Standards & Quality Report

Larbert High School

Standards & Quality Report Session 2013 - 2014

! A Word from the Rector

The past year has been a terrific success for Larbert High School and I am confident that you will be impressed with the achievements of our young people. This report provides a mere snapshot of what has taken place over the course of the last year and as a result of the commitment and talents of both our young people and a really dedicated, hard-working staff. Curriculum for Excellence continues to flourish and provide our pupils with ample opportunities to develop their Skills for Learning, Life & Work. Combined with a very strong set of examination results in August 2014 (where Team Larbert once again achieved many more ‘personal bests’) our pupils are placed in prime position for life after school. Indeed, we recorded our highest ever figure for positive destinations with 99.3% of pupils entering employment, training, further or higher education (as at November 2013). This is quite remarkable given the current economic climate and is proof that everything we are doing as a school is coming together and producing the desired effect. When this is coupled with further improvements in attendance and a reduction in exclusion levels, to the lowest level ever, we know we are moving in the right direction and the momentum is therefore strong to secure even more improvements. We’re constantly reflecting and looking at what we can do even better because all of us want the very best for each and every young person who passes through LHS. Headline figures are important, but behind those and what is most important, are the talents and dreams of our young people and it’s our job to help make those become a reality. So, congratulations to our staff and our pupils and thank you to all of our parents and partners for the invaluable support which has been provided. When everyone is working ‘United in Purpose’ to aim for the very best for our young people, it is very powerful indeed. I hope you find this report helpful and informative. As always, if you have any comments on it, or on our school, then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Jon Reid, Rector.

page 2 standards and quality report for 2013-2014 Our School Larbert High School has been on its present site since 2000, but can ! trace its origins as far back as 1631. ! The school roll has increased significantly in recent years, reflecting ! the growing numbers of those who choose to live in the school catchment area plus a demand for places ! outwith. ! In August 2013 we had 1718 pupils, 144 teachers and 44 support staff. Our ! school works in close partnership with the head teachers and pupils of our seven ! associated primary schools within the Larbert cluster and with Falkirk Council’s ! Education Services. ! In addition to being encouraged to achieve the highest standards in academic ! studies, Larbert High School pupils have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of extra-curricular interests. At Larbert we believe that these leisure and ! school experiences make a very valuable contribution to a young person’s ! education. ! We are a community sports hub officially recognised by sportscotland (Tryst ! Community Sports Club), a School of Rugby in partnership with Scottish Rugby ! ! and a School of Football in partnership with the Scottish Football Association, a ! School of Basketball in partnership with ! Basketball Scotland and ! a School of Dance in partnership ! with NRG !! Dance.

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! Improvement Plan Priorities 2013-14 ! In session 2013-14 we carried out a number of improvements in the following ﬁve areas: ! G Curriculum (for Excellence) ! G Learning and Teaching ! G Ethos G Support !

G Leadership !

Successes and Achievements! ! How are we doing?/How do we know?! ! In this section we report on our improvements in performance, our expectations and our promotion of wider! achievement.

Examination results are only one indicator! of the school’s effectiveness and should be considered within the context of each pupil’s individual progress. !

page 4 standards and quality report for 2013-2014 Headlines from our 2014 Exams From S4 G The results achieved in 2014 at all levels in S4, outperformed both the Falkirk and Scottish averages. G Two pupils passed Higher Latin, three pupils passed Higher Photography and eight pupils passed Higher Modern Studies – all one year early. From S5 G Our pupils in S5 maintained a very strong set of results at Higher level with increases at all levels and which we anticipate will place us in the top 50 schools in Scotland (from over 400) for the fourth year in a row. G 86 pupils (27%) passed 5 or more Highers - with 14 pupils achieving 5 Highers at Grade ‘A’. G 156 pupils (48%) achieved 3 or more Highers and 213 pupils (67%) achieved at least one Higher – these are our highest ever levels! G As well as these excellent Higher results, two-thirds of S5 have at least 5 Intermediate 2 awards (which can be used to enter college or as a stepping stone to Higher). From S6 G Larbert High School pupils, in S6, have secured another very strong set of Higher and Advanced Higher results, with an overall improving trend over the last 5 years. G Five pupils gained the Scottish Baccalaureate in Science and Languages. G Eight of our pupils passed three Advanced Highers at the same sitting, with two of them achieving grade ‘A’ in all three.

