“Blown away”

A reminder that my Blog is not a diary; it merely reflects my thoughts about what I have been doing and thinking in a particular week. Sometimes it has more about Oban, about Tiree; about my work with the Council, BOCSH, SCEL, SLS etc; and sometimes about my views on Scottish Educational issues. Advanced warning: my witterings this week are varied and a tad longer.

Last week’s blog included a great evaluative summary from the Good School’s Guide, from their evaluation of our school the previous week:

“If you have a vision of secondary education as a linear, largely shared academic experience with national exams strategically placed along the way, think again. Oban High school probably more than any other secondary school we have visited has fully embraced the idea of the Curriculum of Excellence and shaping an education to each individual child.”

“We struggle to describe this as a school: more a complete educational experience. Inspiring leadership has meant they tackle a huge and complex catchment area with commitment and dedication.”

It is worth repeating if only to complement the observations made by the HMI following their Thematic Inspection of OHS last Monday. You may recall that as part of the Scottish Government’s drive towards school improvement and the empowerment of Head Teachers and their school communities, I noted that the HMI were carrying out a number of Thematic inspections across the country. Oban High School was chosen to be evaluated on “Leadership of the Curriculum”.

Leadership is an interesting concept because everyone thinks of leadership in different ways. What is leadership? Is it an individual leading others along a route chosen by the leader? Is it a single person deciding who else is allowed to lead and encouraging leadership amongst others? Is it a committee or team of people leading the rest of the organisation?

How we viewed leadership was the first challenge posed by the HMI. My answer: Leadership is about everyone recognising that they have a leadership role to play. It should be assumed as a natural responsibility and not one foisted upon or gifted by someone higher. I believe that pupils, teachers, support staff, parents and community partners all have a leadership role to play if we are to ensure we continually improve the breadth and depth of care and education we provide to our community. If everyone shares our vision and takes ownership of what they can achieve, either as an individual and/or as part of a team then the school will naturally move forward with pace and consistency. It will thrive because of the collective will and collective talents of all and not just rely on one person (the Head Teacher), or a few (the Senior Leadership Team).

I was pleased by the HMI’s assessment of our leadership of learning being “accurately outlined and well defined”. Particularly pleasing was the recognition that there was “evidence of pupil leadership and how they were leading their own learning”. As with all positive observations there is always a caveat… on this occasion, the observation that there was variable leadership ability across teachers. Entirely natural and to be addressed.

Some people, Head Teachers included, love praise and hate criticism, even if it is positive criticism. It is my contention that one is unlikely to receive much praise if they cannot welcome observations on the aspects of life that are less than perfect. The reason I am content for other organisations like the HMIe, Good School’s Guide; Investors in People etc. to come into our school and have free reign to watch our lessons; evaluate our exam results; or interview our pupils, staff, parents and partners (as has been the case twice this month) is that a fresh eye on what we are doing is crucial to being able to improve. Sometimes someone will give advice that is out of context and so of less value but on most occasions we use the independent comments and suggestions for improvement to continue our journey of improvement.

And, building on prior advice is perhaps why the HMI continued with more praise for our Learning, Teaching and Assessment Policy; the quality of our support staff; the wealth of partnerships we have established; the very positive relationships we have with parents; the success of our assessment and moderation activities; the level of empowerment felt by Principal Teachers and how they use this leadership; and the strong levels of reflection shown by teachers.

The HMI thought our youngsters were great and that they had no difficulty in describing our curricular success, they spoke highly of our Pathways Programme, which provides vocational opportunities and experiences to seniors to supplement their academic qualifications; and particularly pleasing was our youngsters’ insistence that Oban High School equally values both the academic and vocational. The large number of Baccalaureates we provide are highly valued to some going to university; but not any less valuable than the Customer Services awards that will get some a job straight from school.

This example, amongst others, helps explain a final parting observation by the HMI when it was noted that there are “not many schools that can achieve this level of inclusion”.

Awaiting, then experiencing, any HMIe visit creates a certain tension across a school community and so at the end of the visit I met with pupils, then staff, then sent messages to parents and partners saying thank you and well done. They all knew the school, both vision and practice, and they outlined where we were and how we could improve. All took responsibility for leading the school… and exemplified my definition admirably. Pheww!

A special mention has to go to my Senior Depute Head in Oban, Kevin Champion. Kevin was responsible for putting together all the preparatory reports and evidence and for setting up all the interviews with pupils, staff, parents and partners. Given the importance of the visit and the need for an attention to detail, I am very pleased (and relieved) his work was excellent. A fantastic effort. Thanks Kevin.

Of course I mentioned that with praise should naturally come critique. So, what’s next to add to our School and Department Development Plans?

Well first up is that I’ll need to re-write the curriculum rationale. When I first heard this statement my heart sank as I thought the criticism was of our curriculum itself; and given I’ve been running about Scotland and Norway promoting it, this could have been very embarrassing. Thankfully the Curriculum was great, it’s just we under-sell ourselves by not describing it very well.

More seriously we have work to do in developing a deeper understanding of the Broad General Education amongst staff (and I would argue with many parents). The BGE contains a breadth of education that pupils are entitled to experience, covering eight curricular areas. A key purpose is to ensure that between S1 and S3 pupils get a baseline education covering knowledge and experiences they will need to make their way in life after school. It was designed that way to help overcome the problem of schools narrowing the curriculum so that pupils were only taught a limited number of subjects so they could pass their exams in that narrow range of subjects.

The BGE has a heavy lean towards ensuring we teach literacy, numeracy and health and well-being for all and indeed these three areas are the responsibility of all teachers to ensure these basic skills are taught, reinforced and consolidated across all subjects. Additionally, we continue to develop inter-disciplinary courses; ensure we share with pupils the learning outcomes and success criteria and skills to be learned in lessons – all to ensure that pupils see the relevance of doing subjects and topics within subjects and how they fit with the real world.

The media has wrongly lambasted a Curriculum for Excellence (especially the BGE) for many years. Lazy reporting had mistaken the professions frustrations around the new qualifications as being one and the same. They are not. I know many who are still fed up with the qualifications changing year after year. I am not aware of many, though they do exist, who can argue against a Curriculum that delivers a wealth of knowledge and skills to youngsters varied enough to expand their knowledge of the themselves, the workplace, the world they live in.

If you believe the purpose of school is to prepare young people for life and work, then the BGE is great (though can still be improved); and if you believe school is merely to provide youngsters with 8 O Grades, then you may be one of those arguing with the Government for a revision of the curriculum again. Head Teachers across the land uttered many expletives when this came out. Everyone is entitled to their view though.

The consultation document can be found here:

https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/110962.aspx

Last week I wrote about those who harken back to their own schools days, usually around the 80s. Back then we had the ability to tackle up to 8 O Grades across S3 and S4; 5 subjects (Highers or O Grades) in S5 and another 5 in S6 (though most only did 3 and had lots of “free periods”. Sorry, most pupils had left school by S6 with few courses at an appropriate level of breadth of interest available to them.

Two main problems: firstly, only about 30% could manage to do 8, either because of ability but also because they simply had no interest in studying for 8 subjects, most of which they didn’t like or were forced into. Standard Grade replaced the O Grades and allowed for three levels of certification across the 8 subjects (Foundation, General and Credit – the latter being equivalent to the O Grade) but still kids hated doing 8 and would try and sabotage their way out of classes constantly: wasting the time of teachers and causing a major headache for Guidance and Deputes – what to do with 70% of pupils who could not or would not stay in all 8 subjects?

Another key complaint was that there was too big of an academic jump between O Grades / Credits and the Higher. When the new National Qualifications were designed, the National 5 qualifications were deliberately designed to be harder and to close the gap between the Higher. They were also to be delivered in one year (S4). Clearly pupils having harder courses to sit in less time required a solution. The solution for the majority of schools was to reduce the subjects on offer from 8 to 6, thereby allowing more time and more chance of passing all 6. This also had the added benefit of not forcing pupils into many more subjects they didn’t want to do.

For those who complained that pupils would not get as many qualifications as previous generations four points were made and repeated often:

1. Most pupils never sat 8 in the first place;

2. Pupils can still get as many qualifications as before, they just need to spread them evenly over S4-S6;

3. A cautionary note about the stress caused by trying to do 8 harder subjects in less time would have on the health of youngsters;

4. Those traditionally sitting 8 are almost certain to go onto do 5 Highers to get into university, and no university asks for more than 5 Highers, so what’s the point of having to do 8 Nationals?

At Oban High School (following consultation with pupils, parents and staff), we moved to 6 subjects like most others. Our pass rates at the O Grade/Credit/National 5 remain on par, sometimes better, sometimes less so, with the averages attained before the change (though it should be remembered it is not a level playing field because the Nat 5s were designed to close the gap and are more difficult many subjects argue).

With regard to Higher results: they have improved significantly between both periods. This could be because we have employed better teachers; have better ways of teaching now; have better resources etc. Or, it could be that the new Nationals really do prepare youngsters better for the Highers and the system of spreading them evenly over three years rather than front loading in S4 works very well.

In terms of overall success rates: by the time pupils leave school, a pupil in Oban High is twice as likely to get 8 or more Highers and 10 times more likely to get 10 or more Highers compared with our Virtual Comparator.

One further adaptation we have put in place this year allows pupils to attain up to 9 subjects in S4 and we have done so without reducing the time allocated to the basic 6. How? Pupils will now be able to collect a National 4 or 5 in PE and RMPS. These are compulsory subjects that all pupils in Scotland have to do. Our staff have re-worked the courses to allow our youngsters to achieve qualifications as well as experiences. We have also built in Scottish Studies units across many subjects and will add a short term course in June to ensure the full award can be gained.

