Douglas Academy Parent Council Session 2016/2017 Minute of Meeting 19 September 2017

Douglas Academy Parent Council Session 2016/2017 Minute of Meeting 19 September 2017

Attendance

Neil Miller (Chair), Ramsay Shields, Lisa Cameron, Cllr.Goodall, Barry Smedley (Head Teacher), Lisa Armstrong, Scott Taylor, Mascha Rietdijk ,Tracy Christie, Kenny Gray, Lisa Cameronl, Jill Campbell, Mary Lou Graham, Stefan Waclawski, Sarah Allan,Heidi Ville,Caroline Peffers,Elaine Mawer

• Apologies

Cllr McGinnigle

Cathy Macallum

Anne Marie Young

• Minutes of Previous Meeting

These were agreed to be correct.

• Matters Arising

1. It was noted on this year’s handbook address of PC members was on it, whilst it cannot be removed this year will be amended to name only next year. ACTION BS

2. NM raise concerns re continual lateness of school buses and PC wished him to write to head of education and raise the matter. ACTION NM

3. Office Bearers 2017/18: A vote was taken and Neil Miller was elected Chair and Clerk for the PC for year 2017/18. Paperwork was subsequently completed and sent to EDC Shared Services.

4. A discussion took place on difficulty of getting news in local papers. NM to approach paper and try and facilitate some greater news coverage of really noteworthy events. ACTION NM

5. NM gave short update on Parent Forum meeting he attended the night before.

6. BS update PC on new Douglas Academy app that is shortly coming out and that school website was being updated to freshen it up as EDC felt it was getting dated. Info on new app would come out to all parents as and when it was available.

• Head Teachers Report – attached.

Head Teachers Report- Parent Council AGM 19th September 2017

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I deliver the Head Teacher’s report for session 2016 – 17. At the end of this month I will have completed my first year in post and it has without a doubt been my most enjoyable year in teaching so far. There have been so many highlights throughout the year, some of which I will mention in this report, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members of our school community for welcoming and supporting me throughout my first year as Head Teacher of this wonderful school.

Session 2016 – 2017 has been another very successful session for Douglas Academy. Our staff have continued to deliver high quality learning and teaching experiences and our young people have continued to thrive, performing outstandingly well across a wide range of measures. We continue to build on our strong performance in SQA exams achieved over the last couple of sessions, with particular note given to the increase in pupils achieving 5+ National 5 (74%) and 1+ at Advanced Higher (42%)- both of which were our best performances ever at Douglas Academy. This is testament not only to the efforts of all our young people but also to the commitment and efforts of our staff during a time of unprecedented change in education. A more detailed analysis of our school’s results can be found below.

SCQF Level 4- National 4

SCQF Level 5- National 5

SCQF Level 6- Higher

SCQF Level 7- Advanced Higher

Insight was updated on 15th September so we are currently analysing whole school results in relation to the four National Measures. These measures are outlined below:

• Improving attainment in literacy and numeracy (Percentage of leavers attaining literacy and numeracy at SCQF levels 4 and 5)
• Increasing post-school participation (Percentage of school leavers in a positive destination)
• Improving attainment for all (Average total tariff points)
• Tackling disadvantage by improving the attainment of lower attainers relative to higher attainers (Attainment versus Deprivation)

Insight is a major online benchmarking tool designed to help bring about improvements for learners in the senior phase (S4 to S6). It is a professional tool for secondary schools and local authorities to identify areas of success and where improvements can be made.

During this time our staff have continued to participate in professional development activities that further develop and enhance their capacity to provide the best possible learning experiences and this is a key driver in the attainment and achievement of all of our young people. These professional development activities continue to be a key focus of our school improvement plan and will continue this session.

A statement I make regularly to staff and pupils is “we all know exam results are very important”, however, school is about so much more than just achieving qualifications. I know that Douglas Academy delivers far more than just an outstanding academic experience to our young people as our staff also deliver a range of wider opportunities that help further develop skills for learning, life and work.

We continue to run over 50 lunchtime and after school clubs; this includes a number of opportunities in Music, Sport, Public Speaking, Debating and the list goes on.

I mentioned at the beginning of this report that there have been so many highlights this session, and I would love to tell you about every single individual achievement, however, that would take a considerable length of time so I will select just a few.

Music

As ever, we had many musical highlights. It was a very busy year with many successful solo and ensemble performances from the Variety concert in November to a packed St Paul's Church for the Christmas concert; the Annual Recital and then our Easter Concert. From January to March our Music School musicians performed with professional musicians from Live Music Now and a group of our musicians performed at the Aberdeen International Youth Festival in July. At the Glasgow Music Festival in March our Senior Choir won the Anne Wiseman Trophy for the best school choir; our First Orchestra won the A.M. Ross Memorial Trophy for the best overall School Orchestra and we also had numerous individual prize-winners at the festival, including solo classes, composition and chamber music with no fewer than 27 first places.

