What does this mean for Anderson High School?
We provide a range of programmes that are tailored to the needs of the school and individual young people. Some of the provision you see below is already in place and some is still to be implemented.
Virtually Safe Virtually Sound: A school takeover that aims to educate and inform young people about keeping themselves safe online and in the real world – and showing them what to do should they get into trouble. Besides bullying, the issues of online grooming and unsafe relationships can be explored. For more information check out >>> https://www.safershetland.com/for-children-and-young-people
Financial Money Management: We can provide four standalone PSE workshops created by Citizen Advice Bureau including ‘All About Balance’, ‘Elementary Economics’, ‘My Money My Choice’ and ‘Primary Budget or Bust’. These will be determined by the school and delivered in PSHE Classes.
Enhanced Transitions:
As part of aiming to be a more nurturing school we will be offering a 3 strand nurture approach:
Breakfast club – this runs 5 mornings a week ensuring young people have the best possible start to the day this is open to the whole school, it runs from 8:20-8:50am and is supported by the Co-op and Tesco.
- Summer school – we will be running 2 separate weeks during the summer holidays where young people can come to the school and get an enjoyable experience this will be running for a whole week for groups of young people P7-S1 and S4-S5 from junior high schools. All young people will do HI5 or Dynamic Youth awards as part of the week. Pupils from the upper school will be recruited and given youth work training to become volunteers at the weeks and gain a saltire award.
- Nurture Groups – young people will automatically go into the other strand of nurture being our S1 group, who will then feed into the S2 group and the S5 group for young people transitioning from junior high schools to aid them in the transition and continue the support from summer school.
School Splits: School Splits offers a targeted group of pupils aged 12+ with a history of poor attendance at school, behavioural issues and social emotional issues a personal learning pathway where they are able to access support whilst still on the school role. Along with the School, Youth Workers will develop meaningful, relevant and suitable activities that will enable young people to develop their skills, for life, learning and work. We will work closely with schools across Shetland to make sure that young people are able to access their core curriculum as well as additional vocational activities out with the school. This will be a shared plan with clear outcomes in place to support young people to integrate back into school or have a supported transition from school at the appropriate time.
Pupil Council: The Participative Democracy Certificate (PDC) acknowledges and develops communication, decision-making and negotiation skills in the context of democratic engagement. Based on decision-making in groups, it’s worth two credits at SCQF Level 5 (equivalent to a National 5 or SVQ 2). Each credit is based on 10 hours of learning activity. The pupil council have done a Shetland wide training to get them through stage 1 of the award with them progressing onto stage 2 the research, the feedback from the training was taken on board and improvements will be made on what young people said. We would also like to aim for the meetings of the pupil council being more engaging for the young people involved and to make it as young person led as possible.
Duke of Edinburgh Awards: For the past seven decades, the Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Awards has inspired and transformed the lives of millions of young people from all walks of life. From volunteering to physical activities, life skills to expeditions, achieving a DofE Award is a passport to a brighter future, valued by employers and universities.
This year DofE will be delivered as an after school and lunchtime initiative, however to widen the reach of DofE and increasing opportunities for all young people at AHS we have decided to do a DofE ASN group with the ASN department. This group will be beneficial to the young people involved giving them a positive experience and brining them closer as a group, the award is completely paperless with young people being able to access the award through the new app where they can upload information and evidence. We will be encouraging parents to get fully involved on training them up on eDofE so they can support their young person in this process, for next year we will be looking to build DofE in as a subject for S6 as an extracurricular option this will be extremely useful for students applying to university.
Princes Trust Achieve: A personal development course provides a unique offering for 11 to 19-year-olds; a practical approach to learning which supports young people to fulfil their potential. Currently we have one S3 group and 2 S4 groups currently working to their N4 in employability skills. For next year we would are keen to build in an S5 achieve class having 3 groups in total so young people could get their national 5 in the award.
Mentors in Violence Prevention: Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) is a peer mentoring programme that gives young people the chance to explore and challenge the attitudes, beliefs and cultural norms that underpin gender-based violence, bullying and other forms of violence – this could be built into existing provision like LGBT+ or making a completely new programme e.g. MVP Ambassador programme.
Young Enterprise Company Programme: Is the ultimate business and enterprise experience for S5/S6 pupils in schools across Scotland. The pupils set-up and run their own company through the academic year with support from local business volunteers and Young Enterprise Scotland staff. They develop a wide range of skills and receive an invaluable entrepreneurial experience. This year has been the first year of young people gaining an SVQF Level 6 award for the work they do, for next year we will be building YE in as a subject this would mean young people would have dedicated time to work on their projects, we could structure the programme around the new award and it would decrease the chance of the team folding.
LGBT+ Work: We oversee the weekly meetings of the AHS LGBT+ Group support of lunchtime meetings on Thursdays and afterschool on Tuesday. As part of the wider School Improvement Plan priorities, contributing to policy development in AHS and participate in co-design and development of Equality and Diversity strategies for AHS, making sure young peoples voices are at the heart of this piece of work.
One to one support: We deliver one-to-one support sessions with pupils who are struggling to engage with school and/or display social, emotional and behavioural support needs, to raise attendance, engagement and attainment.
We will work with these groups where there is a natural fit for accreditation and working with them to obtain external funding.