Why? Why not? If we can, we will.

Oban High School is not alone in making these changes and there are more than a few who are leading the way with ensuring that our youngsters get the best possible qualifications – Tiree High School will be included in these improvements.

The Inspection had kept me away Tiree for some time, though I was still able to lead developments from afar courtesy of VC; and having a number of excellent staff on the island. Oban staff have been working with our island colleagues on course development, assessment and moderation as well as professional learning through shared practice. We had OHS staff teaching Tiree classes and Tiree staff teaching Oban kids; whilst others focused on strategic developments. The impact on staff from both schools is noticeable.

Wednesday saw me attend the Joint Services Committee in the morning and Chairing the Education Budget Steering Group in the afternoon but the best part of the day was without question attending the annual Dance Show in the evening. I say every year that it gets better and better… this year was a cracker, even the teachers demonstrated a lot of talent (a lot of the recent appointments have all been experienced dancers). Our partnership with the internationally renowned Ballet West; the continuing growth and diversity of our excellent Sports Coaching programme and the dedication of both staff and pupils, led by the brilliant Denise Gemmell ensured a night to remember. Thanks too to our Primary pupils who came along and entertained the audiences with spectacular routines.

Thanks to Kevin McGlynn for this picture.

I was back on Tiree on Thursday and Friday (in fact I am here until Monday). In that time I have renewed and changed staff contracts, almost concluded the recruitment process for a new Janitor; worked on plans to improve our school property; began changes to next year’s curriculum to allow more courses to be offered to pupils; teased out some of the views given in the recent pupil focus groups with some pupils; liaised with external partners to come in to provide more courses; and worked with Oban staff over the joint In-service provision next week.

Saturday evening has obviously seen me write this Blog. Tomorrow I’m composing a letter to parents with an update on where we are with the school review and asking for their views on a possible new curriculum; maybe even a change to the school badge, name and uniform – all suggested by pupils.

However such decisions are reserved for the leadership of all, not for one. I look forward to seeing how it all comes together.

I don’t want to kid you all on and suggest I spent the whole weekend working. Saturday morning saw me tour the island with Archie and Maisie. We had a great time walking along Balevullin Beach (it was a bit windy), then Sandaig Beach (even windier), then on the recommendation of the only other locals brave enough to be out in the gale (Chrystal and Daisy) we were off to the Hynish Centre and Skerryvore Lighthouse Museum (exceptionally interesting for an historian like myself).

I thoroughly recommend Tiree, no matter the weather. Its stunning scenery and friendly locals will ensure you have great time.

The HMI opened the week with a statement about being “blown away” with Oban High School’s curriculum and inclusion” and I’ve closed with being blown away with Tiree’s scenery and hospitality. A well rounded ending to this week’s blog I feel.

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How do you like your tea? Strong.

A short blog.

“No blog last week. Shocking! What on earth were you up to Bain?”

With the HMIe about to descend on Oban High tomorrow as part of a national thematic inspection on how head teachers and their schools have been empowered to develop the curriculum, my attentions have been largely focused on ensuring that we re-evaluate our curriculum and prepare the reports necessary before their arrival; as well as meeting with all the staff, parents, pupils and local organisations and businesses that will be interviewed to determine our successes and further development needs. It’s all rather time consuming but I have to say a very valuable exercise as it does force us to take stock of our vision, values, aims and ensure we measure the impact on the pupils of all that we have been striving for.

This external evaluation comes close on the heels of another. “The Good School’s Guide” is a totally independent review publication which sends their staff the length and breadth of the UK reporting on schools’ care and education as a way of informing parents who are thinking about where they would like to send their children. As you are well aware parents living in a rural area like Argyll tend to send their children to the local school; but not always. We have lots of pupils who choose to come to Oban instead of other school catchment areas or even from abroad because of the breadth of qualifications we offer. I’m not permitted to share the full review with you (you’ll need to buy the next GSG update if you wish) but I can offer you a teaser or two:

“If you have a vision of secondary education as a linear, largely shared academic experience with national exams strategically placed along the way, think again. Oban High school probably more than any other secondary school we have visited has fully embraced the idea of the Curriculum of Excellence and shaping an education to each individual child.”

“We struggle to describe this as a school: more a complete educational experience. Inspiring leadership has meant they tackle a huge and complex catchment area with commitment and dedication.”

“Peter Bain may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he is a man with a strong vision and a passion for education.”

I have to say I don’t mind not being everyone’s cup. If any leader in any business was well liked by all, then something would be far wrong. Improvement, innovation and aspiration requires change and not all people like change; yet change is necessary. The world around us is changing, many of the jobs we will be doing in a generation will look quite different from that which we do just now. Consequently, the qualifications and experiences which we provide in school, with the support of our partners like Argyll College, Ballet West, Open University or Glasgow University (Reach), need to change too. Many staff, parents and pupils recognise this and appreciate the changes we are making to ensure we prepare our youngsters for work; others cannot see beyond their own education and advice given to them from 20 or 30 years ago.

It is for this reason that I am pleased to note that we have yet again secured the continuing support of Skills Development Scotland (SDS). I met with Area Managers Margaret Bennett (Oban) and Pamela Little (Tiree) this week to ensure that careers advisors will be present in careers discussions between our pupils and our parents; thus ensuring parents are given the most up-to-date guidance from the experts. It is quite an undertaking by SDS to send extra careers advisors to our schools during course options and I am extremely grateful to them. Of course parents should be aware that families may also use the excellent World of Work website developed by SDS.

Top tips for parents:

1. If your child knows what career they wish to embark on. Look on-line for initial advice on qualifications and experiences required; then speak to their Guidance teacher who will give them advice and will then arrange an appointment with a careers advisor if necessary.

2. If your child does not know what they want to do when they leave school. Aim to get the highest possible qualifications they can (including English). Leaving with any 5 Highers/National 5s etc (always including English) will allow entry to an endless number of university/college courses or for securing the basic qualifications to get an interview for a job.

3. Allow pupils to choose their own subjects; subjects they enjoy. If they enjoy the subjects they are doing, then they will more likely pass them; and at a higher grade. Do not tell them they must choose one from Science, one from Socials, one like Admin, Business etc. This was the advice I received in the 80s. If pupils follow this and are forced to take subjects they do not enjoy, they may miss out on the grades they need.

4. A very few subjects like medicine and dentistry have very specific demands. Make sure you know what these are. Don’t guess/ don’t assume the 80s model.

5. Finally, employers and universities are increasingly looking for pupils to have acquired experiences that will allow them to do well in their new job or survive living away from home. Once a pupil has gained the necessary qualifications they need for a job interview / university entrance, balance S6 with a wider range of experiences (most of which have qualifications linked to them them). Interviewers seem more interested in asking questions about things like a Leadership or Customer services experiences than how many extra Highers or Advanced Highers a candidate has. This is advice from Business leaders not just Head Teachers.

 I should also pay tribute to SDS for supporting us in developing Foundation Apprenticeships for pupils in both Oban and Tiree. It is very early days as we tease out the structure, staffing and finance of these between the schools, SDS and Argyll College but Aisling Clark (PT Developing the Young Workforce) has already received support from the local business community to secure placements for our Oban kids. I briefly mentioned this during the Parent Council meeting in Tiree in an effort to get the ball rolling there too, so we will be looking at placements for all youngsters.

Whether we are offering academic National 1 Courses or full Baccalaureates; Foundation apprenticeships or Customer Service units for those who wish to balance the academic and the vocational experiences, our promise is to ensure we provide any qualification or experience one needs (not wants) for any pupil to get any job or any university place in Scotland.

One parent told the Good Schools Guide we are not as good as we think we are because we try to offer too much to our pupils. Some parents scoffed at us offering vocational subjects like Bakery instead of more Advanced Highers. My response to this is simple. If a pupil needs an Advanced Higher to get into a Scottish University, we will run it. If a pupil wishes a career where a Bakery qualification will help them get a job; we will run it.

Our Vision is for all pupils to succeed. Those pupils doing the many Advanced Highers / Baccalaureates we offer and those who wish to work on the land; in factories; in shops, offices, hotels, bars and hairdressers. We can and we will support every child’s dreams… along with our partners and friends in the community.

 Hold on a minute whilst I climb down off my soapbox…

So back in Tiree last Monday and it was some of these tips I was sharing. Tips already frequently given to OHS parents. I was very pleased to note a well-attended Parent Council meeting: a meeting that was full of parents interested in the developments underway and of those volunteering their services (and resources) to the school. I have been lucky to have the support of the OHS Parent Council and it seems to be that the THS parents are equally dedicated to the task of supporting our school.

I have had the privilege of working alongside many parents over the years who have embraced this endeavour and have sought to support the changes necessary to ensure that every child has access to the same opportunities as others. The support of parents in securing funding for our Hardship Fund, our Breakfast and Homework Clubs and for other initiatives linked to the Scottish Government’s (and our) desire to close the poverty related attainment gap are very noticeable. My thanks to all the parents who give up their time to help in our schools either with fund-raising or supporting good causes; in promoting initiatives linked to the health and well-being of our kids; or in helping us to support parents, help their children with their studies and experiences.

I was grateful for the delivery of paint for the THS out-buildings and for the offer of help to paint the walls. Other property issues I worked on this week included the installation of a new roof to much of the school. I am also in the process of building a new fitness room and have already purchased the equipment; new offices have been built for the new PT and secretarial roles; the heating is in the process of being sorted; and new computers/IT equipment has been ordered to bring the IT up to the same spec as Oban. My thanks to George Campbell, Billy Ingram, Maria McPhee and Kevin Brown.

