North Berwick High School
Head Teacher’s Report on Session 2009-2010
Introduction
It gives me great pleasure to write this report on the work of our school in session 2009-2010. It was another year of abundant success in many fields: charities; the arts; academic attainment; community involvement.
The accomplishments of the school depend entirely on the hard work of all of the staff, the pupils and the parents: the three-legged stool of success upon which the school is founded. As the following report shows, we have had another very active year, reflecting this hard work and commitment from the whole school community.
Our school motto of Aim High came into being and I think I can safely say that the following report illustrates that we do just that!
Staffing
For the first time in many years, we had relatively few changes in staffing. Mr Paus joined the languages department and Ms Shields was our School Business Manager, covering maternity leave. Mr Gaffney joined the history / modern studies department.
Ms Hamilton retired in May, having been in the school as Depute for many years. Her contribution to the school, especially in the area of pupil support and of health promotion, was huge and her constant championing of children defined her whole approach to her work. I wish her a long and happy retirement.
For the eighth year, we had newly qualified teachers joining us as probationers. Ms Philips in mathematics, Ms Wallace in biology, Mrs Millar in English and Mr Aitken in PE made a large contribution to the work and life of the school.
Mrs MacLaren won an award for East Lothian Volunteer of the Year, a thoroughly deserved achievement for her countless years’ service in leading Duke of Edinburgh’s award groups and various World Challenge expeditions. Mrs Spence ran the New York Marathon and raised funds for disadvantaged children.
Learning and Teaching
As always, the curriculum, and the teaching and learning which arise from it, is the core of the work of the school.
We enhanced our international links in a number of ways. The whole school, allied to our partner schools in our cluster, developed links with Malawi. We had a Malawi-themed international week in September, culminating in a wonderful Malawi day in which the whole school and its VIP guests were treated to displays of work and magical drumming and dancing, led by visiting Ugandan dancer and musician Sebby Lubwama, to create a spectacular finale. We collected nearly one thousand back packs over the course of the year. We also raised the £7000 needed to build and establish a kitchen in Liwonde School, meaning that, for the first time, students could have a school lunch every day. Paris Steele very kindly established a Will Aid programme and £2000 was raised.
The links with Malawi were cemented when a musical group from our school visited our link schools in Katunguwiri and Liwonde, seeing at first hand the effects of our fundraising and having a life-changing experience in ‘the warm heart of Africa’. They preceded their trip with a wonderful concert in St Andrew Blackadder Church prior to departure. It is fitting that our former First Minister, Jack McConnell, referred to our efforts in his David Livingstone 150th Anniversary Lecture at Strathclyde University.
We have only really begun what I hope and am certain will be a long association with Malawi.
All of the senior German students went on work experience with Landesrat to Forst, on the Germany/Poland border, in October.
We held our first French Exchange for many years. A group of students from Nancy visited us in the autumn. We arranged a full programme for our visitors and treated them to Scottish culture, with the climax a highly successful ceilidh! A group of S2 students went to Champigneulles in the north east of France in June. They stayed in the homes of host families and strong bonds and friendships were formed. Our students paid a number of visits, eg to Strasbourg and the Musee de l’Ecole de Nancy.
The school continued to develop Curriculum for Excellence over the course of the session, with a focus on learning and teaching and using assessment and feedback to improve pupils’ learning, together with an exploration of how the curriculum would be enhanced. We also developed links between areas of learning in the junior school with interdisciplinary projects in a number of areas.
We continued to develop our school web site and our S3 girls developed a superb example for the English department.
One group of S4 students took part in the first series of Forest School sessions at NBHS. It was a great success and we shall be rolling out parts of the course to other year groups in the future as we develop all aspects of learning outdoors.
Our Health Drop-In Centre continued to go from strength to strength. Run by the school nurses, it is open for any pupil with any health concern every Wednesday lunchtime. It has been highly successful and is seen as a model of good practice.
We hosted a group of educators from Finland last session. They were impressed by our work and were delighted with the warm welcome they received.
A Primary Seven Enterprise Event took place in February. This was the first opportunity for all the primary sevens from our partner primaries to meet and was greatly enjoyed by all. S3 students were facilitators within the groups and pupils enjoyed working together to complete a project and make a presentation, having as a brief: ‘Starting a business with a Scottish theme.’
We had a highly successful Business Dynamics conference for the new S6 in June, as well as two highly successful enterprise projects in S4, selling hampers and Christmas cards, both earning a healthy profit.
Supporting our Pupils
We continued to develop our Pupil Support faculty with the development of our Pupil Support Bases to cater for the needs of children with Additional Support Needs, including the establishment of our Base Kitchen with the support of the Parent Teacher Association and North Berwick Rotary Club. This kitchen is a wonderful addition, allowing us to develop life skills with our most vulnerable students.
We continued to develop individual programmes for students, including support for SQA awards, extended work experience, the Cool Down Crew with the Fire Service, links with the local colleges, Girls Allowed and the Royal Highland Show, as well as continuing support and success through the Bridge Centre and Motor Cycle projects. Some of our students participated in the Lothian Disabled Cross Country running at Peffermill, as well as a sporting programme at Moray House with the students there. We started a new reading scheme Accelerated Reader which involves online quizzes relating to the books the young people have read. We also put in place enhanced transition programmes for pupils before they arrived at NBHS and for students as they were preparing to leave us to go on the next stage of their lives.
The Houses continued to develop as focal points of the school. The House Councils met regularly and pupil representatives were consulted about the School Development Plan. We shall develop the role of our pupil councils this year, with democratically-elected representatives from every year group. Our Houses also continued to ‘adopt’ children in other countries, raising funds through a variety of activities and making regular contributions to their education.
