Winners of the 2018 Scottish Education Awards: Castlebrae Community High School
Congratulations to Castlebrae Community High School for winning the ‘Employability and Creativity across Learning’ award along side the two other finalists, St Albert’s Primary School and Park School Kilmarnock (Film clips)
In recent years the school has undergone a profound change in outlook, ethos and culture with employability and creativity at the core of this. The cross-school approach to skills development and the collective effort to inspire learners in pursuing their vision for a positive future has had a significant impact not only on young people themselves but the whole school community.
The school has worked with a wide range of partners to support their journey towards ensuring that young people are aspirational, ambitious and have access to appropriate learning experiences and support at all levels to equip them for their futures . In particular the partnership with Edinburgh International Festival has been a catalyst for transformational cultural change for the young people, staff and the EIF events team itself. Their three year partnership programme resulted in the creation of far-reaching learning opportunities for pupils and staff alike, from regular inputs to learning and teaching, the offer of work placements to hosting a major event at the school as part of the Edinburgh Festival. The role of EIF staff as student mentors has been of significant added value to the young people. The ambitions and aspirations gained by the young people through this project has been further developed through a wider range of partnerships with Edinburgh Rugby, RBS, Columba 1400 and Foxlake (see Junior Adventure Leader programme) , providing a sustained investment in the young people within the school community.
Castlebrae CHS provides a tailored curriculum to better meet the needs of their learners (eg. through the Skiff boat project, various vocational courses, a pupil lead community bistro (Social Enterprise Academy award 2018)) which young people reported as having a significant impact on their confidence and the acquisition of transferable skills such as communication, teamwork, problem solving, leadership etc.. The overall impact in terms of ethos, attendance, attainment, parental engagement, enrolment and positive destination figures in this area is also tangible.
If you want to find out more about the school’s approach why not attend their seminar at the Scottish Learning Festival, Thursday, 20 September (12 noon).