Of course one of the biggest IT changes taking place across both Oban and Tiree is the establishment of Skype to ensure better communication between the partnered staff and to enable the ability to share learning experiences thus expanding the level of choice in both schools. I am thankful to the Council for investing heavily in the installation and purchase of equipment to make this happen.

Property meetings in Oban led me to check over the new carpark, bus turning and outside social spaces in the grounds of the new OHS. Nearly there. Inside we are now at the stage where we are making minor repairs caused by the wear and tear of over a thousand people making their way around and in and out of our school. We are also about to add some CCTV to the Atrium and more importantly our newly agreed Values (based on our Vision statement) are to be placed on the Atrium walls.

Following a consultation exercise with OHS pupils, parents, staff and partners the values of Ambition, Compassion, Respect and Resilience were identified as those our community most thought worthy of recognising and promoting.

Jemma Playfair (DHT) carried out exactly the same exercise with pupils in Tiree last week and is about to launch the staff and parent consultation this week. I am aware the THS community share these same values, amongst others, though I am interested to note whether they will feature as the top four as well. It matters not if they match or not. What is important is that each school promotes its own set of values.

I have mentioned a fair few partners above and my week continued with more meetings about ensuring continuing support from another two great organisations of a similar nature. The Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme has been provided both within and in addition to the traditional OHS curriculum for many years now. Since we took the initiative to take place the award at the centre of our enhancement activities and secured the support of many staff, dozens of pupils each year benefit from the experiences and lessons learned as they make their way through the Bronze, Silver and Gold tasks. My discussions this week were around utilizing the partnership with Tiree so that both sets of students can take part in the activities away from their immediate local communities but still have the support of the others environment and resources. There’s no point in dragging tents across a ferry when the same equipment is at either end for example. My thanks to Lucy Girling for driving forward all the initial developments in Oban; and to Aimee McIntosh for taking over now.

Freda Fallon’s leadership of developments with Outward Bound is another success story. We have now progressed from delivering leadership courses each year to S6 pupils to allowing our S3 pupils to experience what it is like to use the outdoors as a leadership opportunity… one that because of the nature of the setting encourages ambition to succeed in a unfamiliar setting, compassion for the feelings of team-mates, all of whom will be stressed to some degree by the experience; respect for the skills each team member brings to the endeavour and resilience throughout the challenges set.

Another example of how we plan to link our lessons, in and out of the classroom, with what we need to build on to better prepare our youngsters for life and work after school.

Partnerships is a theme I shall explore again next time as just this week Wenche R. Kavli, Head Teacher of Skedsmo videregående skole and Knut Kirknes from Mailand Videregående Skole, Norway, both contacted me to take forward international opportunities we are working on alongside the Scottish College of Educational Leadership.

I would love to keep typing away with more info and thoughts but the HMI will be here soon, so I better get myself and my team in order to show off what a wonderful school community we work in. The HMI will interview me, the senior leadership team, groups of teachers, support staff, then pupils, parents and local partners… it’s going to be a busy day.

I’ll tell you all about it next week. Meantime, for those interested in many of the daily goings on over the last couple of weeks, go onto Facebook. I instructed all the staff in both schools to increase the number of posts published to keep giving parents and the wider community an idea of life in our schools; as well as for key messages, travel updates and sharing our numerous success stories.

Please feel free to share any FB post.

If you are a parent reading this and have any questions about anything, contact your child”s Guidance teacher in the first instance.

Anyone else reading my personal blog who wants to get in touch about sharing good practice; wants info on any of the professional learning I am involved in; or are offering support for my Oban or Tiree kids, PM me please.

It’s good to share!!

Keeping calm

Another early Monday morning start saw me join some Oban colleagues at Oban International ready to head off to Tiree to take forward some collaborative approaches to PE and RMPS. Murray Hamilton, typically for a PE Teacher turned up in shorts whilst the rest of us shivered away in our overcoats.

Also in attendance was Hannah Pynne who was going over to work with Peter McFarlane on developing an RMPS course and Jemma Playfair, DHT, who was focused on carrying out a pupil voice evaluation of what pupils thought of their environment, learning, curricular opportunities, school uniform and relationships with others.

I spent most of the day on the phone to Oban staff or face to face with Tiree staff negotiating a temporary curriculum for January to May. This temporary curriculum will ensure that almost all our pupils are fully engaged in learning and teaching and will allow some additional qualifications to be gathered by the end of the session. The on-going harmonisation of the Curriculum in each school will gather pace as time goes on and we can get every PT and/or subject specialist in each school to work together in a collegiate and planned manner. This will take a few weeks. Rome wasn’t built in a day as they say.

I did get the chance to nip round and see a few classes however. I met one Primary class coming back from their Pupil Voice session with Jemma, high as kites demanding a new uniform… whilst all wearing uniform. That was the last of about a dozen questions Jemma asked them. I must remember to put the learning and teaching question last next time I think, so that’s the one fresh in their minds.

I also got the chance to nip along to the Primary Gaelic classes to learn my daily phrase… “Je ha hoo a geecan?” or What are you eating? Native Gaelic speakers must be cringing at my phonetics in an effort to learn a few phrases. Tha mi duilich.

Spending time with Murray is often enlightening, fun…. and expensive. Enlightening as I learned a little more about his views on how best to ensure that every single pupil in school can achieve a PE Nat 4 at the very least; fun seeing him and Lydia crawl about the staff room floor with the biggest curriculum map I’ve ever seen.. and expensive as he just convinced me to build a fitness gym with running machines, weights etc. in Tiree. Whilst we don’t have the ability to match the state of the art one in OHS, we will at least develop a new resource previously unavailable.

I shall also add one further adjective to describe Murray, and his staff. Infectious. The enthusiasm and commitment they have for providing the best education possible, to develop excellent relationships with their pupils and to ensure their youngsters get access to the widest range of courses and experiences they can possibly offer rubs off on so many others, that they too wish to go the extra mile for our kids. And, that’s both in the High School and in the Primaries we teach in. I look forward to seeing these developments pan out in the coming weeks. We are sending two PE staff, Greg and Jenny over to plan a PE curriculum with Lydia the week after next, similar to the curriculum we deliver in St’ Columba’s, Park, Rockfield, Lochnell and Dunbeg… through into OHS.

One of the best developments I have encouraged, in partnership with some of my Primary Head colleagues is that of our PE staff going out to many of our partner primaries and taking a lead for the PE curriculum, as well as teaching our future pupils through the Primary years.

The benefits for the pupils is that they get a subject specialist teaching them knowledge and skills at an early stage, which is built on by specialist staff, year after year until they reach the high school having followed a progressive programme that allows them to seamlessly transition into the next stage of their learning in a new school but with familiar routines and teachers. The benefit for the Primary staff is that it allows them non-contact time where they can choose to develop other specialist areas we cannot provide. The benefit for the secondary PE staff is that it allows them to teach at a more advanced level in S1 than would otherwise be the case had they not had the opportunity to develop the seamless course and build the skills and expectation levels. It is perhaps for this reason that we are now in the rare position for a secondary school that we can almost guarantee every pupil an extra National qualification in PE by the end of S4. An aim now planned for in Tiree.

Tuesday’s main event was having to announce to our Oban staff at the evening staff meeting that once again the HMIe Inspectors will be in our school. Along with dozens of other schools we are contributing to the gathering of evidence on how well the curriculum is doing across Scotland. Although one is never entirely happy about being inspected… no one likes a test, it is an opportunity to have someone from outside our organisation have a look at what we are doing and give some tips for improvement. That can only be a good thing.

I read an interesting article recently in the Times Educational Supplement for Scotland (TESS). This is a magazine publication full of educational articles and jobs across the country / world. Every teacher should read the TESS for the articles, most use it for the jobs. The article in question was around why we demonise the Inspectorate; create a picture, indeed an expectation, of them as incompetent monsters out to get us. Why have schools painted such pictures for generations? A friend of mine, who held a senior role in the HMIe once described a fellow colleague “As somewhat right of Ghengis Khan”.Whilst this may have been true, as there are inevitably one or two such fiends out there in every walk of life, I have been fortunate to have been inspected in three schools and found most HMIe are there to help us. Graham Norris was an HMI that I had great deal of respect for as he both praised and advised on improvement in a manner that ensured staff felt valued. Most do likewise.

The key to success is, as the article noted, to play the game; to prepare fully; to be positive; and to show off our best work. Too often teachers and schools believe they should not have to put on a show. They do. The HMI only see a snapshot of what we do in a day. That snapshot needs to show us in our Sunday best and this was the message to my staff.

Wednesday saw me back in Tiree, this time accompanied by David Kearns, one of our Science teachers who was going out for a couple of days to work on developing a new Science curriculum and to offer support as part of our new partnership programme, ensuring that we can learn from each other across the schools. He also paired up with David Burt, one of our Technicians who is again working on IT developments with a Neil Connor.

This partnership work was further advanced on Thursday and Friday when Kevin Champion, Senior DHT, and Aisling Clark, PT for Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) exchanged places with me and Aine Cooney. Kevin worked on building relationships with staff and held pupil assemblies outlining developments and he introduced a new series of lessons using inter-disciplinary learning to S1-3. These lessons are designed to replace an existing course and which could lead to additional early level qualifications. Aisling on the other hand was there to partner with Jayne Smith, who is the PT DYW, and together they will introduce three new courses immediately, all of which could lead to extra qualifications for senior pupils by June. These were Scottish Studies, the SQA’s Leadership Award and Customer Services. The latter two have proven to be of great interest to employers and so having them on ones SQA certificate can be very useful in securing an interview for a job.

