Mearns Castle High School Case Study
SCHOOL SPOTLIGHT
Mearns Castle High school
As a school, Mearns Castle’s mission is for pupils to be their best, not only in terms of qualifications, but also in their skills development, enjoyment of learning, and understanding their own progress; Gen+ is supporting an excellent experience in preparing them for learning, life and work.
Overview of programme delivery
The school’s Skills Framework has been designed with the Mearns Castle learners at the heart, and the goal of future-proofing them through meta-skills; not solely the curricular elements of numeracy and literacy, but intertwined with how young people can use these essential skills.
Having initially engaged with Gen+ in its infancy, Depute Head Teacher Nichola Mortimer highlighted the positive impact that more direct teacher input has on learners, along with their cluster approach with their feeder primary schools meaning that learners progress from the transition of P6 & 7 and into secondary school with a continuity of learning themes and styles.
Supporting learners to be owners of their own achievements is a drive of the school, with the introduction of the SDS Learner Digital Profile allowing them to highlight how they develop and use their meta-skills across their learning on a regular basis.
Student journey spotlight
Student Spotlight
“I think Gen+ is a fun thing to do with PSE, you learn useful things and helps you outside of school, not just in school. I take part in athletics, so it’s not a singular sport – it’s often a team sport so we use collaboration to make sure we’re always being kind to teammates; and that everyone is comfortable with what they’re doing.”
Learners are consolidating their understanding of meta-skills and are able to apply these to various contexts to support their development.
Testimonials
Consolidation of learning
Nichola Mortimer, Depute Head Teacher
“Meta-skills are such a big part of their learning, and how to learn, and that’s filtering through to all aspects of the curriculum. It’s been really nice to see that it has very naturally come about, and to see how easily those skills are identified, talked about and demonstrated. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle and Gen+ is helping all those pieces come together.”
Testimonials
Meta-Skills equipping learners.
Stuart Clark, Head Teacher
“These meta-skills are not a fad, it’s not the most recent thing to tick a box. Learners increasingly will need these meta-skills, particularly in the context of a rapidly changing economy and world.”
Testimonials
Meta-Skills equipping learners.
Nichola Mortimer, Depute Head Teacher
“It’s been so rich to see, that learners are coming equipped with the knowledge of what meta-skills are, why they’re important, and the development and exemplification of those skills is so natural, and so easy for staff to pull together.”
Impacts and metrics
Learners are able to talk about, and describe the techniques they are using to develop their skills and can identify how well they are doing, and what they need to improve. Gen+ has delivered tangible positive outcomes within the school community, and facilitated a positive evolution for staff collaboration; having all resources provided with lesson plans and worksheets has allowed focus on how the programme aligns with the work already being done, instead of adding to existing workloads. Crucially, Gen+ links into the school’s broader strategic improvement priority of developing the experience alongside the attainment outcomes; so Mearns Castle High School are seeing the impact of that.
613 learners participating in Gen+
14staff members developing their own Meta-Skills in supporting learners
Lessons learned & advice
Initially Mearns Castle delivered the entirety of the Gen+ programme together in one block; but found it overwhelming. So now, the units are spread across the terms with a real focus on one skill at a time, which means all staff know which skill is being worked on and this can then be linked very naturally to what they’re learning.
Integration across the school
Allowing young people the freedom and choice in displaying their learning in different forms beyond an end of topic assessment; Nichola has seen her S2 Science class far more able to peer assess due to their increased confidence and improved engagement through Gen+. By utilising tools developed in their Communication unit, they’re able to demonstrate their listening, active listening and understand different communication forms.
On a larger scale, in selecting their S3 subject choices, learners have used the skills development opportunity from their Effective Decision Making lessons to support their choices. From insights across the school, learners are more confident and resilient following participation, and are able to articulate and demonstrate this with tangible outcomes.
Future plans & what’s next
Currently, Gen+ sits within PSE where Mearns Castle delivers the predesigned courses, however in looking further ahead, the school are finding ways to increasingly embed elements of the programme into Project Based Learning across different curricular areas in line with their School Improvement Plan and use of the SDS Learner Digital Profile tool.
Where they have already done this successfully saw students in Citizenship design, plan, and deliver a school-wide event to celebrate diversity within the community. This was developed alongside Gen+ in order to ensure that meta-skills would be reflected on with their Gen+ time and developed further within their Citizenship time. The young people had the opportunity to collaborate with a professional Project Manager who helped them look more closely at the meta-skills within the context and build them into the running of the event.
The school plans to review the current Skills Framework to fully reflect the development of meta-skills in conjunction with SDS My World of Work; these complement each other well for the future needs of learners.
Interested in learning more about how Mearns Castle High School implemented Gen+?
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