Dunbar Grammar School

This has been a very interesting week.  I conducted my first pre-stacs meeting which seemed to go well on Monday.  This enabled us to talk in a little more depth about the outcomes derived from the stacs report and the relationship between the stats and the departmental improvement plan.  On Tuesday I attended the first meeting of a council-wide performance strategy group.  It was really interesting meeting with colleagues from outside of Children’s services and I think this group will give me an even wider perspective of self-evaluation and quality control.  On Wednesday I spent time finalizing our programme for the HMIe visit to look at School of Ambition.  Staff and students were really up for the visit of the two inspectors, D. Marr and M. McAdam.  As our development focus involves Learning and Teaching and Inclusion and Community Engagement as well as leadership, confidence and expectations, the visit was widened to visiting classes and speaking to inclusion.  On Thursday evening we had our S1 and P7 open evening which was also visited by D. Marr and which gave him an opportunity to see lots of examples of active learning and to meet the school council, parents and other teachers and students.  On Friday afternoon we had a feedback discussion which was very positive about the school, including learning and teaching, strength of staff, pupil support and culture.  What was harder to ascertain, which did not come as a surprise to us, was the impact of the school of ambition project.  We had said from the outset that this project was intended to prime our engine and accelerate our progress on the journey to excellence.  Unfortunately, but subsuming everything we are doing under a banner of Curriculum for Excellence and a Journey to Excellence it is more difficult to measure progress, explicated attributed to a School of Ambition.  This visit has helped us focus on the need to have more explicit measures for School of Ambition and to ensure that all stakeholders are aware of our journey and part of the programme.  My thanks go out to the staff, students and parents, who did themselves proud and who again, remind me of how privileged I am to play a part in leading Dunbar Grammar.