT Equity. Information on pupils is shared with partners through Wellbeing Assessments. Within the school information is shared through the ASN Confidential information, House Minutes from PTPS and Daily Updates from all.

The Headteaher and Depute for Pupil Support have met with the Social Work Team Leaders to discuss Place Based Co-working. This has worked well for one family, in particular, in the school where the key teacher and the social work team have been able to ‘drop-in’ to speak together when there has been a crisis and a need to plan.

The local LGBT+ rep met with our diversity group. Information was shared with our Diversity group about what support is available in the area. More LGBT+ posters were displayed around the school. The diversity group of pupils have also spoken at one of Stirling Council’s Head Teachers’ working together meetings.

The diversity group entered the Anti-Bullying week competition that Stirling Council organised and won £500 to buy a massive rainbow flag that the school community signed to pledge acceptance of all.

We used the assemblies from the 22nd-28th November to inform young people about World Aids Day through a short video. On Wednesday 28th November as many staff as possible wore red and allowed pupils to wear red accessories. The charities committee sold ribbons and we publicized the week on Twitter and in the Pupil Bulletin.

In February we marked LGBT history month with assemblies and work in PSE tutor groups. Every faculty area was given a rainbow flag to fly and we also flew the rainbow flag on the flagpole outside the school. Every year group had the opportunity to sign the massive rainbow flag. The flag is now displayed in the main hub in the school.

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The Depute for Pupil Supportand a PT Pupil Support attended an LGBTawareness session given by LGBT Youth Scotland at a safeguarding meeting.

Most pupils - 76% - of those surveyed said they knew who to speak to if theyhad concerns about their wellbeing or learning.

Next Steps for 2019/20 ● Ensure young people have a shared understanding of children’s rights.

● Ensure young people feel listened to and are secure in their ability todiscuss personal and sensitive aspects of their lives because they feelcared about.

● Personal and Social Education (PSE) programme will be developedwith pupil input.

● Young people will benefit from improved positive behaviouruniversally and with targeted group. All staff and partners will modelbehaviour which promotes and supports the wellbeing of all.

● Young people will access integrated pupil support strategy with ASNand Equity teams.

● Young people will use outdoor spaces effectively to promote positiverelationships and wellbeing.

● Young people will have access to an educational and nurturing‘space’ with wider learning opportunities available throughappropriate staff and resources.

● Young people will be supported to attend school through early andtargeted intervention.

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Priority 4

School Priority 4 Improvement in employability skills and sustained positive school leaverdestinations for all young people.

National Improvement HGIOS 4 QI(s):3.3Framework Priority ● Young people have an understanding of the Career Education

Standard (CES).● Staff to familiarise with skills template and embed ‘I can’ statements

into lessons and teaching presentationsTargets ● Evaluate pupil uptake of STEM options.

● Address gender issues in STEM uptake.● young people are able to access more vocational pathways.● Parents and carers contribute to careers advice presentations.● Increase in best and sustained positive destination.

Progress and impact in Career Education Standard (CES) - Stirling High CES poster developed and2018/19 issued to faculties. Social Subjects and Business piloted a shared document

capturing how departments are engaging with the CES. To be evaluatedbefore being rolled out across the school.

Developing curricular pathways to positive destinations - data on careeraspirations for BGE similar to 16 plus data captured and analysed. We areworking with regional DYW group to plan a Design your future event forOctober 2019. Our Pupil Voice group 5 is developing this. This group and MyWorld of Work Ambassadors are working to ensure Career PSE is relevant.

Partnership working - Principal Teachers (PTs) continue to update ourpartnership working impact document. We have engaged with parents todevelop a database of opportunities where parents can volunteer their time- class talks, work placements and assemblies. To be collated and shared withPTs.

Our Gender Balance and Equalities group met and shared research. Findingsare being collated and will be shared with the wider staff.