Many of our students have been a part of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, with some performing at the Royal Albert Hall in London as part of London Proms. Finally, two of our musicians won places on the European Youth Summer Music course, working with other young musicians from across the EU and this is just a small selection of our musical achievements as I am afraid there are too many to mention.

Debating

Similarly to our musical achievements, this year has witnessed debating teams from Douglas Academy achieve unprecedented success across a number of local and national competitions.

Matthew McIlree and Arun Smith won the Scottish Final of the Law Society of Scotland’s Donald Dewar Memorial Debating competition in the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament on 15 June. Matthew and Arun defeated teams in the final from The High School of Dundee, Kelvinside Academy and Madras College.

Orla Vennard and Chloe Beardsley won the Scottish Final of the English Speaking Union Junior Debating Competition in Committee Room 1 of the Scottish Parliament on 22 June. Chloe and Orla defeated teams from Craigmount High School and St Columba’s in the final. Maeve Connolly and Imogen Milling should also be congratulated on reaching the semi-final of the competition this year.

A number of other notable debating performances include Aidan Johnson and Arun Smith getting to Scottish Final of the English Speaking Union’s Senior Mace Debating Competition; Kathleen Ewing, Advaith Sastry, Emma Venables and Aidan Johnson getting to the final of Scottish and Northern Ireland Final of Debating Matters; Meera Kaiser and Sandy Christie getting to the Scottish final of the International Competition for Young Debaters; and Raj Bhaumik and Eoghan Connolly getting to the final of the Glasgow Bar Debating Competition in Glasgow Sheriff Court in June.

Finally, our most recent success was the Douglas Academy team of Poppy Dempster, Jonathan Douglas , Hannah Duthie, Esther Fletcher, Matthew McIlree, Iona Paterson, Calum Silcock and Arun Smith being selected to represent the UK at the 87th International session of the European Youth Parliament in Vilnius, Lithuania, in Summer 2018. The eight senior pupils were selected at the National Selection Forum in Liverpool last weekend, having qualified from the West of Scotland Forum. The team were chosen after four days of teambuilding, committee work, and General Assembly, working with pupils from 13 schools from across the UK and Northern Ireland with guest teams from Sweden and Portugal. Our pupils are now looking forward to the International Forum where they will work with students from the thirty-six European countries involved in EYP in researching and debating matters affecting all of Europe.

Debating happens weekly with all year groups and our successes against many of the top schools across Britain are simply amazing.

Charity Work

At Douglas, we realise the importance of supporting charities in and beyond our local community. Our Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) is run through our Social Subjects department and is a fantastic opportunity for all S2 pupils to provide support to a chosen local charity. I had the pleasure of judging the group presentations in June and this resulted in £3000 being donated to Milngavie Old Peoples’ Welfare Committee.

Our S5/6 Skills for Learning, Life and Work group ran our very successful MacMillan Coffee morning, our Vintage Tea Afternoon for Carers’ Link and our Homeless Christmas Box Appeal resulted in donations to Bellgrove Homeless Hostel and Glasgow City Mission. Our S4 Hospitality Group ran a ‘Cooking with Carers event’ and our ‘Lunch box drop’ saw our pupils deliver lunch to the elderly residents of Milngavie. We also support East Dunbartonshire Council’s Foodbank with several collections taking place throughout the year.

We continue to support the Valley Centre School in Liberia through the Mary’s Meals charity and our Human Rights Group presented a cheque to the Milngavie Refugee Action Group to go towards the United Nations High Commission for Refugee’s Winter Survival Kit campaign to help Syrian families currently living in the United Nations Refugee Camps on the Turkish-Syrian Border. These are only a few of the charity events our pupils have participated in and we have many more planned for this session.

Community Work As well as our important charity work we also realise the importance of our pupils engaging in community work. Our Computing department continue to provide support to the local community to access the digital world through the Silver Surfers group in Milngavie library. Pupils from the History/Modern Studies department have been working on a community project with EDLC on East Dunbartonshire’s War. Jenna Boyd, Jonathan Douglas, Rebekah Fisher and Calum Silcock were awarded the ‘Saltire Summit Award’ for making an exceptional contribution to volunteering and 3 of our pupils achieved the Diana Award. The Diana Award is awarded to courageous, caring, compassionate young people who help transform the lives of others and this was the first year pupils from Douglas Academy had ever achieved this prestigious award. Our Diana Award winners were Advaith Sastry, Rebekah Fisher and Rebecca Graham.