Our new school in Oban is nearly finished, although we still have work to do. On a very cold Thursday morning I had to spend time braving the elements to check on progress with the new road and new car parking, bus turning and pupil drop off areas, as well as discussing landscaping, external seating, types of hardcore needing laid etc. I then went to check on the progress with our additional Piping and Drumming Pavillon. I can’t wait. The indoor facility is first class, the outdoor environment will also be great. Given we only had a hundred yard stretch of playground in the old school for 1200 pupils, the expanse of social space we have created on the site of the old school will give our pupils the space they deserve.

I had the pleasure of discussing both the above issues (our superb curriculum and our fantastic new school) to the ladies of the Inner Wheel as I gave them a two and a half hour tour on Thursday evening. This tour was even longer than the one I gave to their male counterparts in the Rotary Club. I spent this amount of time with my guests because they showed a genuine interest in the work of our staff, of the successes of our pupils; and of how Education was ever changing. It was a very interesting time.

The Rotary Club is a wonderful organisation. Members give up their time and volunteer their services to many a good cause. They also fundraise for the benefit of many local, national and international causes. Oban High school benefits on a regular basis, most prominently at the moment through their support of our Laurinburg Exchange. I also squeezed in attending a parent meeting on the Laurinburg Exchange this week where I was reminded that this is the 27th such exchange trip between pupils of Scotland High School in Laurinburg, North Carolina and OHS. The commitment by members of the Rotary Club in both towns and from our OHS staff is commendable. Pupils from Laurinburg will be in Oban in June; the Oban pupils will go to Laurinburg in October.

The highlight for Friday was interviewing for, and appointing a new Depute Head Teacher, Lauren Morrison. Lauren will take up her post with us after the Easter Holiday. My thanks to Maggie Thorpe, our Parent Council Chair and to Aine Cooney for sitting on the panel with me. Thanks also to my excellent Head Boy, Angus Neil for being such a wonderful host and tour guide to all the candidates. It is never an easy task to be involved in appointing staff. It is a huge responsibility to get it right for the school and it’s pupils, and a huge emotional commitment knowing that such decisions can have life changing effects on someone’s career and family.

On the subject of staffing changes. I would like to say well done to Duncan Sinclair who has secured a new position as Teacher of Maths in Elgin High School. Duncan is an excellent teacher and will be greatly missed. Fortunately, I have a good relationship with Hugh McCulloch, the Heidie in Elgin and he has very kindly agreed I can keep Duncan until Easter, ensuring all his certificated classes won’t be affected.

Three class highlights from my tour round the classes this week. Firstly was watching Greg and Neil in PE use a Ghetto Blaster on the pitch to try and motivate our boys to run round the pitch a wee bit more briskly that usual. Work in progress boys. The second, also on the subject of walking was bumping into a few of my kids from our Support Department coming back from their Daily Mile walk. I mentioned in last weeks blog we didn’t do a Daily Mile in Oban as well. Oops! Sorry Kirsteen. Finally, having one of my Tiree Primary classes sing the full version of Katie Beardie to me. Fantastic!

Friday finished with me turning up to the staff football for the first time since August. I think I may have to take part in the Daily Mile next week and try and get back into fitness again.

I was just about to end here and post this blog when I got stuck for a title. On reflection I chose the title “Keeping calm”. Oban High is in the middle of a very stressful time just now as we are in the middle of the prelims. Pupils are stressed, teachers are stressed. There are pupils out of normal classes and making their way around the school out with our normal changeovers and our canteen is dealing with pupils constantly trying to squeeze in breaks and lunches between exams. Despite this disruption to the normal school day a number of visitors to the school have taken time to say how calm our school is. Exam invigilators, candidates for jobs, guests linked to building the new school and Council workers have all been in school during this very busy week and have been so impressed by the maturity and work ethic of our pupils. Such calm comes from the hard work and support given to our pupils. If they were not being taught well, or given support by staff, then pupils would not be as content as they are for so many guests to note the positive ethos in our school. Well done everyone.

A flying start

So here’s my first blog of the new year. However before I begin, may I remind everyone reading my witterings that the purpose of my blog is merely to give those interested, an idea of what a Scottish Heidie gets up to each week or so. I also take the opportunity to share a few of my views about what’s happening in Scottish Education. This is a personal blog and the views expressed herein are all my own.

Last Sunday I had a pleasant sail into Tiree ready for a couple of days in my new school. The weather was cold but sunny and together with my two Westies we had a wee run about to get a feel for the place. Given the island is internationally renowned for its glorious beaches we couldn’t resist enjoying a lovely walk along Balephetrish beach. I’m well aware locals will say I should have gone to a number of more glorious beaches – the kids were quick to give that advice. I’m sure I’ll walk them all over the coming months.

The first Monday morning following anyone’s holiday can be a bit depressing but given I’m starting a fresh new chapter in my role as Head Teacher I found the early morning rise far less of a challenge and was indeed keen to get to work; or I was until I arrived to find the heating was on the blink. A quick call to my pal George Campbell, the Property Officer and soon after local contractor Kevin Brown is popping his head in the door with a big “All fixed now” grin. All those who complain about rural mañana attitudes have never met Kevin. Not only did he fix the heating within an hour, he had his boys starting work on new offices I only commissioned two weeks ago… and we had Christmas in the middle. Thanks Kevin!

The first task in any new term is to nip round and see as many staff and pupils as one can and following this break we visit classes to wish everyone a Happy New Year. On my travels I deliberately spent some time in the Gaelic Primary classes so I could learn another Gaelic phrase. I’m trying to learn one each day. “Shed de va ha” – “you’re welcome” is my latest lesson… no comment on the spelling is required thanks!

Regardless of whether I’m on Tiree or in Oban, each school requires my attention and each have tasks requiring to be completed, regardless of where I am. One of the most important tasks for a Heidie is to appoint staff. Monday saw me use video conferencing to take part in Principal Teacher of Guidance interviews and I’m pleased to report that I appointed Lee Dott to the position of permanent PT Guidance for Clan Ossian. This now ensures that we are up to full complement with four full time Guidance teachers for the first time in some months. Sadly we are still one DHT short, a shortage we have faced since the Summer. Given the wonderful school we work in, in beautiful surroundings, with international acclaim, a decent salary and staff accommodation provided if required, I simply cannot understand why Oban…. amongst most other rural schools face such staffing shortages.

However, not long to go I hope. Another job I completed was deciding on which candidates to interview for the DHT interviews next Friday and I am grateful that our OHS Parent Council Chair, Maggie will once again support us in choosing another DHT.

Following some work on Oban issues I returned my attention back to Tiree affairs and was interested in the pupil evaluation of the school canteen and what pupils thought of the food and the environment. All schools carry out such surveys and as such we are well aware that not all pupils are totally sold on eating in school canteens where the choice and ingredients are significantly limited by the Government’s healthy eating guidance. The flip side is that many do enjoy the food that school canteens provide, especially when the canteen listens to the desires of our pupils – hence the need for regular pupil surveys – tastes change.

The canteen in Oban provides a huge range of choice at breakfast, break and lunch and around half our pupils stay in school at lunchtime, especially on fish and chips or Brownie days; even with so many other venues to choose from nearby. A fantastic achievement and testimony to the talents of our kitchen staff.

Our OHS catering Manager, Donna, will travel to Tiree on the flight with me next Wednesday.

I think many people underestimate the importance of creating nice environments with good quality food as a pre-requisite for effective learning. Similarly people underestimate the importance of physical activity in preparing youngsters for effective learning and I was pleased to meet up with Primary classes engaging in their Daily Mile: a great national campaign to get kids active and set them up for the day. Whilst we don’t do the Daily Mile as a daily starter in Oban High, we do provide an excellent Breakfast Club where about 50 regulars appear each day. Please encourage your children to attend this free facility. It really does provide them with a great start to the day.

Monday progressed with a series of jobs too boring to dwell on in a blog: working on timetabling issues to make sure the right number of staff in classes this term; as well as preparing for next session. We are about to go through the pupil choice Options Process and that will require us to think about the next round of recruitment adverts in the next couple of weeks – for both schools.

This process involves a great deal of support from our excellent partnership with SDS and this year we have extended the one to one meetings between Guidance and pupils to include parents and a careers advisor. My aim is to ensure that pupils, and their parents, are given the best and most up-to-date advice possible before making choices. Far too often subject choices are being made after parents give advice to youngsters based on their own experiences from 20 or 30 years ago. Education today is a world away from those days. By inviting parents into school to watch lessons and by getting them to meet careers staff we hope to counter the misconceptions. Both Oban and Tiree will benefit from these initiatives over the coming months.

As well as working on contracts and recruitment issues I also spent time with my DHTs in both schools thinking about what professional learning opportunities we could provide between now and the Summer. One of the best development opportunities any member of staff can engage in is through sharing knowledge and experiences with colleagues in other schools. The partnership arrangement we are establishing between Oban and Tiree lends itself to this concept wonderfully. I am currently working on pairing every member of staff in Tiree with a partner in Oban so they can learn from each other. This seems to be proving quite a popular idea and I have already arranged partnership meetings between senior leaders; Guidance; Support; Science; English, Maths; RMPS; Post 16 PTs; Janitors, catering and Technicians. Other subjects will be aligned in the coming weeks.

In order to establish effective partnership working we must first establish good relationships and so I have been busy arranging reciprocal visits. I have the new Tiree PT Guidance and Support (Laura Kilpatrick) in Oban this week meeting her counterpart PTs (Claire Brady and Kirsteen Binnie) whilst Kevin Champion and Aine Cooney, both Senior DHTs began to take forward their remits together: and IT Technicians David Burt and Neil Connor are working together in Tiree for a few weeks.

