Bannockburn High School is a comprehensive secondary school situated in the village of Bannockburn, on the southern side of the historic city of Stirling.

At present, our school community has around 500 pupils and an SIMD 1-3 profile of almost 50%.

Our catchment encompasses our associated primary schools of Bannockburn Primary School, Braehead Primary School, Cowie Primary School, Borestone Primary School and East Plean Primary School.

Most young people undertake a range of SCQF qualifications from SCQF levels 3-7.

We embarked upon our SCQF School Ambassador journey in October 2022 with a visit from SCQFP Lead for Learning Pathways, Donnie Wood, to undertake training with the Extended Leadership Team.

We had already been delivering a range of SCQF courses but had not yet engaged with the Ambassador Programme.

Leadership opportunities

Through discussion, we realised that the SCQF Ambassador programme would support leadership opportunities for our young people and their involvement would help to share information with the wider community about how SCQF courses can raise attainment and broaden pathways for learners.

Following the training with Donnie, we identified a group of five S5 pupils who were already studying some SCQF courses at levels 5 and 6 to be our first group of SCQF Ambassadors. This provided them with a meaningful leadership opportunity across the school. They completed their training and identified a number of opportunities to promote the principles and benefits of the SCQF.

They have presented at whole school events such as parent information evenings and they ran an SCQF stall where they chatted to parents and young people about the opportunities that SCQF can deliver.

As a school, we have shared the work of the SCQF Ambassadors, as well as SCQF information on our website and our Twitter feed.

'Fantastic opportunity'

As we make progress towards achieving the Silver Award, we plan to involve S3 learners in the next cohort of SCQF Ambassadors so as to have both BGE and Senior Phase pupils involved in this fantastic opportunity, which will, in turn, support option choices from S3 into S4.

Last session, alongside traditional qualifications, we delivered a range of NPAs, Skills for Work courses and SQA accredited courses which are also on the SCQF, including Football Refereeing, Scientific Technologies, First Aid, Scientific Technologies, Languages for Life and Work, Photography and Games Design.

Each year, we will review the option choices to ensure the courses we are offering best meet the needs of our current learners. We have also changed the language we use around qualifications and adapted our option choice information booklets to reflect the principles of the SCQF Framework.

Next session, there will be a focus on developing a Health pathway with the introduction of Health Sector and involvement in a pilot with an in-house simulation room which will be in partnership with the NHS.

This session, we endeavour to continue our journey on the SCQF Ambassador programme. This will be supported by our current SCQF Ambassadors training a new cohort in the BGE. They will then work together to plan presentations and information sessions for young people, staff, parents and partners.