Page 2 Welcome

Page 3 Attainment

Page 4 Our Inspection

Page 5 Achievement - Prefects

Page 6 Achievement - Gold

Medal

Page 7 Achievement-Award

Winners

Page 8 Achievement -SFA

Page 9 Achievement -Scottish

Champion

Page 10 Achievement - ASDAN

Page 11 /12 Little Shop of Horrors

Page 13 Global Citizenship

Page 14 Raising Attainment

Page 15/16 Opportunity

Page 17 An Invite

Dear Parents / Carers

We look forward to this year with much excitement as we introduce new courses and quali-

fications. In Castlehead we are proud of the opportunities that are available to our pupils

and in this newsletter you will find details of the clubs and activities that will be offered this

year.

You can be assured of our commitment and our ambition for every pupil to:

be confident, articulate, positive, optimistic, determined, resilient and resourceful.

gain the highest possible qualifications and to achieve across a whole range of activities

be ambitious - to dream big and have the courage to go for it.

As a result of this our Improvement Plan for session 2013 / 14 will focus on

Building our school community with a focus on recognising and celebrating success,

further improving communication with pupils and parents, further improving atten-

dance and late coming and aiming to be awarded ' rights respecting school' status

Ensuring that we continue to aim for the highest quality of learning and teaching

through continuing to share good practice, reflecting on our performance and having

in place robust quality assurance procedures.

Improving pupil performance by further developing tracking systems, our mentoring

programme and programmes that will develop skills for learning.

Building our curriculum through introducing National 4 and National 5 qualifications

and preparing for the introduction of new courses in session 2014 /15

Building connections with our partners, with parents and developing our approach to

global citizenship.

This year we want to encourage pupils to practice more, to consolidate their learning , com-

plete all their homework - this will make a difference - our most successful pupils are the

pupils who work hardest and practice the most.

Our key messages for pupils are

Successful pupils practice

Intelligence is built up through effort and hard work

Your efforts can affect your outcomes

Believe that you can be successful

Consolidate and practice

Talent is over rated

Be a positive influence .

Fourth Year

5 or more Generals

Fourth Year

5 or more Credits

Fifth Year

3Highers

%

%

%

Attainment

60

65

70

75

80

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

0

5

10

15

20

25

2005 2007 2009 2011 2013

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Fifth Year

5 Highers

%

Our pupils have once again maintained the upward trend in performance. Our results at Higher were

our best ever and our fourth year performed with much credit - improving on our previous best for

general awards and having the third highest set of credit awards out of the last 10 years.

Special mention should go to Jonathan Brown, Kate Tees and Cameron Swanson who all achieved 5 A

Band 1 passes at Higher - a tremendous achievement to score over 85 % in each exam.

A large number of our pupils were successful in achieving ASDAN awards, Duke of Edinburgh, City

and Guilds and Saltire Awards.

Our Inspection

The school was inspected in earlier this year. Nine Inspectors from Education Scotland visited the school for one

week and observed over 60 lessons, met with staff, pupils, parents and partners.

The report produced is very positive, and is one of the strongest in Scotland. I am particularly pleased that the report

recognises the hard work, effort and commitment of both the staff and pupils in ensuring the highest quality of learn-

ing and teaching and that it recognises the achievements of our pupils.

The inspection found the following key strengths.

The welcoming, respectful young people and

their willingness to take responsibility.

Staff’s commitment to providing young

people with high-quality learning

experiences.

Young people’s achievements in a wide range

of activities.

The school’s nurturing and inclusive ethos.

The senior management team’s leadership

and commitment to ensuring that young

people do the best they can.

Castlehead Celebrates

‘I am delighted with our report which recognises the

ambition, the hard work and the efforts of both the

pupils and staff of Castlehead.

Staff are proud of this school and the achievements of

our pupils and the report highlights those many

achievements.

We are ambitious for our school and for every pupil

in the school and we now want to build on our cur-

rent success and continue to work hard to secure fur-

ther improvements.’

Our Head Boys, Head Girls and S5 Prefects

Senior Head Boy and Girls

Oakshaw Lewis McConnell Lauren Gordon

Cameron Swanson Kate Tees Sophie Longmuir

Camphill Martin Byrne Aimie Leech

Maxwellton Jonathan Brown Natalie Hislop

Tannahill Jack McCarthy Hannah Wilson

Glasgow Annual Art Competition for Young People

Congratulations go to Natalie Hislop, Sophie Wong and Gemma Muir

for their medal winning performances in the in the Glasgow

Museums Annual Art Competition for young people at Kelvingrove Art

Gallery. Sophie and Gemma were awarded Gold Medals and Natalie a Bronze Medal.

Congratulations must also go to Cara Henney, Lewis Foulds and Anton Andreyev

who received Highly Commended certificates.

Congratulations also to Kirstin Everett whose work was Commended for the work she pro-

duced.