Next week further partnerships will begin to flourish in Tiree with Murray Hamilton leading PE developments and supporting Lydia Macajova, David Kearns will work with Jo Bennett on Physics and Hannah Pyne will work with Peter McFarlane on RMPS developments. What members of staff learn from each other will be taken back to the wider faculty staff in each school.

I also set up further visits between staff for the rest of the month to support all subject areas and management, both in Primary and Secondary. However, more on how they pan out in a later blog.

Of course such a transformational change about the way in which we take forward the curriculum, learning and teaching and professional learning all requires planning and much of my time this week was spent discussing with all members of management (PTs and DHTs) in both schools aspects of our School Improvement Plan and School Review challenges. I led a whole staff meeting in Tiree on Monday morning and a management meeting after school; I did the same in Oban High on Tuesday evening. In both I reiterated our basic plans and expectations. In Oban I reminded staff of our Vision and ensured they planned to share this vision with all pupils in My Time classes, in PSEd classes and during weekly assemblies.

I also discussed some of the issues raised in the Pupil Forum discussions held in Oban just before we broke for Christmas (an exercise to be repeated in Tiree on Monday coming). Many pupils claimed not to understand why we taught compulsory PE, RMPS and Scottish Studies. When we explained (AGAIN) that we had to teach these subjects and that they got extra qualifications for them, their reply was more positive. This is a great example of why pupil forums with the ability to talk through questions and answers is a far better measure of what we need to do to improve that just churning out the far more usual questionnaires for people to tick away absentmindedly.

Tuesday saw me get an update on how the new school is progressing. I’m pleased to note that things are on schedule and that we will be done, dusted and open fully by the end of February/ start of March when the external parking and landscaping is complete. I also carried on my property discussions with discussions about new offices, heating system works; Astro turf lights and a new roof for Tiree.

 Wednesday saw me fly back into Tiree with Kevin Champion, my OHS Senior Depute making his first trip. Kevin’s role is to support and develop self-evaluation across both Oban and Tiree thus expanding the opportunities to share good practice and to moderate out-with our owns schools. This level of partnership working is highly desirable in ensuring we learn from each other.

Most of the day was spent either touring the school and meeting pupils and staff or sitting planning a development strategy with my Deputes. However, I did learn another Gaelic phrase from one of my Gaelic Primary classes, learned about the need to build bridges over lakes for trains to cross from an ELC pupil and met pupils practising for the school show, Oliver. I’m not sure the last meeting went according to plan as I have been roped into playing Mr Bumble. Only kidding. I’ll enjoy that experience. I used to be involved in amateur dramatics and performed in both comedy and musicals back in my home town of Musselburgh as a young man.

Another thing that didn’t go to plan was the plane being unable to fly back in to pick us up because of fog. Oh well, it allowed us to work on into the night and the VC facility meant I could still meet with my DHTs back in Oban. After an early start at school in Tiree, where I dealt with janitorial, catering, cleaning and property issues, Kevin and I hopped on the ferry back to Oban.

The ferry takes four hours but I can safely say that it can be a very productive time (as long as the WiFi is working) and this allowed me to liaise with Oban staff on new school building issues; staffing and contracts; new remits for all the staff partnering with Tiree staff; new road lay our discussions with Morrisons; the development of further qualifications for the senior school in both schools; worked up a up a new curriculum and dealt with rugby goals that weren’t in place. That’s the jobs I recall. I don’t usually list jobs because it’s boring and I’m pretty sure you’re not interested. However on this occasion it does serve to demonstrate that even when travelling it’s entirely possible for a Heidie to carry out their role from afar. I won’t reel off all the jobs done when I got back to school though I will repeat my thanks to Minnie MacLellan, the Head Teacher of St’ Columbus, whom I met after school to discuss support for Primary, ELCC and Gaelic in Tiree. Having found myself in charge of these unfamiliar territories after having spent over 20 years in Secondary, I am not so daft as to believe that I do not have a lot to learn and have consequently engaged the support of a very talented Primary Head with experience in ELC and Gaelic to add to my thoughts on these areas.

Friday saw me back to normal (whatever that is), walking the dogs early in the morning, one hand on a lead, the other with a mobile to my ear discussing transport and construction concerns before teaching my Advanced Higher History pupils all about how to pass their Dissertation.

Thereafter, I finished the week by catching up with Lynne the Head Janitor; Donna the Catering Manager; Nan Johnstone, who is going to write this year’s timetable, which we start writing now; Julie my Admin and Finance Assistant to make sure we’re not skint; Laura the new PT Guidance for Tiree who has been training in Oban all week; my SLT in Oban and my Senior DHT in Tiree thanks to VC.

I would normally add a wee section here on my thoughts around a national issue but it’s been a busy week and it’s my daughters 18th birthday today (yes, I’m that old) so I’ve run out of time. I hope you have a wee flavour of what I’ve been up to in week one of 2019.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

My last blog finished as we were preparing for our school Christmas dance, famously called The Jingles. It was the 31st Jingles and it was one to remember with over 400 senior pupils dancing the night away in the Corran Halls to a variety of acts: Ceol an aire opened, followed by The Chunks and closing with DJ Dave. I have to say a huge thank you to the senior pupils who, as part of their leadership course, organise both the senior and the junior Jingles Christmas dances; and of course all the staff who give up their time to supervise the events. The senior dance in particular requires staff to act as ticket sellers, cloakroom staff, serving staff, first aid responders, photographers, bouncers and for a few of us at the very end, cleaning staff. It’s a busy night indeed. It is no mean feat running an event of this size. Well done everyone. It went very smoothly indeed. Thanks to the Corran Halls staff who looked after us all throughout the evening.

Thanks to Kevin McGlynn for this great picture.

The last week of term began with a 4.30 a.m. start last Monday as I made my way down to the early morning ferry to Tiree. I had attempted to fly into Tiree the week before but the weather had other plans. With gales forecast for much of the early part of the week, I saw a wee opportunity to make sure I made it to school to meet my new pupils, staff and parents before the Christmas holiday.

As soon as I arrived I was met by smiley faces and a table full of welcome posters and cards, made by our Primary pupils. A lovely welcome indeed. My first task was to tour the school with my Depute in Tiree, Aine Cooney. Aine took me to classes across the school as I tried to meet every pupil and every member of staff on day one. I learned much about how the Early Learning and Childcare part of the school operated and I enjoyed sitting with the kids as they showed me their post office and how to count money. Next up was a visit to the Gaelic classes and I put into practice my very limited Gaelic vocabulary. Fortunately, I have found some very willing youngsters to teach me more. My plan is to visit them each morning I am in school and learn a phrase a day. It might take a while but I’ll get there. I did embark of a Gaelic Ulplan course a few years ago, so I’m hoping it might come flooding back.

Next up was a tour around the Primary classes and the chance to speak to more of our young pupils who were keen to tell me what they were learning that day. I’ll need a few more visits to start learning everyone’s names… something just not possible in Oban with more than a thousand faces to recall. Then it was into the High School classes so I could learn about how they were negotiating the curriculum, a bit about the run up to their exams and what the seniors did outside of school. I managed to drop in on the piping and drumming classes the following evening too. It will be good to tie up the pipe bands of both schools soon.

Supervising the canteen at lunchtime provided me with a new experience as I sat first with the Primary pupils asking them about how they liked the food, what they liked about School and how they spent their lunch hour… well they were my questions. The pupils were more keen to tell me about the football teams they liked, who they got on with, or didn’t, and what they thought about Tiree. The high school pupils likewise were completely unfazed by having their new Heidie sit with them and were very happy to answer all my questions about the food and about how to improve their lunchtime experience.

I have never been a teacher in a primary school but I have had a lot of experience in interacting with young children. When I was much younger I was a Sunday School teacher, a B.B. officer and I taught drama to primary children in Corstorphine, Edinburgh. All useful background experiences. In fact I originally sought to become a Primary Teacher before switching to do History at the last minute. I think I have much to learn from my Primary colleagues and have already engaged the support of Minnie Maclellan, the Head Teacher of St’ Columba’s Primary in Oban, but I think I shall enjoy the new experiences as much as I did all those years ago.

Much of my three days on Tiree was spent chatting to staff, evaluating current practice or just putting into place the first stages of a plan to take forward the School. The prerequisite to this plan was to share my vision to taking forward the School and determining if it chimed with others. I was pleased to note that no one raised objections to the proposed direction of travel and indeed by the Wednesday when I met parents, they seemed keen to work in partnership to achieve our aims. Indeed the initial meeting with parents led by the Head of Service, Louise Connor and the Policy Lead for Education, Councillor Yvonne McNeilly seemed very positive indeed.

All new Heads starting in any new school first need to set our their stall, then evaluate what existing good practice needs to be developed and what practice needs to change. To make any change happen effectively one must ensure there is a team in place to lead the change process. Having appointed Aine to the position of Senior Depute, it was necessary to ensure I also had Principal Teachers in place across the high school curriculum, in Primary / ELCC and in charge of Guidance and Support. Following a morning of discussions and interviews I was pleased that Julie Maclennan was willing to take on the PT Primary/ELCC role until interviews could be held and that Laura Kilpatrick was successful in securing the PT Guidance/Support role: a crucial position I feel every school should have and every pupil and parent should benefit from.

Much of the rest of my time was ensuring that the infrastructure for Tiree High School was put in place to facilitate a support package I am developing for all staff. To begin with I have worked with Education IT to establish a 1-1 VC system called Vscene that will aid communication between staff in Oban High and Tiree High… this will soon be enhanced yet further when the Council puts in a whole new communication network called Skype for Business, which will transform the quality of the phone/IT network massively.

