The Summary Report Is Provided for Parents/Careers and Partners to Outline Our Achievements

The summary report is provided for parents/careers and partners to outline our achievements this session and our priorities for next session. Throughout this session we have taken forward our priorities as detailed in our school improvement plan. Through our processes of self-evaluation, we have identified how we can improve outcomes for our children and young people.

Our achievements and improvements this year.
Knightswood Secondary School is a large, successful and diverse community of learners. We support around 1200 young people including those in the Dance School of Scotland which is a national centre of excellence.
Our Values and Achievements
Our work is driven by our shared vision of ‘a place of excellence and an excellent place to be’ and our Values of Honesty, Ambition, Respect, Responsibility and Inclusion. We live our values and these can be seen in every classroom and are regularly reinforced through assemblies and staff / pupil conversations. Each of our five Values has guided our work as we implement our Attainment Challenge and Pupil Equity Fund plans and use Scottish Government funding to ‘close the gap’. Indeed, our ethos and culture has been a long-standing positive in the school and this has been noted in successive school inspections and by countless school visitors and partners.
Our achievements and improvements this year can be best seen through the very wide and impressive range of pupil accomplishments. It is hard to note all of these but this year we were recognised as Glasgow’s Duke of Edinburgh Award Centre of the Year; saw over 300 KSS pupils receive Saltire Awards for volunteering (the largest school representation in Scotland); had our S2 pupils shortlisted for the Evening Times Youth Community Champions 2017 awards; and supported 23 pupils and 4 members of staff to visit Malawi as part of Glasgow’s Malawi Young Leaders of Learning project. Our young people also achieved great things as S5 Sports and Dance Leaders; as part of the S3 Rice Challenge, S2 Inspire / Aspire and S1 John Muir Award citizenship programmes; as prize winners at the Determined to Make Movies awards ceremony; and on school trips to Madrid, New York, London and the battlefields of Belgium. As soon as our youngest learners join us we encourage them to learn in a range of contexts and to develop as successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors. They can do so in a range of ways particularly our Spy Quest event during the P7 Induction Day, ‘The Big Eat In’ S1 lunchtime clubs and the S1 Poppy Scotland project. By S6, many pupils want to give back and this year over 100 of them volunteered to be part of the Mentors in Violence Protection programme acting as buddies and role models for S1 pupils.
We encourage young people to develop their sense of purpose and to look beyond themselves. This can be seen in the range of pupil leadership roles that young people take on to improve the school, including our Senior Student Leadership Programme, House Captains in S6 and Junior House Captains in S3. Our young people also give a great deal to the community by supporting the award-winning Dumbarton Road Corridor peer education programme. Likewise, S5/6 pupils involve themselves in community support through our Chartered Institute of Housing course, all of our S2 do local litter picks and many support our Bin It and Bogus Caller projects and our Parent Council’s Christmas Fayre. Citizenship events such as The Big Question, which includes pupil led carousel sessions on Holocaust Education, LGBT+ support, Enterprise events and Malawi, are also very popular as is our hugely successful Glee Club and our other school shows. Knightswood Secondary School is also has pupil representatives on the Scotstoun Community council and NW Youth Community Delegates. The young people in the Dance School of Scotland regularly entertain at local and national events and last year were invited to perform at the Scottish Learning Festival and with St Mary’s Music School, Edinburgh. Their end of year shows to the wider public at the Royal Concert Hall and Citizens Theatre were again outstanding.
Attainment and SQA exam results
We have also seen steady improvements across the school in our exam results and other key measurements, notably 50% reduction in school exclusions over the past 5 years and steadily improving attendance. SQA results are steadily improving in the following areas:
o  S4 N5 presentation numbers increased and % passes improved in 2016 at all levels from 1+ to 8+ awards apart from 7+ awards. Our S5 N5 results improved at 4+, 5+, 6+, 8+ and 9+ awards.
o  S5 Higher % passes improved in 2016 at all levels from 1+ to 5+ Highers. We are seeing the best patterns of improvement for pupils getting 3+ Highers. Our 5+ Highers patterns are traditionally lower as Dance School of Scotland pupils study reduced academic timetables.
o  S6 Higher % passes improved notably at all levels from 1+ to 5+ Highers and now have more consistent positive trend over 3 years.
o  Some departments have raised attainment continuously particularly N5 and Higher Admin, Business, English, Dance, History, Music and English as an Additional Language.
o  Almost all targeted young people left school with at least 5 N3s and almost all non-attenders attained 1 or more N3 qualification.
o  Attendance has risen each year since 2010/11 and is 0.6% above the Glasgow average.
o  Exclusions have reduced significantly: down 50% since 2011/12.
o  The Dance School of Scotland results are consistently outstanding. These include 100% pass rate in the Royal Academy of Dance exams with many gaining Distinction or merit awards; 100% pass rate in the ISTD Modern and Tap exams with 15 Merit and 32 Distinction awards; 100% pass rate in the Associateship Diploma from Trinity College, London with all pupils gaining Distinction awards.
We have also enjoyed wonderful individual results particularly from one young learner who achieved 5 ‘A’s at higher. This summer she attended three summer schools at Glasgow, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, while two other young people also attended summer schools at Cambridge University. Our Advanced Higher pupils, including those who attended Glasgow Caledonian University, showed that Knightswood Secondary pupils can achieve the highest possible national awards both in school and with our partners. We are very proud that the progression of pupils with Additional Support Needs to further and higher education is also above the national average.
