Sunday Times, Sunday 23rd November 2014 Schools of the Year - The Sunday Times and Sue Leonard, 23 November 2014

©The Sunday Times and Sue Leonard, 23 November 2014

Sunday Times, Sunday
23rd November 2014
Schools of the Year

Scottish State Secondary School of the Year
Bishopbriggs Academy

By Sue Leonard

Our Scottish State School of the Year expects pupils and staff to grow, and to give back
to their communities and the wider world

When Natasha Lawton and Kenneth Watson, two sixth-year pupils, take to the stage of the
O2 in Greenwich tomorrow night alongside their head teacher Gordon Moulsdale, they will
be representing not just their school, Bishopbriggs Academy, but a pinnacle of excellence for
children of their age nationwide.

The pair are being named “#iwill ambassadors” by the Step Up to Serve campaign, launched
last year with the Prince of Wales as its patron to encourage young people to engage in social
action. Its aim is to get as many 10- to 20-year-olds as possible to engage with their
communities.

Lawton, a championship-level kayaker sidelined by a serious shoulder injury, has dedicated
herself to coaching her sport at her local watersports centre, while Watson is heavily involved
in sports coaching at local youth clubs.

That the pair have been singled out is typical of the approach to life Bishopbriggs encourages
in its children, so much so that Step Up to Serve is to showcase the work of the wider school
at its first anniversary event tomorrow to encourage other schools and youth organisations to
take social action forward in a similar way.

Our Scottish State Secondary School of the Year is so much more than just an academically
successful institution.

“Bishopbriggs Academy is a relatively new school with unashamedly old-fashioned values,”
says Moulsdale. “It's also an establishment that takes very seriously its role within, and
responsibilities to our local community.
“Individually and collectively, we have always placed great importance on compassion for
others, particularly those less fortunate than ourselves. The young people from the school
have always made significant contributions in terms of charity and community work,
identifying good causes in need of their support.”

Tomorrow’s bash in London is not the first time Bishopbriggs has found itself in the
limelight. After becoming the first secondary school in Scotland to achieve four excellent
grades out of a possible five in Education Scotland’s new tougher inspection reports, it has
had more than 80 visits from other schools keen to learn the secret of its success.

It’s easy to see why. Effective teaching practices at the non-denominational school of 1,200
pupils in East Dunbartonshire have translated into continuous improvements in attainment,
which have transformed it from a good performer into one of the best in Scotland.

Bishopbriggs, which made its first appearance in the Parent Power top 50 rankings only four
years ago, has made swift progress, rising from 47th place in 2011 to joint 20th this year,
including significant incremental improvements in the intervening years. Not bad for a school

that was created out of a merger of two others in 2006.

Our rankings, which are based on a rolling three-year average, show that between 2011-13,
63% of pupils gained five or more Standard Grades (credit level 1 and 2) or Intermediate 2s
(A-C), and 42.3% of pupils gained at least five Highers at grades A-C. Both results are well
above the national average. Last year, a record 61% of pupils headed off to university while
18% went on to further education. The school, based in the affluent Glasgow commuter
suburb of Bishopbriggs, has to turn down about half of the 90 or so placing requests it
receives each year. Only those with siblings already at the academy or those living very close
to the boundary manage to get in.

The school’s impressive progress in raising attainment is the result of a culture of expectation
and achievement, first-class teachers, really hard work, and a huge team effort, says
Moulsdale, whose leadership was hailed as “inspiring and outstanding” by inspectors in their
glowing report last year.

“Many of the things we are doing other schools are doing, but the word they keep coming
back to is rigour,” he says. “I think we are very creative, we have a clear vision about where
we are going. We take ideas and others’ success. We are very solution-focused. If there is a
challenge, we find a way through it, around it or over it. There is very much a culture where
pupils have high expectations of themselves and each other.”

Moulsdale attributes the academy’s high standing today to the ethos that was established
before and during the amalgamation of Bishopbriggs High and Thomas Muir High schools.

“The early history and ethos are inextricably linked,” says Moulsdale, who took charge of
both in 2005 in what was a baptism of fire for the first-time head. “What we did at the time
was we built capacity for our school through building confidence. I stood up in many public
gatherings and made some really bold statements about what our aspirations were for the
school.”

Before the merger, Moulsdale had already introduced Easter revision classes for pupils, using
both sites to send a clear message about its expectations and inclusiveness. Meanwhile
students were involved in selecting a new uniform and creating the new motto – educating,
inspiring, empowering.