It will also help the development of partnership working that is being established between my two schools, ensuring that almost every member of staff has a partner with whom they can share ideas; ask for support; work with on professional learning opportunities; use as part of the Moderation process; and link up with to take forward learning and teaching, and curriculum development.

I’ll share more in the future as we go forward with the plan to harmonise the learning, curriculum and systems in both schools, making sure the pupils in each have the opportunity to achieve the best possible qualifications whilst ensuring that we nurture and develop their social, emotional and vocational experiences and talents.

Of course just because I was on Tiree for a few days didn’t mean to say I was not taking forward Oban High at the same time and I ensured that I was in regular contact with my DHTs in Oban during what is one of the busiest weeks of the year. Monday was a busy time for Guidance and the Deputes but not necessarily for a good reason. Disappointingly they spent much of the time dealing with a high level of in-attendance as our records showed that only 80% of our pupils turned up for School. Despite our annual re-assurance that we continue to teach classes as normal and that by not turning up to school in the run up to a holiday pupils are missing a large amount of learning, we still have pupils opting to stay at home and parents either taking them down to Glasgow shopping, away for an early holiday or merely keeping the peace and keeping them off after listening to nonsense like “It’s the last week, we don’t do anything anyway” or “All we do is watch videos”. Every year we try to make sure we get as much teaching done as possible in the run up to the holiday, we have Prelims in January after all; and every year we remind parents we’re running classes as normal; and we remind teachers too not to give in to youngsters wanting an easy time and to keep teaching. It is quite frustrating for teachers eager to support pupils learning to find their efforts thwarted by “Holidayitis”, a not so rare illness only found around the end of a school term. I am aware this is a national phenomenon.

Most of the absences were in the senior school, no doubt linked to Senior Jingles having passed and the threat of missing the dance because of truancy no longer hanging over them. Junior Jingles on the other hand was held on Tuesday evening and that was very well attended, indeed perhaps the best attended in many years. I think the new school Atrium with all the Christmas lights, the huge Christmas tree and the new stage facilities with a fantastic sound and light system was a likely contributory factor as it made for a great venue. The Traditional School of Music musicians made sure the Ceilidh was a great success and DJ Dave was back making sure everyone had a fantastic party. Well done to all the staff who gave up their time.

Thanks to David McPhee for this picture.

Wednesday evening saw the annual Christmas Concert deliver another great set of performances. Alex Craik had his first stint as the Compère for the evening replacing Frank McKenna for the first time in ten years. And another first in that time was my absence from my duties as Trumpeter in the Orchestra. Sadly, I’ve been so busy of late I’ve missed too many practices with the band this year and I feared, as the only Trumpeter at this time, that my late arrival would have spoiled what was a brilliant performance. We now have another two Trumpeters in the wings, so next year I’ll get more practice in and make sure we play well together. The efforts that go into putting on this event from music staff, pupils and from the Parent Council are superb.

After flying back to Oban I was back at my OHS desk on Thursday and spent much of my time setting up meetings and planning schedules for coming back in January. How time flies! I can’t believe we’re nearly in 2019.

I did squeeze in a very enjoyable staff event on Thursday as I thanked Lucy Downie, Ali McCaig and Liam Rankin for their service to the School before they departed for exciting new jobs. I then went on to award the prizes for the best Christmas door. Seventy five entries was an outstanding number. Well done to all the staff and their pupils who took part in this first such competition. Hannah Stevenson won the judges vote and Nicola Hamilton won the people’s vote on Facebook.

By the last day of term, we were down to about 400 pupils, less than half our school roll. At this point, normal lessons cannot be achieved. Fortunately, that’s around the number the local Parish Church holds and it provides almost exactly the right number to pack the church and give the annual Christmas service a great atmosphere for the last big event of the session. This year the singing was once again in key and the band played perfectly the numerous Christmas carols that we all enjoyed. The key message this year, delivered by Jim Beaton and Chris Fulcher, was around “What Christmas means to us?” I closed the service by giving my view of what Christmas means to me.

Regardless of ones view of religion or of Christmas (it doesn’t matter what faith one has or none), what matters most is how we look after ourselves and others. I said that I believed that at this time of year there seems to be a greater degree of empathy, of compassion and of love for others… something I wish could be repeated all year round. I wished all my pupils and staff a lovely Christmas holiday and hoped that they would enjoy spending the time with their family, friends and loved ones.

Finally the term ended and our pupils departed to enjoy their holidays and all the staff came together for a banquet in the Atrium. It was a wonderful event where we sat and had lunch, brought by all the staff themselves, and we enjoyed each other’s company, chatting about the marvellous events of the week and about our forthcoming holiday. Some of us even won prizes in the Christmas raffle. I think this is only prize I’ve ever won at school.

It’s now Christmas Eve and time for me to stop working and enjoy a wee holiday. So I’ll close this year with my warmest wishes to all my readers and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

And the awards go to….

My last few blogs have featured numerous examples of where I have had to attend meetings locally and nationally learning about plans and good practice across the country that will help all schools develop, including Oban and Tiree High Schools. This series of planning meetings and professional forums are condensed into the early part of the session every year. Now they have concluded it’s time to take the information gleaned and good practice observed forward in school.

So, I have been very pleased to have spent the last couple of weeks entirely in school working with my staff on developing and expanding the curriculum; discussing professional learning opportunities for staff that will help improve the pupils learning experience; observing classes and speaking to youngsters about how they have been getting on in and out of the classroom; and working with our new school team on ensuring all is going well as we reach the conclusion of the new school external works.

As I toured the external works this week, I was amazed at how large and open the new external space we have created by knocking down the old school really is. It is huge! That space will be used to create much needed parking for the school community and will provide a more suitable and safe bus park for the many buses we use to get our youngsters to school.

Of course it is not just parking spaces we are putting in. When I wrote the original bid for a new school to the Scottish Government, I included very prominently the need for additional outside social space, suitable for 1300 pupils. In the old school, because of numerous extensions, there was little play ground. The new school will see a large, wide, contoured avenue filled with benches set in a much more pleasant looking setting. It will all be finished by the end of February.

Most mornings I spend keeping an eye on our daily assemblies which on the run up to Christmas increasingly have a Christmassy theme injected into them each day. (I know that’s a made up word.) I think switching on our fantastic new Atrium ceiling lights and putting up the Christmas tree slightly earlier this year has set the tone for these three weeks.

Although I think the new Christmas door Clan challenge has become the talking point of our Christmas celebrations this year.

The effort that has been put into decorating classroom doors has been phenomenal. I think the promise of a great present to the staff with the best door and hundreds of points for the winning Clan class may have spurred them on. The competition was judged by Minnie MacLellan, the Head Teacher of St’Columba’s Primary School and Terry Donovan, member of our very supportive Parent Council.

The winner was Hannah Stevenson in Science. I gave an additional Heidie award to Morag MacKinnon.

Back to my morning routine. Each morning I have been practising Christmas Carols on the Trumpet with my young protege, Amber. I’m very grateful to Amber for her enthusiasm and dedication. With me having to attend so many after school meetings in the last couple of months I have sadly missed the band practice each Tuesday and I am woefully in need of practice. Hopefully together we will be ready to join the others in the band at next Wednesdays Christmas Cracker concert, to be held in the school at 7 pm. Better get your tickets early, seats are limited to the first 400.

Another routine I am pleased to get back into is seeing my Advanced Higher History pupils each day. We have just finished learning about how the Weimar Republic came to an end, partly as a result of social and economic factors arising from the Wall Street Crash’s effect on Germany, partly by the rise of Hitler and the Nazi movement, caused by many other factors going on in Germany at the time.

When not teaching kids or meeting contractors, I’m meeting mangers to look at taking the school forward and the pressing issue at the moment is changes to the curriculum. Aileen Jackson, PT Raising Attainment and Aisling Clark, PT Developing the Young Workforce have both been leading a piece of work for me and collaborating with Faculty PTs to look at additional qualifications that we can put in place for our pupils. The SQA have a huge suite of courses that go far beyond the usual twenty or so traditional courses taught in every school. There is an additional group of courses referred to as National Progression Awards. These are designed to allow youngsters who have an interest in a particular subject, for example Food Technology, to expand their interest in a more vocationally honed way, whilst allowing the accumulation of an additional award, for example an NPA in Bakery – which we teach just now. Our task this session is to ensure that every subject provides an additional qualification alongside the traditional subjects to make sure our youngsters develop as many skills; and acquire as many relevant qualifications as they can so they can compete in the jobs market when they leave us.

This was an aim I shared with Tiree High School staff when I met them for the first time on Wednesday, though not quite in the way I imagined I would. I had planned to meet all the staff and parents at the school, along with my colleagues, Yvonne McNeilly, the policy lead for education; Douglas Hendry, Director of Community Services; Councillor Roddy McCuish and Louise Connor, Head of Service. However as we sat at the airport enjoying the hospitality from the excellent Oban Airport staff member, Dixie, we soon learned from Julie, the Pilot for the day, that we may not get out to Tiree and we certainly wouldn’t be getting back. No problem however, as a few calls back to the schools and we at least managed to sort out video conferencing for all the staff and we arranged to meet the parents next week.

As well as discussing my aims for enhancing the senior curriculum in both Oban and Tiree; and answering many good questions from staff, I did dwell on the benefits of new technology for communicating across rural areas and for teaching.