Our exam results and wider achievements mean that our young people are leaving Knightswood Secondary School ready for the world and we are delighted that 92% of our leavers go into sustained positive destinations. This figure is above both the Glasgow and virtual comparator school average. School staff are ably assisted by Skills Development Scotland and Glasgow City Council’s Activity Agreement Coach as well as by MCR Pathways and Strathclyde University’s Inter-Generational Mentors. Our Developing Young Workforce school coordinators have also helped us to secure 14 major business partners, notably Enterprise Rent-a-car, Anniesland Morrisons and Vodafone who work very closely and effectively with our own dedicated and committed staff.
Learning and Teaching
None of our achievements would be possible without our ambition, strong work ethic and a focus on learning and teaching. Almost all staff have been trained externally in co-operative learning and this year we have seen evidence of increased engagement of learners in a growing number of lessons. Co-operative learning also encourages improved social skills and we have seen pupils becoming more resilient, motivated and able to interact better with others. Our programme of learning visits shows that we are using an increasing variety of formative assessment and cooperative learning techniques across departments and our Working Time Agreement planning highlighted whole staff enthusiasm for developing our skills further through Teacher Learning Communities. All staff also have access to IT in every lesson and use this to enrich the learning experience of their classes.
Our Senior Phase pupils are increasingly successful in their SQA exams because we track their progress closely so we can praise those that work hard, and contact the parents / carers of those that need encouragement and support. We have developed systems to ensure all pupils are supported, including the development of a tracking database with Glasgow ICT providers Edict and using the national INSIGHT information system. We supplement this with standardised assessments run by Durham University’s Centre for Evaluation and Measuring and all of this analysis feeds into targeted staff interventions. We have used some of our Attainment Challenge Funding from Scottish Government to further develop our Supported Study programmes to include targeted subject carousel sessions during the Easter holidays and a wider range of twilight study opportunities. This is another way that we are promote equity and excellence for our young people. The attainment of young people in dance and musical theatre courses in the Dance School of Scotland remains consistently outstanding.
We also know that in order to succeed in S4-S6, we need to lay strong foundations earlier in the school. By further developing our learning and teaching we support all learners form S1 – S6 but last year we have also focused even more closely on young people in S1-3 who study a Broad General Education (BGE). This begins before young people even start at Knightswood Secondary School through our very strong partnerships with our associated primaries and our comprehensive transition programme. Our staff are also becoming progressively more skilled in differentiating for the most and least confident learners and we are making good use of our BGE tracking data so that we focus on groups such as care experienced youngsters, those that come from the most deprived backgrounds and those that show early signs that they may leave school without any formal qualifications. Staff use our literacy toolkit and our maths department have undergone training in Stages of Early Arithmetical Learning (SEAL) programmes to help them support early stage learners in developing their numeracy skills.
Our Support for Learning teachers are also experts in helping pupils who find aspects of their learning a challenge. Their literacy extraction groups have helped pupils develop their reading ages by an average of 1 year 7 months and their spelling ages by 1 year 9 months in one session. Two pupils increased their reading and spelling ages by over 4 years and all of the group members felt that their confidence in all learning had improved greatly. The same is true of S1 learners in our numeracy groups who have improved their skills by enthusiastically using the SumDog maths programme. We have also set up a S1 Homework Club for any pupils who want some support and S1 Masterclasses to stretch our most able learners.
Supporting Young People
Young people could not learn and achieve as well as they do at Knightswood Secondary School without feeling at ease in the school and the specialist learning and pastoral support we provide is excellent. We have a highly valued and effective pupil support team and the ethos of inclusion and positivity is seen across the school. Pupils are comfortable when seeking support if they are experiencing difficulties and have a tutor teacher, Principal Teacher of Pastoral Care and Year Group Head who are available to help them. For pupils that need the most support settling into secondary school, we have a very successful S1 Nurture group and young people of all ages can access our outstanding school counsellor. We also have excellent procedures for Child Protection.
Our universal wellbeing programmes and interventions support our aim of Getting It Right for Every Child and ensure that young people are Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included. Tutor time and social education programmes and mini-projects encourage young people to be eager and active participants and allow us to monitor and assess pupil need and progress through systematic use of the wellbeing indicators. Most pupils appreciate the importance of our evidence based positive psychology and thankfulness programme. Relationships across the community are very positive and supportive. These are founded on mutual respect and staff are proactive in promoting positive relationships or seeking support to do so. The positive ethos in the school is demonstrated by a significant reduction in sanctions with both de-merits and referrals for poor behaviour down by nearly 30% this session. The Care Inspection report for Knightswood Halls of Residence confirmed that young people living there felt nurtured and well cared for and are enjoying the warm, friendly and supportive atmosphere at the residence.
Knightswood Secondary School is a rich and vibrant community and we celebrate diversity and challenge discrimination. Almost all staff are trained in equalities education and legislation to ensure that protected characteristics are not barriers to participation or achievement. We have a staff member on the Glasgow City Council Equalities Committee who trains other staff and runs a LGBT+ pupil group. Our partnership working with LGBT Youth has resulted in highly effective staff training and support for vulnerable young people including successful gender transitions.
Leadership of Learning
Such a wide range of achievements cannot happen without strong school leadership and our staff and wider community are committed to the highest possible standards and successes for all learners. For a number of years we have been inundated by volunteers to work in our School Improvement Groups and in leading or joining development groups, learning lunches and in-service day carousels. These include our Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) group; the Duke of Edinburgh Award; literacy development; Inter-Disciplinary Learning; LGBT+ and other systems improvements such as our House corridors and Support Base developments. We are also indebted to the active involvement and leadership of our Parent Council, School Chaplains and Campus Police Officer who has herself been shortlisted for the Evening Times Youth Community Champions 2017 awards.