STEM - our first Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths (STEAM)hub pilot week successfully ran during January. One S2 class was chosen andall practical subjects (Bus Tech, Creative, Science) were involved. Our Groupevaluated the week. We then successfully bid of £3500 from Forth ValleyDYW to purchase Lego V3 Mindstorm kits and materials. In 2019/20, ourSTEAM hub will run with each S2 class during the session with a differentindustry expert working with each group. The timetable has been arranged.We have applied to Education Scotland for further funding to include ForthValley College as a partner.

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Next Steps for 2019/20 ● Young people will link relevant learning experiences and skillsdevelopment to employment opportunities during learning and

teaching.

● Young people will be engaged in meaningful discussions about theirskills development.

● Young people will benefit from staff using skills template and SHSCareer Education Standard Learner Entitlements into lessons and

teaching presentations.

● We will work with parents, employers and partners to deliver qualityopportunities and information to improve sustained positive

destinations.

● Young people will benefit from staff’s increased awareness of theopportunities in the labour market and the attributes and skills

needed to access these.

● Employability skills will be an integral part of Didbook pupil profiling.

● Our STEAM hub will encourage all S2 young people to reflect on skillsand project based learning.

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Key Quality Indicators

Schools are asked to report on progress in four key indicators from Education Scotland’s How Good Is Our School 4 (HGIOS4). The indicators are :

1.3 Leadership of Change2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment3.1 Ensuring Well-Being and Inclusion3.2 Raising Attainment and Achievement

1.3 Leadership of Change

This quality indicator focuses on collaborative leadership at all levels to develop a shared vision for change that is meaningful and relevant to the context of the school within its community. Planning for continuous improvement should be evidenced based and linked to effective self-evaluation. Senior leaders should ensure the need for change is well understood and that the pace of change is appropriate to ensure the desired positive impact for learners. (HGIOS 4)

Developing a shared vision, values and aims relevant to the school and its community:At Stirling High School we are committed to a values-led, distributed leadership model. We are determined to create a range of opportunities for all staff to lead learning and lead aspects of our improvement plans. All of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) have engaged in Columba 1400’s Head Teacher Leadership Academy in session 2017/18. This has enabled senior leaders to reflect positively on their practice and refresh coaching skills, as well as empower them as leaders of change. All principal teachers took part on a shorter, bespoke Columba 1400 leadership programme in September 2018. This has developed further our collective understanding of leadership and has impacted on young people through our everyday practice. This session the head teacher was seconded as a Teaching Fellow on the Into Headship course at Strathclyde University. This has enabled our leadership team to keep abreast of current research and deepen our understanding of leadership in action.

Our community’s vision, values and aims were revisited at the beginning of 2016 with a whole community consultation. This was led by our School Improvement Group who surveyed staff, pupils, parents/carers and then we distilled these into our vision, values and aims statements. On-going work in session 2018/19 has led to monitoring, tracking and reporting through Progress to parents on our school values of respect, responsibility and achievement. Our awards system has been updated to embrace our focus on values. In our surveys almost all young people stated that the school encourages young people to treat each other with respect and almost all staff stated they refer to the school’s values in their teaching.

In session 2018/19, we focussed on staff having a better understanding of the school’s economic and social context. Our focus on closing the poverty-related gap and our PEF work has enabled staff to understand the factors around our community’s context. In-service day presentations from Chris Kilkenny and John Carnochan enabled staff to reflect deeper on the impact of poverty on learning. This is evidenced by an increase positive response in our staff survey of understanding the school’s context.

Our Principal Teacher of Pupil Support (Equity) has measured the impact of our poverty-related strategies and involved staff and parents in understanding their positive impacts. We have used data from 2018/19 to further target support and revise our equity strategies through our Pupil Equity Fund plan.

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Strategic Planning for continuous improvementIn session 2018/19, our improvement plan 4 priorities related directly to the 4 national priorities context and looking at our own needs through our school leadership conference of senior leaders and principal teachers. At the beginning of session 2018/19 this group was expanded to include all staff leading work on our improvement groups. This model of distributed leadership aims to enable leadership opportunities across the school and to ensure sustainability of improvements. There were opportunities for promoted and unpromoted staff to lead projects such as our Raising Attainment Champion, Sustainability, Google Boot Camp and mental health staff training.