As my regular readers will know, the role of the Head Teacher is to lead the school. But, to do so well requires that the Head Teacher keeps up to date with national, even international best practice; keeps up to date with changes to the legislation, the guidance from the Scottish Government, Education Scotland, HMIe, SQA et al; and from professional learning provided by the local authority or from agencies like School Leaders Scotland and the Scottish College of Educational Leadership; and in the case of a Heidie with a new school, to meet with architects and contractors weekly. To keep pace with all this new practice, legislation and guidance requires Head Teachers to be out of school, a lot. How then do we manage our schools? Firstly we put in place good leaders throughout the school. In my case, I have a Senior Depute Head Teacher employed in both Oban and Tiree High Schools, as well as a number of Principal Teachers across the areas of curriculum and support, all charged with making sure the polices and plans of the school are implemented in my absence and all ensuring that all staff play their part in keeping the pupils motivated and succeeding. Additionally in Oban I have three other DHTs as well as office, janitorial, catering and cleaning managers all making sure that all aspects of the school are being well led.

To keep track of progress and to support staff I use my iPhone and iPad a lot. They prove to be invaluable as I check on progress whilst travelling to and from meetings or other school visits. Any support required for a manager back in school can easily be done through guidance from myself via a quick phone call or email to whomever is best placed to help the member of staff with a question.

Taking the use of IT a step further is my desire to use a VC facility called Vscene. This is the software used to teach the e-Sgiol classes I mentioned in my last blog. Gary Clark from Education IT has been superb in supporting me in taking this forward and I am now able to use VC from any device, in any room, in any building (even from the car, train or ferry) to have meetings with any member of my staff in either school and many in other schools or in the Education Department. Although I could do this by phone and email before, actually seeing someone and sharing documents visually is a big step forward as subconsciously seeing someone during a conversation gives greater clarity, understanding and confidence during a discussion.

It is my intention to roll this out into classrooms to make sure that pupils have access to courses otherwise not available to them because of a lack of teacher in a particular area or merely to cover a short term absence if no supply cover is available. There are of course limits to which courses this will benefit. More to follow next year on this.

The last couple of days have been hectic with recognising success. I was privileged to have been invited to the Regional Netball finals where I watched a hugely competitive seniors game between Lochaber High School and Oban. Lochaber managed to clinch the game in the final minute leaving our Oban girls frustrated, especially given they netted a second after the final whistle that would have led to extra time.

That was a similar disappointing end to the conclusion of the Rugby Under 15s Scottish Plate Final at Murrayfield where our team, whom had dominated the game until Kenny Gray got injured in the last ten minutes, lost the pace and a final try in the last seconds of the game to see a very experienced Galashiels pip them to the post.

Another award we received this week was the My World of Work Young Ambassadors Award. This was to recognise the commitment of some of our senior and S3 pupils who have undertaken to act as My World of Work Ambassadors, going around the High School and out across our 19 partner primaries promoting to all pupils an understanding about the importance of skills and experiences as well as qualifications to better prepare them for undertaking their journey through school to employment. Given this is the essence of my vision for Oban and Tiree High Schools, I was particularly pleased to receive this Award along with our pupils at OHS.

The next competition to note was Kirsty MacIntyre’s Mascot competition. As part of her Scottish Studies qualification, Kirsty had to lead and organise an event. Following on from an example she was aware of at Atlantis Leisure and seeing a gap in what we have in school, (no school mascot), I gave her permission to run a competition to establish an Oban High School Mascot. After many weeks of youngsters working hard on their designs, the day arrived for Kirsty, along with seven fellow judges to choose a winner. Bid4Oban kindly donated the prizes.

The judges used a scoring system to decide on the top three best designs, arriving at a decision that saw a joint first place award. The winners, that led to the creation of a pair of Mascots were Neve Davies and Katie Barlow. Each drew a picture of a School Westie, one a boy and one a girl… hence their idea to have a pair of Mascots. Well done to both. I’m a wee bit biased given I have two Westies. But, there were many judges!!!

Normally I finish my blog on a Friday night or Saturday morning but given it’s the Senior Jingles tonight, arguably the biggest event in Oban’s social calendar, then I think I may be a bit tied up tonight and shattered tomorrow after all the dancing, so I’ll close early this week.

It’s a busy week next week with Junior Jingles, the Christmas Cracker Concert, various Christmas festivities and two trips to Tiree, so look out for even more news next weekend.

A long and winding road

One of the highlights of last week, other than getting the chance to have a look round the classes or teach my Advanced Higher History class was to attend the Parent Council AGM on Monday evening. There was not a huge turnout but those that did attend rose to the challenge and volunteered to either remain or join the Parent Council.

Everyone in our Parent Council is enthusiastic and dedicated as the Chair, Maggie Thorpe noted in her Annual Report:

“The Parent council currently has 31 members and tonight will be our 4th meeting of 2018. The Parent Council comprises both parents and teachers, including Mr Bain. Throughout the year the teachers on the group have delivered regular reports on staffing, funding, exam performance and the New School. Specific topics, such as Poverty Equity Funding, Raising Attainment, and Parental Engagement, have also been discussed at our meetings. The School Improvement Plan was shared with us for information and comment, and we were recently involved in a survey about the timing of School holidays.

ln June we represented parents at interviews for senior management appointments and will do so again this week. One of our parent members attended the Argyll & Bute Parent Council Conference in lnveraray on our behalf. Our fundraising subgroup have had an active and productive year. Ongoing methods which continue to run throughout the year are The Weather Lottery and Easyfundraising. From September we. have added a new regular fundraiser called The 100 CIub, which is a monthly draw with cash prizes. The winners are drawn by pupils at Assembly towards the end of each month. Anyone can join, so please sign up and encourage friends and family too – the more members we have, the more profit we make for Oban High School.

At Charities Day in June we had a stall selling fabulous home-baking which was provided by Mrs Mackinnon’s 53 classes in Food Technology. As it was a really sunny day and about 26 degrees in the shade, we wished we had chosen to flog ice-cream and cold drinks!

We have also been working hard to raise our profile over the year. This has included meeting parents at the 51 lnduction evening and at Prize-giving. We have been providing refreshments for teachers and parents at all the Parents’ Evenings throughout the term, and we will be doing so again at the Christmas Cracker Concert, where we will also have a raffle.This week we are in the school every lunchtime promoting re-use of party outfits with a Jingles Clothes Swap initiative, and we are planning a pampering evening closer to the party season with help and advice on hair and nails.”

On Tuesday I attended the Argyll and Bute Joint Services Committee, which is comprised of members of all the trade unions and members of Education management. I represent the Secondary Heads on the group as part of the management team. I have to say that both sides work very well together and have a shared understanding of what we all want to achieve to provide a great educational experience for all our youngsters.

I spent Wednesday Interviewing for the position of Depute Head Teacher along with the Parent Council Chair, Maggie Thorpe and the Head Teacher of Hermitage Academy, Robert Williamson. Together we were able to appoint two acting Depute Head Teachers: Sam Martin, currently PT Expressive Arts in OHS and Iain Morrison, former DHT of Beaconhurst. Both start on our return after the Christmas holiday.

I was originally only seeking one DHT but in the interim Alex Craik, currently DHT has indicated a desire to return to his Guidance Teacher position; a role he both loved and excelled in. I would like to say a huge thank you to my excellent DHT Alex for all he has done for the school, and me personally.

I was fortunate to once again attend the School Leaders Scotland Conference last Thursday and Friday. This is a fantastic professional learning opportunity for all Heads, Deputes, Principal Teachers and Business Managers from across the country to come together to listen to guest speakers and attend numerous workshops.This year’s theme was on “Improving through collaboration”.

The first keynote speech of the conference was delivered by Janie McManus, the Assistant Strategic Director of Inspection in Education Scotland. For those unable to attend, may I suggest you read How Good is Our School 4 and you’ll be fine.

Next up were four workshops. Andy Griffiths, Lead Officer of the Northern Alliance Regional Improvement Collaborative (RIC) described how the RICs were developing and in particular the strengths of collaborative working; strengths that include being able to enhance professional learning, promoting and sharing good practice; being able to provide subject and sector-specific support and advice; and being able to develop particular work streams that actually deliver impact in the classroom. Two examples of this impact in Argyll and Bute is demonstrated through the literacy and the early years work-streams.

I found what Andy had to say about the RICs most interesting.

He noted that the Regional Collaboration challenge is about how we achieve meaningful discussion and that evidence suggests across all sectors that collaboration makes a difference. However, he was also clear that the collaboration should not add just another layer of bureaucracy. It should not be something that is just dressed up as collaboration. Collaboration does not prove anything unless we can prove impact… and generating evidence should not be the end in itself. Well said Andy!

In a question time session on the Friday afternoon, Andy added the importance of Head Teacher empowerment and asked the gathered audience to consider three basic questions that required an answer to ensure the Regional Improvement Collaboratives would survive, and thrive.

How do we involve teachers… and pupils and parents?

How can we embed collaboration more fully in schools?

How can HTs play the lead role in communicating and leading the output of the RICs?

Those in the audience were supportive but still shard concerns about the new RICs. There was criticism about geographical concerns hampering collaboration. The Northern Alliance in particular is far too large an area for regular meetings. However, Andy reminded everyone that we need to be able to work together in a number of ways and we don’t always have to meet face to face all the time.

Regional Improvement plans are all different and not shared was another complaint raised: but should they all be the same? How would that help develop new ideas or help with local variations?

Finally, there was concern about doubling up the workload, the number of plans and the amount of education staff out of schools. Why do we need central teams and RIC teams? Andy replied that the RIC collaboration and the importance of HT empowerment meant that most councils were reducing their central education staff.

Ken Muir, the Chief Executive of the General,Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) led a session on how the Strategic Board for Teacher Education impacts on the work of senior leaders and he discussed teacher workforce planning and about developing more IT programmes to help with distance learning.