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! Highlights of our Achievements and Developments There have been numerous achievements which have helped to develop and enhance pupil experience and school identity. These have included: 1. In November we had the privilege of mingling with the very best leaders in their field at the Nature of Scotland Awards, which are designed to recognise and celebrate excellence, innovation and outstanding achievement in Scottish nature conservation. We won the highly coveted Youth & Education Award, which was presented to us by Sally Magnusson and Fred MacAulay. This recognises the wonderful work that has been done in the Carron Dams Nature Reserve which is used by many subject areas in an interdisciplinary learning capacity. 2. All of our first years have taken part in the John Muir Award with over 300 pupils achieving discovery level. This is led by the humanities faculty with a focus on encouraging people from all backgrounds to care for wild places. 3. We have established a school community garden with the help of Communities Along the Carron (CACTA) which has resulted in us accessing grants, local help and now growing and selling our own produce. 4. Our work in promoting Glasgow 2014 and the Commonwealth Games Legacy resulted in Education Scotland awarding us with a Game On Scotland plaque. 5. Our Captains’ Challenge was launched this year involving 1200 pupils and will leave a lasting legacy in the school for generations to follow. It included a visit to the school by Sir Chris Hoy in April and Judy Murray in October. The aim of the challenge was to increase physical or cultural activities in our young people and was complemented with a series of visits from seven Commonwealth athletes. 6. Nicola Morgan, our Patron of Reading, hosted an event along with our S1 literacy quiz during our ‘Literacy Across Larbert’ week in March, to promote our young people as better readers, writers, listeners and speakers. 7. We have had many activities in the Science field with awards being won from the Concrete Society, The Royal Society of Chemistry, The Chemistry Olympiad and our Go4set winners from last year shared their good practice at the UK Young Scientists and Engineer Fair in Birmingham. In addition we received a visit from ‘Lab in a Lorry’ as part of the National Science and Engineering Week celebrations and hosted a Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Fair, designed to increase the number of young people entering into a positive destination in these fields.

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8. Our charity work and fundraising!

continues to grow from strength! to strength, supporting Help for Heroes, Maggie’s Cancer Centre! soon to be built at Forth Valley! Hospital, our link with Woodlands ! School in Cape Town; Children in Need; Movember; Shoe Box!

Appeal for Belarus; Epilepsy! Awareness Day and the Children’s Hospice Scotland raising around £14,000. In total the generosity of our young people and their families has been outstanding. 9. Thirteen pupils working towards their gold Duke of Edinburgh award visited Gambia in April volunteering and renovating a skills centre for locals and almost seventy pupils achieved their silver award. 10. The Tryst Community Sports Club continues its success with the promotion of health and wellbeing across the school with 63 different clubs and activities from 7.30am until late in the evening and 17 young sportsmen and women regularly competing in a variety of sports at regional, national and international level. We have secured funding in excess of £220,000 to construct a ‘bike pump track’, which will be the only one of its type in Scotland.11. We continue to host numerous high proﬁle events, all performed to capacity audiences. Our school show ‘Fame’ was outstanding and highlighted an abundance of dramatic and musical talent, our Dance Showcase showed off dance and movement skills of a professional standard from all year groups including some from our cluster primaries and our School of Dance pupils. Our fourth environmentally friendly Trash Fashion show produced some stunning creative and artistic outﬁts all designed and made by our pupils. 12. The Expressive Arts Faculty had an evening of celebrations where the Musical Theatre and Theatre in Education WAO performed, and the Music Technology WAO provided the lighting and sound back up and the Photography WAO mounted a display of their work. This was in addition to performances at Strathcarron, the Dobbie Hall and our associated primaries, a performance with an African Choir and the Drama group’s play ‘First Contact’ written and devised by the pupils.