We have embarked on self evaluation through the use of quantitative and qualitative data, including Insight data, surveys from young people, parents and carers, staff and partners. We have a programme of formal classroom observations conducted by Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and Principal Teachers of Curriculum use learning walks and informal classroom visits. In session 2018/19 we continued our peer to peer classroom visits where colleagues choose a learning partner from across the school, agree a focus and visit each others classes to share good practice. Staff discuss progress at departmental and faculty meetings, led by principal teachers using How Good is Our School 4.

Each month DHTs meet with PTs and leads of working groups to monitor progress, using HGIOS4 challenge questions. DHTs meet monthly with the head teacher to discuss progress and next steps. This process allows us to track our progress towards our targets.

Our pupil voice improvement groups use How Good is OUR School to research, plan and implement change. All 5 groups meet regularly to develop their ideas. The groups meet with the Senior Leadership Team to discuss progress and next steps. Our Community Partnership (Parent Council) also contributes to setting the improvement agenda through self-evaluation activities.

Each year in May we have a Leadership Conference to focus on our progress towards our (SIP). This conference is attended by all principal teachers and staff who have been leading improvement groups. This is when we assess our progress towards our priorities using How Good is Our School 4 (HGIOS4) and formulate our priorities for the coming session.

Each session we produce a Standards and Quality Report and a School Improvement Plan that includes a Pupil Equity Fund Plan.

Implementing improvement and changeIn session 2018/19, there has been more consultation with young people, staff and parents using HMIE-style surveys. These have led to further consultation with staff in specific areas that will be addressed as part of next session’s improvements. In session 2017/18 in response to our school surveys, we focussed on developing our approaches to positive relationships and behaviour. We have engaged fully in a whole school development with Pivotal Behaviour. This has included staff trained as Pivotal trainers and all staff have taken part in training and professional reading to develop consistent approaches. This support our nurture principles and develops more effective strategies for behaviour management.

Our pupil improvement groups have met at various times throughout the session and have also focussed on our 4 national improvement priorities. The impact of these groups need to be developed further and shared more with the wider student body as most young people are unaware of the impact.

In February 2019 we took part in a national thematic visit on empowerment of the curriculum led by HMIE. This gave us the opportunity to show how we engage with learners, parents and partners to create a

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curriculum that is progressive and challenging and meets the needs of our school community. The informal feedback from this visit was very positive and this has contributed to the national report.

More work needs to take place in ensuring our young people feel they have a voice at Stirling High, as our recent survey shows they feel our pupil council is not effective. This will be addressed in session 2019/20. We also plan to develop further our work in promoting children’s rights as a result of recent surveys.

Our parents are consulted and updated throughout the year via our Community Partnership (Parent Council). Discussions have included Insight data, PEF strategies and numeracy strategies. Our wider parent forum is asked to complete evaluation forms at our information evenings and HMIE style surveys at parents’ evenings. Senior leaders contact all parents who enter ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ by phone to discuss further the issues raised. We believe this is a strength of ours in developing strong relationships with parents and carers and ensuring their voice is heard and acted upon.

In session 2018/19 we developed new curricular structures in the BGE, including integrated courses in the sciences and social subjects. We have introduced new vocational-based courses in the senior phase in childcare, construction and hospitality. We are creating more flexible, bespoke learning experiences for young people for whom the traditional curricular model is not effective. Our focus is on improving outcomes for young people. Stirling High School continues to develop through systematic, reflective, planned improvement. We are determined to celebrate our successes and create greater opportunities for all young people in our community.

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2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment

This indicator focuses on ensuring high-quality learning experiences for all children and young people. It highlights the importance of highly skilled staff who work with children, young people and others to ensure learning is motivating and meaningful. Effective use of assessment by staff and learners ensures children and young people maximise their successes and achievements.

