Primary Strategic Network in Education for Highland

20th February 2024

A collaborative network of Head Teachers and Education Officers are working closely together with the goal of improving attainment and achievement in Highland primary schools.

Cllr John Finlayson, Education Chair said: "It is essential that we have strong, consultation and communication strategies in place and there is effective and ongoing collaboration between our schools and our central education service. The Primary Strategic Network is there to facilitate conversation between all our education professionals to ensure everyone better understands the key themes and actions which are a focus in our raising attainment strategy.

"Because of our vast and diverse Highland geography with almost two hundred schools, we have many, different learning environments with different strengths and challenges which clearly have an impact on ensuring consistency across many aspects of Education delivery. One of the benefits of this working group is that we can have direct input from representatives from right across the Highlands so that even our smallest rural schools can have their voices heard. While we may all live and work in different landscapes, we are all residents of the Highlands and we share in the vision to provide the best possible education and learning environment for our children and young people."

The Highland Council has a large estate which serves urban, small isles and rural communities that vary hugely in size. The estate is divided into 29 geographical groupings known as Associated School Groups (ASG) which each has a Head Teacher who is the representative of their group's schools.

The newly established Primary Strategic Network will see the ASG representatives come together to collaborate on a particular education theme which will be fed back to the wider network.

The four themes include:

Raising Attainment in Literacy & Numeracy.
Learning & Teaching (including Digital tools).
Assessment, planning, tracking & monitoring.
Wellbeing (including Rights Respecting Schools Award).

There will be a presentation on the Primary Strategic Network at tomorrow's Education Committee.
The meeting will be webcast from 10.35am on 21 February 2024
See https://highland.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/810031
Webcasts are archived and can be viewed up to one year.