standards and quality report for 2013-2014 page 7 What are we going to do next? In session 2014-2015 it is our intention to continue our journey to excellence by ensuring academic and wider opportunities are available to all our pupils through our Broad General Education (S1-S3) and our Senior Phase (S4-S6) offering a diverse range of courses and experiences to allow our pupils to achieve success, prepare them for their pathway when they leave school and to strive for further academic excellence. In particular we are going to focus on: G improving levels of attainment for all learners. G enhancing our tracking and monitoring approaches to track attainment, achievements and skills in the Broad General Education (BGE) and Senior Phase. G integrating our subject profiles with our S3 profiles and our Optimum Award to support young people in articulating their strengths, their achievements and their next steps. ! G the implementation of the new National Qualifications and revise our internal verification! and moderation procedures to ensure a consistently high quality of delivery. ! !! G updating our learning & teaching policy to include best practice video clips from! across our Cluster schools. G extending our interdisciplinary learning (IDL) policy across all year groups. ! G introducing a new electronic homework system called ‘Show My Homework’

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! Work and Life of the School How are we doing?/How do we know? During session 2013-2014, the school made very good progress with improvements in the following areas: G We have ensured that our 2 year courses have ‘added value’ units to give our pupils the best possible chance of achieving their targets. G Wi-Fi has been installed throughout the school, and we produced and published a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device policy) to allow the use of mobile phones and other technology to enhance the learning experience for our young people. G We continued to improve our transition processes at all stages with a particular focus on individual plans, course choices and vocational experiences which resulted in 99.3% of our young people moving into a positive destination. This was achieved through partnership working with Forth Valley College, Employment and Training Unit, Community Learning & Development and Skills Development Scotland. G We introduced the ‘Optimum Award’ for our first year pupils, which is a Larbert achievement award to complement pupil profiles. G We planned for the implementation of a 33 period week including introducing electives in S2 to complete the BGE and further refine our Senior Phase. G We developed and implemented a new Numeracy across Learning policy resulting in all first year pupils gaining their numeracy passport. G We redefined our pupils support facilities and created a nurture base to provide additional support for some of our young people and their families.

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! What are we going to do next? We will: G extend the! range of subjects available in the Senior Phase working with partners and local businesses to achieve this and we will review our curricular !policies to take account of this. G we will implement additional time within our BGE for S1 Transition and extend the Skills !for Learning, Life & Work agenda with the addition of further BGE electives. ! G introduce !a S6 Transition programme, a community volunteering programme and create a framework for the delivery of RMPS in the Senior Phase. ! G with colleagues across our Cluster, pilot a new approach for the delivery of PE and Music and design a 1+2 languages programme which complements ! our work within our BGE. G revise our! health and wellbeing (HWB) programme, particularly focussing on transitions from the BGE to Senior Phase with the aim of achieving 100% positive destinations.! G develop an alternative to exclusion programme and further embed the principles! of a nurturing school.

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! Vision and Leadership How are we doing?/How do we know? We work with teachers, parents and other parties to develop and shape a common vision for our school. Our vision is ﬁrmly based on outcomes for our learners and is clearly linked to national and local priorities. Continuous improvement, achievement and success for our learners are central to our school’s strategic direction. In this respect, one of our key priorities is to continue with our positive partnership working and to develop and distribute leadership at all levels. We have made very good progress in the following areas: G Our pupil council was restructured to involve senior pupils leading and mentoring younger pupils. G We involved pupils in the recruitment and selection of staff through lesson observation feedback and involvement on interview panels. G We embarked on a tiered introduction of the new employee review & development (ERD) process to further enhance the skills of our staff. G We have ensured our quality assurance system is in place involving leadership at senior and middle level and requiring all staff to play a role in this. G A successful IDL experience for S3 pupils was led by our probationer teachers and resulted in a project for the entire year group involving all subject areas. G We have registered and are working towards achieving UNICEF Rights Respecting School status through excellent work in global citizenship and sustainable schools. G Our programme of three learning and teaching reviews within a school session continued involving members of the senior and middle leadership teams and using the ﬁndings to inform our improvement and quality assurance agendas.

standards and quality report for 2013-2014 page 11 What are we going to do next? The priorities for our Improvement Plan for session 2014-2015 have been identiﬁed through consultation with groups of pupils, staff and parents. In particular we will: G look to increase pupil and parent voice through surveys, questionnaires and focus groups and extend our programme of parental information sessions. G introduce a ‘Leadership Academy’ to provide formal leadership opportunities for S1-S6 pupils so that this contributes to the conﬁdence and personal skills of our young people to equip them for life in the 21st century. G enhance our self-evaluation and quality assurance procedures with the introduction of a Performance Manager Role at Senior Leadership level to track and monitor targets, data and process to ensure that they have an impact on pupil progress. G continue to implement our new ERD programme which is linked to the General Teaching Council Scotland (GTCS) professional update process. G update and embed our self-evaluation policy in line with national guidance from Education Scotland.