Learning and engagement

The school was successful in bidding for funds from the Developing the Young Workforce Forth Valley Innovation fund. This allowed for the purchase of materials and Lego Mindstorm kit to be used in our Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths (STEAM) hub initiative. After a successful pilot in February 2019, the school is now working with colleagues from Forth Valley College and industry to plan a full rollout in session 2019/20. This has developed from ‘project based learning’. We have developed our approach from NuVu which is a problem-solving school in Cambridge Massachusetts. This approach to problem-solving through design thinking is designed so that all young people in S2 will grow their spirit of innovation and develop a range of skills, particularly Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical Thinking .

Digital Learning and TeachingOur focus on digital learning and teaching continued with an additional year group being issued with their own Chromebook device. All S1-S3s (550 young people) are now benefiting from having access to their own device.

Almost all young people (96%) say they benefit from having their own device and can articulate the difference it makes to their learning - 55% of those surveyed talked about showing their parent or carer what they were doing in school on their Chromebook. 72% stated that they were more confident in using digital technology for learning as a result of having their own Chromebook.

We have surveyed staff in 2017, 2018 and then again in 2019. The majority of staff responded that they felt more confident in using technology now than 12 months ago and even more confident than 36 months ago. 67% of staff indicated that their confidence in using technology had improved in the last 12 months, rising to 75% when looking only at teachers who currently teach S1/2. The majority of staff who said there was no difference in their confidence in the last 12 months already confidently used technology in the classroom (scoring 4 or 5 in 2017).

Almost all (80%) said that the Chromebooks have been a useful addition to their classroom this year (themajority of staff who responded ‘neutral’ stated that they already benefit from PC access in their classroomand believe that it is important that young people are confident using a variety of devices).

We sought the views of S1 - S3 Parents as their children had benefited directly from our Chromebook pilot.All Parents unanimously agreed that their children needed to be digital literate to thrive in today’s

workforce. They overwhelmingly believe that their child benefits from having access to their own device for learning.

Some feedback from parents includes “Stimulates discussion at home on school work scheduled, reallyhelps parents to negotiate a balance between homework and other screen time. Great insight as to whatthey are doing at school.”

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Effective use of assessment

Our ASN department supports pupils directly and supports teachers with alternative exam arrangements and differentiation. Learning and teaching tool-kits are available in every classroom to ensure equity in learning and teaching and that all learners can access the curriculum, particularly young people with additional support needs. Pupil feedback informs us young people value this provision.

Developing Skills across LearningThe aim of developing a whole school skills approach is to raise awareness of the transferable skills being developed throughout all learning. To develop a common language used in learning and teaching and to enable pupils to evaluate and track the progress they are making in developing these keyskills. The learning and teaching staff working group has worked collaboratively in order to develop a consistent approach to skills development. After encouraging discussion and feedback with all staff, and liaising with a focus group of pupils the staff working group have now successfully piloted the use of learning resources with a number of S1 classes. The initial feedback from pupils and staff involved has been very positive.

Our learning and teaching group has now developed learning resources based on 5 C’s of Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking and Curiosity. A flexible approach to developing understanding through discussion will see staff being provided with a presentation template, access to our 5 skills logos to be incorporated into existing resources, and an A3 poster resource being visible in every learningarea. This will provide a visual identification of our 5 C’s along with information on each skill which will help to provide a platform for a common language being used by all staff. This will enable us to develop a common understanding of our key skills and a consistent approach to discussion and exemplification across all curriculum areas. Working together with our ASN dyslexia experts has also enabled us to make all resources dyslexia friendly.

The introduction of Didbook next session will enable pupils to reflect, track and monitor where these skills are being developed across all areas of learning and consider how they will work to increase awareness and understanding of each skill in the future. Session 2019/20 will see a consistent approach to our 5 C’s embedded in learning and teaching for all S1 and S2 pupils.

Formative Assessment Feedback

A key focus for our Learning Community this session was focussing on embedding Formative Assessment, with a particular focus on feedback for improvement. Two members of the group have been working on tests of changes focusing on feedback, working closely with Sonia Grant. We have met with a group of S1-3 pupils in order to hear their views on what they feel is effective feedback, and how it can help to improve their learning. This information will feed into our staff Professional Enquiry Group focussing on feedback for improvement in session 2019/20.