This is one the most prestigious drawing competitions in Scotland and has

run annually for over a hundred years. Medals are rare with only six

awards in each age category selected from around 4,000 entries. Our medal winners are now

looking forward to the award ceremony in October.

Achievement - The Gold Medal

Sophie

Gemma

Lewis

Achievement - Award Winners

Achievement - SFA Awards

As our School of Football continues to grow and develop it has been joined by a School of

Rugby. We now work in partnership with the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish

Rugby Union. This allows more opportunity for more pupils to develop not only physical

well being but to develop the skills that they will need to be successful in school and beyond

A group of 30 young people, all fifth year pu-

pils from Renfrewshire schools, spent their

summer holidays taking part in the Recruit with

the aim of earning an £18,000 job at the end of

it.

The Recruit is run by the Renfrewshire Council

in partnership with local businesses and organi-

zations to give young people practical experi-

ence and advice on starting a career.

The young people took part in seven business

challenges and also took part in courses in cus-

tomer care, stress management, presentation

and interview skills. Lauren successfully took

on all these challenges and represented Castle-

head with distinction.

Lauren Goldthorp - our successful recruit

Achievement -Our Scottish Champion

.

Our Athletic Champions

Callum Mathews is the new U18 Scottish Champion at 1500m. This is an outstanding achievement. Callum was behind

going into the final lap but ran a spectacular 54 seconds to overhaul the two athletes in front of him. Callum certainly has a

golden career in athletics ahead of him

Our Championships were held in May this year . Above is our champions who went on to successfully compete at the

Renfrewshire Championships

Achievement - Asdan

Congratulations to our S4 pupils who have successfully completed their ASDAN-Bronze Award.

ASDAN (Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network) The ASDAN course helps our young

people to gain valuable skills for life and work. The pupils completed 60 hours of development work. They

enhanced their own learning through use of ICT, English & Maths. Gaining skills in number application, com-

munication, finding/exploring and presenting information. They worked towards and successfully completed

targets. They are now confident at recognising problems and doing something about them using different meth-

ods to find a solution. They all completed their S3 goal of achieving their Bronze Award.

Currently this term the pupils have already gained their next credit towards their ASDAN Silver Award. Well

done to all in the group keep up the hard work.

Congratulations to the members of the

Paired Reading Management Team who

were successful in gaining a City and

Guilds Achievement award.

Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors

Global Citizenship - Mary’s Meals

A team of 19 S4-S6 pupils, accompanied by Ms. Whitnall and Mr Dunlop will be

travelling to Ghana in June 2013 to take part in a 2 week World Challenge Expedi-

tion. The group will work alongside local communities in Ghana completing prac-

tical projects which benefit the local people. The expedition gives the pupils an

opportunity to learn about Ghanaian culture by living alongside and being im-

mersed in the daily life of local people.

The reality of the expedition is starting to set in now, and the pupils taking part in

the World Challenge are already hard at work researching the project and planning

the fund-raising required for the expedition. Many team members have already be-

gun raising money individually, and there are a number of bigger fundraising

events planned across the coming months, including bag packing, non uniform

days and sponsored events.

This is an exciting opportunity for all of the team involved, and we look for-

ward to the whole school community supporting the team to make the expedi-

Global Citizenship -World Challenge

Mary's Meals recently collected the backpacks donated by staff and pupils during the last term. In total there were 17 full backpacks donated. There were also many carrier bags of spare spoons, ten-nis balls, toothpaste, notepads etc which will be sorted out by staff at Mary's Meals and used to complete any backpacks with missing items.

Raising Attainment - Live N Learn

Live - N - Learn As part of our drive to raise achievement and attainment all our senior pupils will take part in a Live N Learn presentation and workshop day during September. The workshops aim to inspire confidence in young people but also encourage stu-dents to take personal responsibility, adopt a growth mindset and develop their resilience.

We use Live N Learn because the messages that they promote are the same messages that we as a school are promoting.

‘ A strong message exists within all of our courses, that if you want to succeed in life, you need to take personal responsibil-

ity, and make things happen for yourself. We believe that your intelligence, abilities, talents and personality are not simply

fixed traits that cannot be altered. On the contrary, we advocate that all our qualities and skills can be developed through hard

graft, effort and practice.

Since 2006 Live-N-Learn have ensured that every course we have run has focused on resilience and changing attitudes from

the 'fixed mindset' to a 'growth mindset'. Are we saying that anyone can be a Rocket Scientist or an extremely gifted and tal-

ented footballer? NO, what we are saying is that everyone has the potential to improve on most aspects of their lives. How-

ever, in order for that improvement to occur there has to be an acknowledgement that hard work is required and a willingness

to hang in there with a passion when setbacks occur.

When striving for success, people perform best when they have a sense of purpose and are willing to take personal responsi-

bility for their own actions and their own learning. Another misconception we dispel is the notion that confidence is only evi-

dent in those who can shout from the rooftops and excel in public performance. Confidence does not always have to be dem-

onstrated extrovertly. People can be self assured, know what they want and set about achieving their goals with a quiet deter-

mination.’

