Dunbar Grammar School

Last Friday I sat down with R. Munro and L. Sinclair from the Scottish Government to get feedback from the HMIe visit.  They were looking at the impact so far of a School of Ambition and in particular the five development foci: Leadership, Confidence, Expectations, Learning and Teaching and Inclusion and Community Engagement.  It had always been clear to us that we would find it hard to disentangle the direct impact of the school of ambition programme from the general and multiple improvements the school has made.  This was confirmed by HMIe who found it ‘hard to call’.  During their visit they saw lots of examples of excellent practice, including learning and teaching and pupil inclusion, but, again, it was hard to say whether these were as a direct example of School of Ambition.  I am quite comfortable with this as our long term aims as stated in our Transformational Plan are as follows:

Overall Long – Term Impact

We are firmly of the belief that our innovative programme will have a dramatic and transformational impact upon the students and community of Dunbar.

We believe that by accessing the Schools of Ambition programme we will accelerate our plans over a three-year period to a point where the initiative will

Be sustained beyond the access to external funding streams. In three years’ time, Dunbar Grammar will be characterized as follows:

· Students and staff willing to be leaders, taking managed risks and opening their minds to innovative, exciting and inspiring learning opportunities.

· A student, parent and staff body full of confidence and cohesion, able to face all the challenges of the 21st century.

· A student, parent and staff body with high expectations and a thirst for life within and beyond their own community.

· A vibrant, exciting school full of successful, confident learners working together to ensure the highest level of achievement and attainment.

· Students and adults with an acute level of responsibility towards their local community and an ability to assume their role as global citizens.

Whilst it may be hard to attribute our improvement directly to the School of Ambition programme many of the long-term areas of impact were seen by the inspectors, including leadership, confidence, raised expectations, excellent classroom practice and examples of inclusion and community engagement. This is good enough for me and I have spent the week feeding back this outcome to assemblies, telling them how proud we are of them and the staff of the school. 

Other things happening this week.

I began our STACs exams analysis meetings this week.  These differed from previous years as they involved all departments having pre-STACs meetings with their line managers.  This has been really well received as a support and opportunity to examine more deeply the work of the departments.  This, in turn, has allowed me to concentrate on the next steps and bigger pictures during the STACs meetings.  On Tuesday I attended fire safety training along with the other HT’s and members of FES/FM.  This was very informative and interesting, including getting a shot of a fire extinguisher!  On Friday we had a Jeans for genes dressdown. In the afternoon I attended the ‘Celebrating Success’ meeting at Port Seton Community centre.  It was good to see the wide range of activities being undertaken in East Lothian schools.