Planning, tracking and monitoring

We use Insight The Scottish Government’s tool for analysing school’s attainment) to analyse our results andplan for improvement. Our Local Measures Report and National Measures Report are discussed with local authority representatives. Principal Teachers report on SQA and prelim results and use this information to set improvement priorities and establish targeted interventions including assertive mentoring within subject areas. This includes investigation of how targeted groups of pupils have performed. This session all of our PTs

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have worked with Lewis Paterson from Insight on using our data to plan for improvement.

Our approach towards tracking and monitoring is now much more consistent across the school. We now report on our school values; Respect, Responsibility and Achievement. Each curricular area reports on Curriculum for Excellence levels and we now use regular short reports for all year groups following the positive feedback from staff, pupils and parents on our move to short reports in the senior phase last session. All staff have taken part in moderation activities this session to support them to make consistent judgements on pupil progress.

Our aim for next session is to support staff to use the tracking information gathered to further involve pupils in their learning and to identify pupils who require extra support.

Effective use of assessment

We use a wide range of assessment approaches in both the BGE and for SQA and other courses in the Senior Phase to allow learners to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. As part of our curriculum review teachers are encouraged to consider assessment at the planning stage.

Assessment information is used to support young people through target setting and mentoring and parents are kept up to date through our short reports.

Assessment decisions are validated through moderation events in line with our moderation rationale to ensure our assessment decisions are valid and reliable - each faculty has time allocated for 5 moderation events throughout the year. We have worked with our learning community to develop consistent approaches to assessment of Literacy and Numeracy. In Literacy and Numeracy we make decisions about achievement of a level based on a body of evidence, taking teachers’ professional judgement into account, and we moderate these decisions in line with Stirling Council’s Assessment and Moderation policy. This session we have also allocated time for staff to moderate assessment decisions in all curricular areas to support the implementation of Progress for reporting.

Staff from across the school are supported to take on SQA marking roles and use this experience to support colleagues. Our recent verification has been successful.

Our ASN department supports pupils directly and supports teachers with alternative exam arrangements and differentiation. Learning and teaching tool-kits are available in every classroom to ensure equity in learning and teaching and that all learners can access the curriculum, particularly young people with additional support needs. Pupil feedback informs us young people value this provision.

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3.1 Ensuring Well-being and Inclusion

This indicator focuses on the impact of the school’s approach to wellbeing which underpins children and young people’s ability to achieve success. It highlights the need for policies and practices to be well grounded in current legislation and a shared understanding of the value of every individual. A clear focus on ensuring well being entitlements and protected characteristics supports all learners to maximise their successes and achievements.

Our pupil support is structured using a house system. There are three houses; Douglas, Randolph and Stewart. All young people are in a House with their key teacher being a Principal Teacher of Pupil Support. All young people have a form tutor who also delivers Personal and Social Education (PSE). Young people on staged intervention level 3 and above are allocated an ASN key teacher. We also have a Principal Teacher of ASN who coordinates ASN staff and resources. In session 2017/18 we introduced a Pupil Equity Team using Pupil Equity Funding (PEF). This has enabled us to target support to young people in deciles 1-3 or with Free School Meals Entitlement (FME). We appointed an inclusion support worker and a family link worker. They supported a range of young people with targeted interventions into 2018/2019. Next session we will have two inclusion support workers as the parent and family support team at the centre have had a positive impact on a few young people and we wish to focus on improving positive behaviours and giving alternative experiences that meet pupils’ needs to more young people. This session the inclusion support worker has run a ‘nurture group’ for targeted S1 pupils.

We have a support base with a newly appointed full-time member of staff staring in August 2019 as the current support base coordinator has been promoted to PT ASN. Young people can be referred to the support base by the wider leadership team. Referrals can be for poor attendance, anxiety, low self-esteem and behaviour issues. Most sessions in the base are time-limited but a few pupils rely on the support from staff to access the curriculum. The support base has recently moved to a larger space called ‘The Space’ which has an inner space for restorative conversations and a ‘comfy’ room next door for when pupils are in a highly sensitised state. A member of staff will stay with them in the room until they are better able to regulate themselves. We also have an additional small sensory room which a few ASD pupils use when they need time and space to de-escalate.