Conclusion!

Larbert High! School has a focused continuous improvement agenda which we have made very good progress in the last year in almost all of the areas ! identiﬁed. ! In session 2014-2015 a number of further improvements will be embarked !upon which will enhance the experience of our pupils. Full details of these improvements! can be found on our website at www.larberthigh.com.

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! Appendix 1 S3 Achievement in 2014 Since 2008, Larbert High School has presented all pupils in S3 for SQA examinations. This is a year earlier than most other Scottish secondary schools. S3 results are not published nationally – this only applies to results in other year groups. Under Curriculum for Excellence, other than in exceptional circumstances, presentation for examinations in S3 is being phased out (this is a national position). In 2014, the following results were obtained by pupils at the end of S3: G 57 pupils achieved awards in three National 5 subjects; G 102 pupils achieved awards in two National 5 subjects; G 161 pupils achieved an award in one National 5 subject.

S4 Achievement in 2014 Previously in S4, some of our pupils ‘topped up’ what they had achieved in S3. Other pupils start their Higher and National courses which they complete over two years. As intimated previously, the introduction of new Curriculum for Excellence qualifications means that comparisons with the past results are no longer appropriate or valid for the S4 pupil cohort. However, some ‘headline’ figures from 2014 worthy of note are: G Our most literate S4 cohort, ever! 174 pupils (59% of the year group) gained a qualification in National 5 English (an increase of 8% when compared with a similar level of qualification from last year) and all pupils who attended school achieved a literacy qualification. G 99.3% of the year group achieved a qualification in Mathematics, with more pupils achieving this at a higher level than ever before.

standards and quality report for 2013-2014 page 13 S5 Achievement 1 or more Awards at SCQF Level 6 (% of pupils achieving 3 passes, or better, at Higher Level)

By the end 2012 2013 2014 of S5 62% 65% 67%

3 or more Awards at SCQF Level 6 (% of pupils achieving 3 passes, or better, at Higher Level)

By the end 2012 2013 2014 of S5 42% 39% 48%

5 or more Awards at SCQF Level 6 (% of pupils achieving 5 passes, or better, at Higher Level)

By the end 2012 2013 2014 of S5 28% 21% 27% S6 Achievement 1 or more Awards at SCQF Level 6 (% of pupils achieving 1 pass, or better, at Higher Level)

By the end 2012 2013 2014 of S6 67% 68% 69%

3 or more Awards at SCQF Level 6 (% of pupils achieving 3 passes, or better, at Higher Level)

By the end 2012 2013 2014 of S6 48% 53% 51%

5 or more Awards at SCQF Level 6 (% of pupils achieving 5 passes, or better, at Higher Level)

By the end 2012 2013 2014 of S6 35% 39% 38%

1 or more Awards at SCQF Level 7 (% of pupils achieving 1 pass, or better, at Advanced Higher Level)

By the end 2012 2013 2014 of S6 20% 28% 27%

page 14 standards and quality report for 2013-2014 Feedback of our Standards and Quality We are very keen to receive you comments and feedback to help us to improve our report for next year. If you could take a few minutes to complete the questions below we would be most grateful. Yes No

1. Did this report have information that was useful to you about Larbert High School? 2. Was the report written in way that was easy to read and understand? 3. Was the examination information easy to understand? 4. Please give any comments that you feel would be useful for us to consider when designing next years report

Please return to: Rector Larbert High School Carrongrange Avenue Stenhousemuir FK5 3BL www.larberthigh.com Twitter: @LarbertHigh Ê standards and quality report for 2013-2014 page 15 A ' NE FOR A

Larbert High School Carrongrange Avenue · Stenhousemuir · Larbert · FK5 3BL Telephone: 01324 554233 · Fax: 01324 503551 Email: [email protected] Web: www.larberthigh.com

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