Other notable achievements

Other fantastic achievements include winning the Young Consumer of the Year Award in East Dunbartonshire and subsequently competing in the Scottish Final; winning the national Stock Market Challenge competition; a team of S1 pupils participating in the UK final of the Kids Lit Quiz in London; 15 of our pupils gaining an SQA Leadership Qualification at SCQF level 5; our Eco-schools committee working incredibly hard to ensure we were awarded Green Flag status for the 5th time; 60 pupils completing the Business Dynamics programme; 17 pupils being trained as My World of Work Ambassadors; and 20 pupils completed the Young Enterprise programme with Lumiere, our company, winning the Best Marketing Strategy at the Young Enterprise Dunbartonshire Final. The company members also decided to donate their profits to Comic Relief and the Beatson Cancer Charity, which was a fantastic gesture.

We also had our fabulous school show production of Footloose- the musical which was a sell out success. Around 50 pupils from S2-S6 took to the stage to perform with a large number of other pupils volunteering backstage. Our Developing Young Workforce Employer Partnership Dinner included guests from a diverse range of sectors such as finance, retail, law, engineering, science, tourism, medicine, emergency services, construction and architecture. This has resulted in us establishing a number of important partnerships that will provide our pupils with the opportunity to develop their Skills for Learning, Life and Work in real-life contexts. Our annual Culinary Excellence event was a huge success once again with our Four and Fifth year pupils who are currently studying Hospitality serving a fantastic three course meal to teachers and special guests at Massimo Restaurant in Bearsden. We are also very proud that this year Douglas Academy will open its first ever school garden. A dedicated bunch of pupils known as the 'Dougie Diggers' have been successfully fundraising, winning competitions and planting up the beautiful barrels you see in the school grounds. We look forward to the numerous opportunities a school garden will give in enhancing our curriculum.

Sport

We had many sporting achievements across the year including our S1/2 Netball team who won the East Dunbartonshire League and our S3/4 Netball team who were runners up in East Dunbartonshire League and also reached the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup. Orla Vennard and Amelia Webb won the Ken Sykes trophy in Sailing, Bradley Menzies won 3 Gold Medals at the British Tae-kwon do championships and many other pupils represented the school, local authority and their country in a number of different sporting disciplines.

We are also now in the 7th year of our Sports Council which has provided our pupils with the opportunity to gain valuable experience leading, coaching and organising various sporting events. This has proved to be so popular that we have now introduced a Junior Sports Council.

Excursions

Finally, on top of all these superb wider achievement experiences, our staff continue to go above and beyond and offer many trips and excursions both at home and abroad.

Over 60 excursions across all year groups have been organised since the beginning of January 2017 including the annual S2 Ski Trip to Alpe d’Huez, the Barcelona Football Trip to Catalonia in Spain, our French Exchange, which is in its 17th year, to Fougeres in Brittany and our Watersports Trip to Ardeche. We also have some fantastic trips organised for the future including London, Iceland, Italy, Costa Rica and another football trip to Porto.

But as you know none of these achievements could have happened without the fullest engagement of our young people, the commitment of all staff and of course the full support of our parents and carers. We value the role that parents and carers play in working in partnership with our school to ensure we maximise the potential of every single young person at Douglas Academy.

Our Parent Council has continued to offer strong support to us and I would like to thank Neil Miller, Chair of the Parent Council, and all other members of our Parent Council for all their help and support this year. I would also like to thank all members of the PTA for their efforts and support they provided to our school this session.

• PTA Update:

Douglas Academy PTA report

Session 2016-2017

The PTA had a quieter year in Session 2016-2017.

As usual we ran 2 successful events during the session. Our Quiz Night in November drew in a competitive crowd and good fun was had by all and we made £736

In June we ran a Pamper and Prosecco Night – also great fun but not a huge earner.

However from these two evenings we raised £1026

We would like to thank all those who contributed to these events whether in person or by donations to the raffles.

Unlike last year the uniform sale this year was very busy and sweatshirts ran out requiring us to order in more. We sold over £1700 worth of uniform in all. The school tie situation from last year has resolved and from now on the PTA will have control of tie purchasing and will make tie stock available to the school.

The coming year is going to be very busy as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the school.

The Anniversary Ceilidh plans are well under way for the 3rd November and we are hoping that the school body will fully support what will be a great celebration of the school. We are also hoping to run a Christmas Market on Saturday 2nd December. In the Spring we will hold an Anniversary Quiz to round off the activities for the year.