Diversity, Respect, Behaviour

Our breakfast club is a Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) supported initiative which is well attended - it is supported by a classroom assistant and provides young people with a positive start to the day as well as developing their health and nutrition. In addition there is a nurture club that runs every break and lunchtime for targeted pupils. At least two staff are at the club to provide support and there is a strong ethos of relationship building and nurture.

We have set up a dyslexia pupils group and shared good practice at a staff meeting. Staff have created a dyslexia friendly library called the ‘Littleton Library’ in the support base which includes dyslexia resources with clear print / laid out. Resources for parents will be made available at parent events.

Our PSE co-ordinator works with a range of partners to input to the programme including the Fire Service,

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Open Secret and the Community Police Officer. The programme has been completely rewritten for session 2019/20, taking into account the new national RSHPE resources and the Mentors in Violence Prevention initiative. We have piloted an access to sanitary products initiative as part of the council wide agenda. We have formed a pupil leadership group to lead this initiative. The pilot has been celebrated as a success to be shared widely and a film has been made which was launched recently in the school by a ministerial visit.

We have a vibrant Eco group whose work has led to the achievement of six green flags from Keep Scotland Beautiful. Our Eco club meet every lunchtime and plan activities around the green agenda. The club also raises money for a variety of charities. The club works with the members of the local community including Friends of the King’s Park and litter picks take place every Monday.

Our PT Equity has implemented a range of interventions to target and support those families in SIMD 1 to 3 and/or on free school meals. Examples from this session include the Reading Wise Comprehension Programme and targeted support for numeracy from S1 to S4 using Manga High and Sumdog. Pupils’ health and wellbeing has been supported through Breakfast Club, Wellbeing Group, Counsellor Support, Music Tuition and support with the Cost of the School Day. Through our Wider Achievement Programme pupils have increased their attendance and participation whilst gaining accreditation from a number of opportunities, namely; SQA Cycle Maintenance, National Lifeskills Award, Heart Start, NICAS Climbing Award and the John Muir Award. More detail is contained in section 3.2, below, titled ‘Closing the Poverty RelatedAttainment Gap’.

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3.2 Raising Attainment and Achievement

This indicator focuses on the school’s success in achieving the best possible outcomes for all learners. Success is measured in attainment across all areas of the curriculum and through the school’s ability to demonstrate learners’ achievements in relation to skills and attributes. Continuous improvement or sustained high standards over time is a key feature of this indicator. (HGIOS 4)

Attainment in Literacy and Numeracy

Outcomes in literacy and numeracy remain strong for almost all pupils - in addition, almost all of our pupils leave having achieved a minimum of level 4 in both literacy and numeracy.

Our Insight data shows that literacy at level 4 and 5 in S4, S5 and S6 is ahead of our comparators. Level 5 literacy has improved compared to the previous year in S4, S5 and S6. Overall, our leavers performance in literacy has improved compared to last session - almost all of our leavers have achieved level 4 literacy and most have achieved level 5. The results of our target group of S5 leavers are greatly improved; 74 % of our S5 leavers attained level 5 literacy compared to 47% the previous year. In addition, we have changed our presentation policy in English to ensure that as many pupils as possible experience National 5 in S4.

Pupils’ performance in numeracy at level 4 and level 5 in S4, S5 and S6 is either in line with, or ahead of, our comparators. The performance of our leavers was stronger than previous years at both level 4 and level 5. In particular, our S5 leavers (our priority area for improvement) were the highest performing group of the past 3 years at both level 4 and level 5.

We continue to intervene early based on tracking and equity information in both Maths and English to ensure that all pupils can reach their potential. Our literacy and numeracy individual and small group interventions in S1-S3 are supported by pupil equity funding and by our ASN department.