The Houses were led by the House Captains and Vice Captains, who were:
Craig Sean Cunningham, Jennifer McMillan, Eniola Oshodi and Stephanie da Costa
Fidra Matt Rogers, Hope Cunningham, Calum Morrison and Rosie Gollan
Glen Katie Salucci, Andrew Turton, Lucy Merriman and Sam Lowe
Law Daniel Crowe, Naomi Melville, Jamie Lauder and Eve Baillie
The Head Boy and Head Girl and their deputes were able leaders of the school. The leadership team of Matthew Gibbons, Magdalen Hoyt, Joe Ryan and Jordanne Griffiths led the school in different activities and were excellent role models for our pupils.
The twenty senior school leaders formed the Senior School Council. The council met regularly with Mr Peyton and was a valuable forum for exchange of information and consultation.
Each House continued to organise events throughout the session. Pride of place goes to Fidra House, who organised another Christmas Fayre last November. It was a magical event, with local businesses having stalls of all kinds, including Christmas decorations made by S3 art students Our senior Fidra students from S5 and S6 took to it with a will and joined the team of helpers and sellers. The event attracted huge numbers and was extremely successful, raising £900.
Our S6 students continued to set an excellent example through various means such as paired reading both here and at Law Primary, in-class support, peer mentoring, helping at the sports days in our partner Primaries and the potted sports at the Nursery School, lunchtime drop-in, organising many committees and fund raising for various charities.
Rewarding Achievement
We continued to develop our policy of rewarding good behaviour, effort, attitude and academic excellence. Positive Referrals were awarded to pupils who had completed a particularly meritorious piece of work or who had made a sustained commitment over a period of time. Pupils in each class in S1, S2 and S3 were nominated by their class teachers for Gold, Silver and Bronze Certificates. Each teacher could nominate pupils on the basis of good effort, behaviour and attitude. The pupils were awarded these certificates in December and April. A pleasing number of pupils were able to increase their award, eg from silver to gold, between January and May.
We also developed awards for Citizenship, and 170 citizenship awards were given over the course of the session for paired reading, supporting other students, commitment to the school, fair trade, sports coaching and volunteering eg at Riding for the Disabled.
In September we had our annual senior prizegiving ceremony. Simon Smith, recently-retired head of mathematics, was guest of honour. Speeches and excellent musical pieces were followed by academic prizes for each subject at Standard Grade, Intermediate, Higher and Advanced Higher levels. Certificates of Merit were presented to students for overall achievement in SQA examinations. Quaichs were presented to former S6 students for Service to the School (Emma Edwards), Service to the Community (Laura Campbell), Service to Music (Chris McLeish) and Service to Sport (Kari Spence and Megan Gaffney). Craig House won the Rotary Prize for being House Champions. The climax of the evening was the awarding of the Dux Medal to Daniel Crowe.
SQA Results
The school’s results for 2010 continued our strong tradition of academic excellence.
57% of our Fourth Year gained five or more awards at Level 5 (Credit / Int 2). Very pleasingly, 88% gained five or more at Level 4 (Credit and General / Int 1) and 95% gained five or more awards at Level 3. This shows that we continue to be an inclusive school, one which strives constantly to meet the needs of all its pupils and to maximise potential. In S5, 24% of the original S4 yeargroup gained five Highers. 42% of the original S4 yeargroup gained three or more Highers - the Higher Education ‘benchmark’ - and a near-record 67% gained at least one Higher. In S6, 33% of the original S4 cohort gained one or more Advanced Higher pass. Very pleasingly, S6 awards complement S5 awards at Higher level in particular, with 45% of our students leaving school after S6 with five or more Highers.
These results are the amalgamation of individual results in individual subjects of individual pupils. They paint a clear picture of strength for which everyone can feel justifiable pride.
Activities and Achievements
I now come to a section in which I shall try to indicate the breadth and depth of our achievements in session 2009-2010.
Competitions and Awards
We enjoyed success in a number of competitions and won many awards.
Megan Thomson was awarded the prize from the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers for the best Higher result across the whole of Scotland – a wonderful achievement.
Emma Aitken won the prestigious Alex Elrick Memorial Competition for young singers, winning a handsome trophy and money towards further musical training. Rachel Coll’s performance was highly commended.
A number of our pupils took part in the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust Mathematical challenge. The questions are tricky and test problem solving as well as mathematical skills. In S1 we won eight Silver awards (Euan Miles, Cory Szymoszowskyj, Jack Poole, Heather Oberlander, Mhairi Finlayson, James Smith, Ruben Lancaster, Riccardo Cucchi) and fifteen Bronze. In S2, Maddie Ryan won a Gold award and Silver went to thirteen students (Chris Ramsay, Jamie Bullen, Ben Coke, Kelly Kinnear, Gareth Grant, Josie Gibberd, Hamish Law, Fergus McMahon, Adam Munro, Charles Butler, Fraser Thomson, Ayoola Oshodi, Callum Burns), with fifteen gaining Bronze. In S3, Calum Finlayson won Gold and Rachel Coll and Henry Slater Silver, with sixteen gaining Bronze. In S4, Ewan Rycroft, Lisa Oleksy and Sarah Patrick won Gold, with eight gaining Silver (Dan Ryan, Jack Dunlop, Alex Edgar, Catherine baker, Elliott Bruce, Rowan Wood, Sophie Armstrong, Patrick Maher) and nine Bronze. A team competed in the Enterprising Mathematics competition.
Daniel Crowe and Lizzie Dalley completed a Lessons from Auschwitz project, which included visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau in September. This was a very moving experience for the students.
Stephan Johnstone won the Young Volunteer of the Year award, given in recognition of his work at the Appin Equestrian Centre, North Berwick Day Care Centre and the Youth Café where we works with the Zap group for children with disabilities. He was presented with the award by local celebrity Grant Stott.