“When we chose it, we thought as teachers that we would be doing the inspiring, but what
drives me as a teacher is the young people inspiring me,” says the University of Strathclyde
mathematics graduate.

 Moulsdale says he landed in teaching by accident after a job fell through. While he didn’t
enjoy teacher training or the pedagogy involved, he knew it was the career for him as soon as
he started his work placement. “I loved working with young people,” says Moulsdale, who
spent 22 years at three Glasgow schools before returning to the town where he grew up.

The newly merged school converged on Bishopbriggs High, where Moulsdale was himself a
pupil, while a comprehensive school was built on the Thomas Muir site. In 2009, the
academy opened with all the bells and whistles. The facilities include modern classrooms; a
large social area and dining space for pupils; a drama studio – which Moulsdale specifically
requested be added into the design; gymnasiums; and a fitness suite and outdoor pitches.

“It is wonderful to give the staff and students an environment they deserve, but it is only
bricks and mortar,” adds Moulsdale, keen to point out that the improvements in attainment
were not down to these shiny new buildings. “People are our key asset,” he says.

Staff development is led by the school’s powerful learning and teaching committee. Teachers,
who are trained in co-operative learning, share good practice with each other and more
widely within the profession. Programmes to help raise attainment at Bishopbriggs range
from supported study to a peer tutorial programme where older pupils offer help to first- and
second-years with study skills and self-evaluation.

One innovative initiative involves teachers setting out the aim of the class and pupils agreeing
success criteria. This enables students to measure their own progress and teachers to judge
what they did or did not learn.

Bishopbriggs, which already has two Scottish Education awards under its belt, recently
attained international school status from the British Council in recognition of its partnerships
abroad, including its links with the Goethe-Institut in Germany. Other links with the wider
world range from teacher and pen pal exchanges to trips to France and Belgium to learn about
the First and Second World Wars.

 “We are very inclusive,” says Moulsdale. “People genuinely have a voice. There is a
collaborative approach to change. I think there is that balance between accountability and
responsibility. People are very clear about what their role is and what their responsibility is.”
Buy-in from students and parents is, of course, essential and at Bishopbriggs Academy
there’s no shortage of that.

 It’s not all about exam results, though. The school, which offers Gaelic as a foreign language
to the handful of new pupils who come each year from the local Gaelic primary, promotes,
tracks and celebrates all achievements through any means it can. This includes at assemblies,
praise postcards, pupil of the month awards, reward trips and an annual awards ceremony
which recognises everything from the effort and progress of pupils to sporting achievements
and community service.

In the past few years pupils have had success at local, national and international level in a
range of sports from football and karate to chess, boxing, cross-country and athletics, and the
school has won three national football trophies in the last five years.

“We believe it’s our responsibility to recognise and celebrate all the successes of our young
people,” says Moulsdale. “It would be professional suicide to stand up and tell parents that
exam results don’t matter – of course they do and we’re very proud that ours are now among
the best in the country. However, it has to be about much more than that because many of our
pupils have wonderful talents in other areas, too.”

As well as being involved in the Step Up to Serve programme, Bishopsbriggs students raise
money for events such as Comic Relief and Children in Need. The academy also selects an
organisation that has a particular resonance with the school as its charity of the year. This
year pupils, whom Moulsdale can’t speak of highly enough, are hoping to raise £15,000 for
the Beatson Cancer Charity following the recent death of a student’s mother from the disease.

Hands-on Moulsdale leads by example, taking part in events for good causes such as the ice
bucket challenge, running a Saturday maths revision class and coaching the under-16s
football team. “If I talk to trainee teachers, the one thing I will say to them is it is so
important to treat teaching as a career, not just a job, to get into the wider life of the school
and get to know the pupils,” says the head. “The best way is to get involved in extracurricular
activities.

Like Moulsdale, all of the senior management team are heavily involved in activities from
sports to the extremely popular Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme and drama. Three years
ago, Bishopbriggs Academy introduced an annual whole-school show which normally
involves about 200 pupils and staff.

Moulsdale is delighted with the school’s achievements but he’s by no means complacent.
Bishopsbriggs is hard at work on its own annual improvement plan, which this year includes
reviewing and developing senior phase courses and supporting pupils at risk of not reaching a
positive destination. Both targets need to be met by May 2015.

“We are always looking to improve,” says Moulsdale. “Every day I learn so much from my
newer colleagues. I go in and watch them teach and I try to put some of these techniques into
practice when I am taking my supported study class, so I am learning from that. I am really
committed to this place. I spend a lot of time here.”