Attainment over time

Across most curriculum areas we have raised attainment continuously over time or maintained consistently high standards of attainment for all learners - our PTs report on the attainment of pupils in their departments and set priorities based on SQA, prelim and SNSA data. We are aware of curricular areas which require improvement and are working to address these. Most learners make very good progress from their prior levels of attainment.

This session all of our PTs have worked with Lewis Paterson from Insight on how best to use our attainment data to identify areas for improvement and support targeted interventions. We have also started tracking and reporting on Curriculum for Excellence levels in the Broad General Education. Moving forward we plan to develop our use of this information to raise the standard of pupils’ attainment. Staff have had time allocated to moderate their BGE assessment judgements across all curricular areas. Our Learning Community approach towards moderation of achievement of a level in literacy and numeracy has been praised by the local authority.

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Overall quality of learners’ achievement

Overall, our learners are successful, confident, exercise responsibility and contribute to the life of the school, the wider community and as global citizens. Next session we plan to support our pupils to record and evaluate their skills and achievements by using Didbook for profiling. Senior pupils are now encouraged and supported to take more responsibility through leadership and volunteering opportunities in their wider achievement time. We continue to improve and personalise the pathways available to our learners and we are working closely with Forth Valley College to support pupils in priority areas based on labour market information.

This session our course comparators were generally positive, particularly S4 National 5, S5 and S6 National 5 and S6 Advanced Higher. Attainment of our lowest attaining 20%, middle 60% and highest 20% are all ahead of our comparator in S4 and S5. In S6 the top 20% is ahead of the comparator but we are slightly behind with the middle 60% and lowest 20%. We hope that our strong S4 performance, our continued targeted intervention, and our reviewed senior curriculum will support positive improvement in this area.

Almost all of our breadth and depth measures (eg: number of pupils achieving 5 awards at level 5) in both S4 and S5 were ahead of our comparators. S5 was a marked improvement on the previous year. We are aware that the number of pupils attaining 5 Highers in S5 is an area for improvement and have done targeted work this year to try and improve this.

Closing the Poverty Related Attainment Gap

In literacy, the Reading Wise programme has continued to support targeted young people with their reading and decoding skills. Staff in ASN have been trained in running the programme and 20 young people have completed the decoding module. Almost all of the young people involved in the programme have had a significant increase in their reading age as is evidenced in pre and post intervention data. The Reading Wise Comprehension programme has also been instrumental this session in supporting young peoples’ inference and deduction skills. The final analysis and feedback from the programme will be available at the end of June but observation of pupil confidence and engagement, alongside teacher judgement and formative assessment of learning activities, indicates that all pupils have increased their skills and ability to analyse, understand and evaluate key text. Literacy tutorial feedback, from pupils and key staff shows an increase in pupil confidence in Tools for Writing. Observation of learning activities shows almost all of the targeted pupils are able to use knowledge of technical aspects of writing in key pieces of written work.

In numeracy, we have provided a high level of targeted intervention in S1 to support a positive transition from primary school; all of our S1 pupils who have been extracted for targeted support have successfully returned to class having completed an intensive programme of numeracy support. We have focussed on concrete and pictorial numeracy techniques to support pupils’ number sense and used MangaHigh and Sumdog to promote engagement in numeracy. Our interventions in S3 and S4 have led to improvements in the percentage of learners achieving level 3 by the end of S3 (improving year on year and now at the highest level we have reported) and maintenance of our high performance in SQA numeracy assessments.

In health and Wellbeing, interventions have been in place this session to support targeted young people with their attendance, participation, and engagement. Our range of supports have reduced barriers to

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supported wellbeing and encouraged attendance. These include; Breakfast Club, Wellbeing Group, Counsellor Support, Music Tuition and support with the Cost of the School Day. Through our Wider Achievement Programme pupils have increased their attendance and participation whilst gaining accreditation from a number of opportunities, namely; SQA Cycle Maintenance, National Lifeskills Award, Heart Start, NICAS Climbing Award and the John Muir Award.

Support for young people and their families has been provided by our Inclusion Support Worker and our Family Link Worker. Young people and their families have benefited from personalised support through our work in partnership with a range of other agencies and through innovative approaches to supporting attendance.

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