Your Mindset is to do with what you think you are capable of achieving. Your mindset is about your attitude to life and all its

challenges. Usually people have either a FIXED mindset or a GROWTH mindset. People with a fixed mindset believe that

their basic skills and qualities are more or less set from birth and there is not a lot you can do about it. They adopt the attitude

of “It’s okay for her, she’s brainy” or “ He’s artistic” or “He’s sporty” or “She’s musical” If they are not good at something

from the word go then they don’t see the point in putting in the effort to learn it.

On the other hand, people with a growth mindset believe that most things can be achieved through hard work, practice and by

not giving up when things get difficult. They know that some people might be particularly talented at certain things but recog-

nise that for them this is just a starting point and that even these people need to work hard in order to improve on their talent.

People who have a growth mindset achieve more in life whether it be in sport or music or acting or business or exam re-

sults .They achieve more because they have RESILIENCE. This means when things get hard they don’t give up, they hang in

there and keep practicing and give it another shot until they make it right.

Michael Jordan, the world’s most famous Basketball player was not regarded as being a naturally gifted player. In fact he was

dropped from his high school team. However Jordan had loads of RESILIENCE.

"I have missed more than 9000 shots, lost almost 300 games, on 26 occasions been entrusted to take the winning game

shot... and missed. I have failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeeded"

He listened to advice from those with experience, never stopped trying and continually kept practicing to improve the skills

that he did have. It paid of for him in the end!

Day Activity Time Year/s Staff Venue Info

Mon Bleep test Lunch All PE Dept PE Dept

Drama Club Lunch All S6 Pupils Rm 221

Table Tennis Lunch All SL’s PE

DVD Club Lunch Al Mrs Cattigan Rm 115

Percussion ensemble 1.30pm Mr Dunlop Rm M2

AYS Lunch All Mr Maiolani Rm 119

Netball 3.45-4.45 S1-4 Mrs.Scott Hall seniors

welcome

Netball 3.45-

5.15pm

Senior Mrs.Scott Hall

Rugby 3.45-5pm All RDO TBC Scottish

Rugby

Concert Band 3.40-4.30 Mr.Dunlop Auditorium

Tues Drama Club Lunch All S6 Pupils Rm 221

DVD Club Lunch All Mrs.Cattigan Rm 115

Media Club Lunch All Miss.McNally Rm 206

Table Tennis Lunch All SL’s PE

AYS Lunch All Mr Maiolani Rm 119

Racquet Ball Lunch All Mr.McGeoch Hall

Badminton 3.40-5pm All Mr.Jack School

String Group 3.40-4.30 Mr.Dunlop Rm M3

Wed Computer Games Lunch S1-2 Miss.McNally Rm 206

AYS Lunch All Mr.Maiolani Rm 119

Paired Reading Lunch S1-2 Mr Maiolani Eng Corridor

Table Tennis Lunch All SL’s PE

Jnr Basketball Lunch S1-4 RSSE Gym/Hall

Opportunity

Date Activity Time Year/s Staff Venue Info

Wed Hockey 3-

3.40pm

All Mr.McGeoch School

Jnr Basketball 3-4pm S1-4 RSSE Gym/Hall

Athletics Club 3-4pm All YA School

Thurs ECO Lunch All Mrs.McCarte Rm 114

AYS Lunch All Mr.Maiolani RM 119

Computer Games Lunch All Miss.McNall

y

Rm 206

Jnr Choir Lunch S1-3 Mr.Dunop Rm M2

Sen Choir Lunch S4-6 Mr.Dunlop Rm M1

Music Club 3.40-

4.30

S1-2 Mr.Dunlop Rm M3

Girls Football 3.45-

5pm

S1-4 SL’s Gym/Ash park

Girls Rugby 3.45-

5pm

All RDO School Scottish

Rugby

Basketball 4-5pm Senior D.Gray Hall

Tennis 3.45-

5pm

All SL’s Tennis Courts

Table Tennis Lunch All SL’s PE

Fri Volleyball Lunch Senior SL’s Hall

AYS Lunch All Mr.Maiolani Rm 119

Paired Reading Lunch S1-2 Mr.Maiolani Eng Corridor

Table Tennis Lunch All SL’s PE

Athletics 3-4pm All YA School

Opportunity

Our Vision:

Inspiring our

young people

to be the very best

they can be.

From 4.00pm

An Open

Evening

Tuesday

1 October

S1 parents

welcome

Visit our new web site

We have updated our website in order to make it more accessible and

easier to use.

The Parent Council have taken responsibility for a section of it and

will soon be using it as a way to communicate with all parents.

On our web site you will find our school policies as well as option

booklets , details of our curriculum and newsletters.

There is a section called ‘HT Blog’ and I will use that to keep you

up to date with what is happening in Castlehead. Please let me know