Ken noted that vacancies across Scotland were decreasing but that their were still shortages in STEM subjects. Also one of the biggest recruitment issues was the cost of living especially in the north east, which creates issues with probationers and those on low salaries with rents at £1000 a month. This is equally true for rural areas like Argyll and Bute in my view.

GTCS called half of the 880 staff that left the profession last year. The reasons given for leaving included not being able to find work (moving out of the central belt would be my answer to that one) and moving abroad for more money.

Ken finished with a question of his own during Question Time. What more can we do to talk up teaching? This was also a theme in Billy Burke’s Presidential address. Billy, the Head Teacher of Renfrew High School has just been elected as the new President of School Leaders Scotland. He is a very good HT and a very pleasant, supportive colleague. I wish him well in his new position.

Andy Bruce, civil servant in Learning Directorate, led another workshop on Curriculum and Assessment. His presentation was quite short as he left more time for those attending to share their opinions on whether or not a Curriculum for Excellence was working. Everyone agreed that the vision and the ideology for CfE was excellent but that the examination system was getting in the way of achieving the CfE ideals. The Broad General Education was being eroded to take into account the ever increasing assessment demands of national certified traditional courses.

What we do about this problem split the room. Some wanted all the changes to stop, there’s been too many already. Others wanted to scrap the whole assessment model and start again, it is so damaging to our pupils. I fall into the latter camp.

Andy explained that the Scottish Government is making a determined effort to move from assessment to a greater focus on curriculum, it’s rationale and it’s design and development. We need to make sure that what is done, makes a difference he said whilst acknowledging the need for clarity, consistency and an end to change at some point.

We need to empower the Head Teachers and communities to deliver the changes was his final message in the Question Time session, mirroring every other speaker.

Janet Brown, the Chief Executive of the SQA, noted that future skills will be different and asked, what will the assessment need to look like?

We need to end changes in qualifications but we still need to assess what we are assessing based on changes in teaching, skills etc right now. A dilemma for the SQA.

A further dilemma is getting parents and wider society to accept the change. Janet also had questions for the audience. The piece of paper has no value in itself, it is only a piece of paper to show someone what a person has passed. So should the assessments be personalised, should it be more skills oriented rather than subject based? She asked.

Next to the workshops, I found the Question Time to panel members most interesting.

How far do you think Scottish society values teachers?

Ken Muir replied: Most parents value teachers and education. The problem is media. Bad news sells so the media warps society’s views of schools and teachers is broken. And, it is especially screwed for members of society who don’t have children.

Andy Bruce replied: John Swinney is putting HTs right at the front of the decision making process because they are best placed to lead schools… LAs should support their decisions, enable the decisions to move forward and accept their role is to support this change.

There was a question about published results and how they overly focus on a core set of traditional exams instead of the full range of skills and experiences pupils need to get jobs.

All the panel members agreed that in response to the PISA tables and to the second Tuesday in August problem when then initial results are published; that we need to get far better at having a more holistic measure of success based on the four capacities rather than just the tests.

The next question: How do we address the problem that universities are driving schools curriculum because they are not changing their basic entry requirement… 5 Highers?

Janet Brown replied that we need to ask universities why they are asking for 5 Highers in one sitting. If it is merely to prove pupils can deal with stress and breadth, then we need to make it clear that there are other ways to measure this. She went on to say we need to change the conversation along the lines of… this pupil can do 3 Highers but also did all these other things that were demanding in terms of time and complexity. And very importantly we also need to stop focusing on the publication of basic results in August as this warps public perceptions and ignored all the other results the SQA, and other bodies, add to Insight after August.

Andy Bruce shared his view that we need to be careful not to undermine the independence of Universities but we also need to steer them towards a realisation that the 5 Highers demand is hampering a need to develop the wider achievement agenda necessary to develop society and prepare our pupils for the workplace.

Maureen McKenna, the Executive Director of Glasgow who Chaired Question Time, said we need to work with employers to develop “Success Profiles”. Some big companies are now trialling doing blind interviews where they don’t look at results but test for skills and experiences relevant to the job. This is likely to be expanded and we need to prepare our children better.

How do we ensure that there will not be duplication across the RIC and the LAs. There seems to be a growing number of staff being employed by the RIC to do jobs already covered by LAs.

Maureen also responded to the question: How do we ensure that there will not be duplication across the RIC and the LAs. There seems to be a growing number of staff being employed by the RIC to do jobs already covered by LAs? by noting the need to ensure that we don’t establish a bureaucracy that is there for the sake of having meetings for the sake of meetings or having two people in every role.

Andy Griffiths replied that different LAs have different systems; a few are growing central teams but most are cutting them. He also noted that it was important to use LA staff to populate the RICs but there is a misconception that they are necessarily needed to attend lots of meetings. We need to think of ways to work smarter whilst collaborating. It’s the doing bit that counts, not the meeting bit.

The penultimate question was about the likely forthcoming strikes. Strikes severely damaged schools and education in the 1980s. Would you support an independent review in the event we can’t agree a settlement by Christmas?

No one answered this

The final question was about Cognitive load theory.

No one understood this.

This week started with an In-service Day. It was packed with professional learning events. I opened the day as usual with a speech about our vision and values, my high expectations for all staff and pupils; and reinforcing that I expect staff to understand that many of our children are not perfect, indeed when they attend class, they may be doing so after significant home life stresses. It for this reason that we endeavour to use our daily My Time classes as a first line Guidance / pastoral care provision.

The next session was split into three levels of ability, with staff teaching others all about Google Classroom. Iain Morrison (not the new one – we now have two Iain Morrison’s – both in Science), Damian Heaney, Colin Carswell and Iain Fulton all helping lead his staff training. It worked well. After that, Departments came together to look at updating and amending the departmental improvement plan for the school in a session led by Kevin Champion. Finally in the afternoon, Kirsteen Binnie and Fiona Wilson led a session of assessment and Moderation in an effort to improve the quality of the pupil learning experience.

I think this is a great example of how we try to develop leadership at all levels, a key theme this morning.

Wednesday saw me attend the Argyll and Bute Joint Head Teacher meeting in Inveraray, where all the Primary and Secondary Heads come together to listen to presentations and take part in collaborative discussions on a number of themes.

The morning opened with a huge success story from Louise Connor, Head of Service, who reported back from the HMIe thematic inspection of Education in Argyll and Bute. Head Teachers across the Authority reported back to the HMIe that the development in areas such as head teacher empowerment; the development of the curriculum; improvements in literacy and numeracy; collaborative working; improvements in the staffing programme leading to a greater impact on successful teacher recruitment… amongst many others was hugely positive. There has been a massive improvement agenda led by Anne Paterson and Louise Connor over the last couple of years. Their efforts to work with Head Teachers have ensured that the positive remarks to the HMIe are wholly justified in my view. Well done to both!

Next up was a repeat presentation on Regional Collaborative developments by Andy Griffiths, the Lead Officer, of the Northern Alliance Regional Improvement Collaborative. He repeated the message that collaboration is crucial but collegiality is the ultimate aim. The difference between collaboration and collegiality may be slight but in reality collaboration requires conscious effort, whilst collegiality should be subconsciously seamless. This will take time and most certainly a shared vision and a commitment by all to engage in my view.

The afternoon session began with a workshop delivered by Dunoon Grammar’s DHT, Kirsty Campbell, who brought along a few pupils to describe their involvement in developing a self evaluation tool, self evaluating lessons, the school etc. This was a very interesting presentation and although much of the traditional observation exemplars are already in use in OHS, what I admired most was the development of using pupils in the self-evaluation observation process and how they linked it all to Education Scotland’s new pupil friendly self evaluation tool “How Good is OUR School”… or wee HGIOS. The kids were great and Oban has much to learn from this initiative.

Thursday opened with a meeting with Angus Maclellan, the Head Teacher of e-Sgiol. e-Sgiol is basically teaching on line; an educational opportunity that I think all schools should explore. It is based in the Western Isles but provides support for any Authority who wishes to buy into the provision. I have previously written about the importance of taking forward the idea of Virtual Schools. I believe that developing this idea will ensure that our pupils have even more access to a wider range of subjects that we perhaps were unable to access with existing staff in the area. I also believe that pupils in every school should be able to access the same level of choice as we in Oban can provide. Angus stressed that the key to success is by providing real time teaching.

Friday closed with three things that pleased me greatly. Firstly, I took the opportunity to go and find Eva MacColl and say a huge well done. Eva came 4th at the International Gathering of Scottish Highland Dancing in Paris. A fantastic achievement.

Next up was a Video Conference with the Parent Council Chair and Vice Chair of Tiree High School, Jen and Will. I feel very honoured to have been approached to take on the role of Executive Head Teacher of both Tiree and Oban High Schools. This is a short term role following the resignation of the current Tiree HT, Graham Wilks.

Taking on the role of HT for both schools is a fantastic opportunity to build on the talents and strengths of staff in each school, working collaboratively to ensure that we get the best out of our staff and resources so we can provide the best possible qualifications for all, whilst ensuring that we nurture and develop pupils social, emotional and vocational talents. It shouldn’t matter what school we are in. Every pupil deserves the best we can provide in terms of care and education and for the short time I lead both schools, I will ensure all my pupils have the best chance possible to achieve this vision.

Finally, we finished slightly earlier today so we could bring the school together in the Atrium for our big Christmas lights switch on. We have just installed a ceiling of light and a brand new Christmas tree befitting our new school. Ashley, won the chance to switch on the lights and Matthew the chance to DJ the Christmas karaoke and at 3.30 everyone went WOW as the school let up and the first of many, many Christmas tunes began.

The countdown is on… next up… Jingles. It’s going to be busy!