High schools

[Claudia2021]

We're relocating and I'm looking for opinions on high schools anywhere in Scotland. Focus on good support for mainstream ASD children, pastural care and developing future skills whether it be academic or a trade.

It would be helpful if the area had good resources for the kids, not looking for a city but somewhere quieter but still with plenty of activities......sports, access to transport if there isn’t cinemas or other similar types of things to do in the town.

Thanks

Have a look at Banchory Academy.

I have no knowledge of support for kids with ASD though, but the school and area fulfils most of your criteria.

Activities for kids, both sporting and outdoors are in plentiful supply. The direct bus goes straight into Aberdeen by the cinema/shopping/restaurant complex.

I know you said not a city but don't rule out Stirling as its population size is more like a town. St Modan's High School has a Construction and Child Care block, Wallace High is a School of Sport, Stirling High was at the fore of digital learning. I suppose like all Local Authorities some parents are happy with the standard of mainstream ASD provision and others not so much. St Modan's houses the ASD provision but this is tailored to need so could be in the mainstream environment not the Base or even a combination.

The villages on the outskirts and satellite towns are still in easy reach of all the activities you could want for DC across the age groups.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-57636716

Worth thinking about as funding is not uniform.

That’s really helpful, can’t believe the difference in funding across Scotland

It's a shocker isn't it - and even for councils adjacent to each other there are huge variations. Good luck with your search!

I think the main cost will be infrastructure rather than actual money applied per pupil but happy to be proved wrong. So, larger schools tend to have some economies of scale for stuff such as auxiliary staff like cleaners, catering, janitors etc and also might have fuller classes so teacher cost is spread over more.

Not defending any lack of spending, just saying its not always that simple. There is always a large disparity on pupil spend in different authorities for pupils regardless of special needs.

I've asked for more detail about the disparity and nobody seems to be able to shed much light - I know there has to be some case for the defence of the spending disparity with geographically similar council areas but it still looks hard to justify without a concrete breakdown by council and explanation of what is pushing the huge variation by council.

There is depressingly little holding of spending to account. I'm not surprised to find there are other post code lotteries in education.

Stats available are so poor.

I know my local council, North Lanarkshire, held an in depth ASN review and published the results last year. They have merged several ASN schools which will cut costs and technically should mean more to spend on the pupils.
Op, I'm not sure how great ASN provision is in mainstream High schools, it will probably be a postcode lottery. If primary school is anything to go by then support in mainstream, in my experience, varies wildly. At dd's mainstream high school any conditions that require extra help have to be formally diagnosed before any help is put in place. Ds is at an ASN high school and it is amazing - the difference between mainstream and ASN help and a dedicated ASN school is night and day. I will say that ASN places are like hens teeth - have never battled so much in my life re ASN help and support.

@charliebrown59 I think I've seen spending stats for general pupil costs but I think you have to look it up council by council. I used to look at a lot of the education stats but not really since DC left school. There was a lot of good info but it tended to be buried and also completely change in what was provided quite randomly.

I can only second lidls recommendations for Stirlingshire in general for schools and facilities and opportunities for any sort of activities. A city but not really.

Yes, it needs a good investigative journalist on it. And despite sitting through many a parent council meeting I've never seen any oversight of a school's budget either.

sadly the country seems lacking in people willing to play the longer game and actually investigate stuff (particularly when it reflects badly on the SNP) when they can just lift and regurgitate crap from social media instead. The spelling, grammar and general standard of writing is often poor suggesting lack of robust editing as well.

Am expose on Scottish Education by James McEnaney is about to be published. He is an English (the subject) Lecturer and journalist. His Twitter feed has been very illuminating over the past year on matters regarding Scottish Education.

Thanks @Lidlfix, I should really get more up to speed on twitter but that sounds like it might be interesting.

Thanks lidlfix looks interesting - although I could use a Twitter detox!