I love the concept of a school of ambition – is every school not ambitious? Of course they are! If you haven"t heard about Islay High, and the work they have been doing under the schools of ambition banner, then prepare to have your socks knocked off.

Dr. Liz Cunningham and Mr. Ian Stuart of Islay High School Argyll & Bute take the floor.

Islay is a beautiful location. They have the full spectrum of pupils as every school has, and a significant number of pupils (30%) with additional needs. Owing to the island status, a number of these students with additional needs stay on until 19.
During this session, we"ll look at a number of headings and features that make Islay High a school of ambition, and how they are achieving their goals.

Leadership – Liz joined the staff 5 years ago – they needed to transform the school. A huge amount of funds went into staff training. Being a small school – "headship is static, but leadership is fluid”. Accountability lies with the HT, that"s what she"s paid to do. Coaching and mentoring has been a huge initiative in the school. They have reworked the promoted post structures. All the staff have been involved in this distributed leadership programme – not just the teaching staff – all support staff in the school have been involved too.

Ethos has been an area of focus in the school, again being led by a Principal Teacher. A number of initiatives have made this possible – from health promoting schools to personal learning plans for setting their own expectations. Two afternoons each week are timetabled for activities.

Infrastructure – all students study 5 subjects 5 periods per week – all courses are 1 year. You select course according to ability, rather than age. Redevelopment in the curriculum structure came as a result of feeling that the needs of the S5+6 students were not being met. Development of vocational courses has had enormous benefits for those students previously regarded as ‘less able". Greater pace of learning – having the one year course make more efficient use of student and teacher time.

Addressing self esteem in girls, the school now has a vocational centre in partnership with Argyll College which offers a number of courses – in particular construction, hairdressing and beauty. These have been particularly successful amongst the students. Against the norm, the students are voluntarily coming into the school to study during study leave, and staying on after school to ask more questions and do more work. The vocational tutors are members of the community. Rural skills, enterprise and technology play a big part here in the school. Vocational education is not the soft option here – the underlying principle is progression – courses have been chosen in conjunction with the SQA bearing in mind that the young people can progress in their skills.

Technology - Ian then shared the work being done with technology to support he developments in the school. Every teaching area has a wireless projector and each teacher has a tablet PC. Result? Cheaper than an IWB in every classroom, and staff felt ‘freed up" to work around the room. For the techies out there reading this, wait for it – every pupil has their own UMPC to use when and where they want in their studies. Islay High are the first school in Europe to do this. With regard to this, Islay High were featured on the BBC Politics show last Sunday – you can read the article here.

Sustainability – everyone looks at the cost of the technology – curiously, the school budget for ICT alone is enough to cover the sustainability of this project. Reducing the photocopying alone (with every individual having their own digital device) frees up additional funding.

A very interesting seminar - it’s great to hear all about the work of one school of ambition. For more information on the schools of ambition programme, check out the schools of ambition site.

Categories: ScotLearnFest07, Technology