posted by Karen Frain, Head Teacher, Letham Primary School

Ethical Sophistication and Intrinsic motivation – – – to do the right thing for the right reasons.

As part of our ‘Relationships with Learning’ here at Letham Primary, we have for many academic sessions been striving towards helping our children acquire the skills set to develop what Alfie Kohn tells us about Ethical Sophistication.  For too long we had felt that with the rewards and sanction systems actively promoted within our schools we were in some ways allowing our children to rescind the responsibility for ‘doing things the right way for the right reasons’. We recognised that the carrot and stick approach may encourage compliance and ‘doing the right thing’ within our school environment, however we also recognised that this did not result in them being able to make the ethically correct decisions and choices for themselves and the outside world. The children have articulated to us that they did in effect abuse rewards and sanctions by accepting the consequence thereby rescinding responsibility, and fudging their true potential to achieve rewards more readily.

We strive to create the ethos to promote self-efficacy, self-regulation and intrinsic motivation, whereby our children do things because the reward at the end of the day is that it makes them feel good inside (a statement we use on a daily basis)

We were rewarded (intrinsically) by an example of real life ethical sophistication last week from a group of our Primary Seven Pupils – – who did in our opinion show the way, doing things the right way for the right reasons is reward in itself.

The children noticed

• A vulnerable person in distress
• They recognised members of the community were being disrespectful
• They sought to provide comfort, care and compassion and practical support
• They recognised the differences and advantages in life they had.
• One member of the group initially reacted inappropriately, both he and the rest recognised this was inappropriate and talked through it and he sought to make amends
• They did do what they could do, however their feelings of inadequacy and having to leave the situation partially unresolved really impacted on them.
• The profound impact on their realisation that life was unfair and that inequalities and imperfections in society can’t so easily be resolved. However, they also recognised the role and responsibility each of us has in creating a caring community that appreciates and supports differences.

We are committed to continuing to develop ethical sophistication as opposed to compliance in all our pupils.

posted by Andy Garnett, Active Schools Lead Coordinator

A whole class health and wellbeing resource.

Food, nutrition, health eating and lifestyle balance.

Looking for new ideas and resources for your primary health education?
Free Primary Staff CPD
Monday 22^nd February 2016 4.30-6.30pm at Angus House Forfar
Sign up on CPD online using course code LTG47-15/16

Fun Fit Tayside schools programme has been designed by local teachers and NHS Tayside staff to explore the key health and wellbeing topics of food, nutrition and healthy eating and make links with physical activity. Children are taken on a ‘healthy lifestyle’ journey that begins with exploring energy balance and the 1,2,3 message.  1 hour of physical activity, no more than 2 hours of screen time & 3 healthy balanced meals per day.

Aim of the CPD opportunity:

• Provide an overview of the Fun Fit Tayside programme with an opportunity to become familiar with the session plans and supporting resources.
• View examples of activities, themes and work schools have previously developed to assist delivery of Fun Fit Tayside.
• Highlight NHS Tayside POST service.

 Outcomes:

• Enhanced understanding of the programme structure and resources.
• Familiarisation with examples activities and materials.

 √  A Flexible learning tool suitable for P1-7 (there are 2 distinct programmes)
√  Planning time is kept to a minimum (a range of lesson plans & supporting activities within           resource)
√  Links with relevant Curriculum for Excellence outcomes (health & Wellbeing & others for             each activity)
√  Link with home and family life (Children encouraged to share their learning using homework     sheets)
√  Easy to access and use the full range of materials (Teachers who attend this CPD                           opportunity will be issued with a usb memory stick packed full of materials and resources)
√  Regognised & established resource (Since 2011, over 180 teachers across Tayside have                 attended CPD and at least 4500 children have experienced the programmne)

posted by Shabnam Wasim, Public Engagement Assistant, University of Dundee

We have an event coming up which usually attracts schools to bring S4-S6 pupils, or for teachers to attend if they are available.

The event is Discovery Days at the University of Dundee. It will take place on Thursday 14^th and Friday 15^th January 2016, and is open to all, including the general public and high schools.

As part of the 13th annual Discovery Day lectures in January 2016 the University’s newest professors will be highlighting their research in a series of short talks.

The day is broken up into discrete sessions featuring three or four speakers followed by questions, with breaks between sessions for coffee and lunch.

This is a tremendous opportunity to hear some of our newly-appointed professors and winners of teaching awards talk for 15 minutes each about their area of work. The event provides a great snapshot of some of the cutting-edge research and teaching that the University is engaged in. At Discovery Day 2016, we will be welcoming a further ten new Professors, talking on subjects as rich and varied as Child Dentistry, Law, Forensic Anatomy and Teacher Education., plus plenty more. You are welcome to come along for a single session, several sessions or a whole day.

All presentations will take place in the main lecture theatre at the Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill, University of Dundee. Free tickets for Discovery Days 2016 are available by calling 01382 386660, emailing RevealingResearch@dundee.ac.uk or collection from Tower and Dalhousie Building Receptions. For more information and to book your tickets online, please visit www.dundee.ac.uk/discoverydays

The main details are:
Event: Discovery Days 2016
Venue: Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill, University of Dundee
Date and times: Thursday 14^th January 2016, 1.30pm – 4.40pm and Friday 15^th January 2016, 9.30am – 4.20pm

This event is free, everyone is welcome and booking is advised. You can book tickets online at Eventbrite here.

Please click on the link below to view the event programme:
Discovery Days Programme

posted by Chris Thompson, Schools and Projects Coordinator

Hello,
Nearly December already – where did 2015 go? 

We’re delighted to see so many schools walking to school with Living Streets’ WoW and have managed to hit a record 1/3 million journeys logged in Scotland during November – thanks to all your hard work enrolling and continuing to enthuse schools.  

And here’s something that will help keep participation high throughout December – the Festive Walk of Fame.

Simple to take part and easy to administer; If you’d like your Travel Tracker schools to take part just reply to this message and let us know which days you’d like to be sent the Walk of Fame top ten graphic for your LA area (any range of dates 1-18^th December). Please indicate if you would like any schools omitted from your LA top ten calculations.

You’ll receive a top ten graphic (similar to the one shown here) for your LA area in your inbox after each selected day to share with your schools as you wish; for example by email or posting on your website. A poster is attached to help you promote to your schools.  

Orders for the Spring term are now completed and will be dispatched mid-December, in plenty of time for the new term. Please remind schools to look out for the badges and to keep them somewhere safe until the end of January.

All the best,
Chris Thompson

Schools and Projects Coordinator
chris.thompson@livingstreets.org.uk T. 0131 243 2648  M. 07702 717541
Living Streets Scotland, 5 Rose Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PR
T. 0131 243 2645   www.livingstreets.org.uk/scotland  @LStreetsScot 

posted by Isabelle Gall, PT Curriculum, Modern Languages, Carnoustie High School

Carnoustie High School received the Young Ambassadors’ Trophy from the Carnoustie – Maule Twinning Association on Friday 30^th October, following a unanimous decision by the committee that Carnoustie High School was the local school which had done the most to further twinning links with the town of Maule in France in the last year. Mr Donald Currie, Head Teacher, accepted the shield from Mr Max Fordyce and Mr Roger Jeffrey of the Twinning Association.

Over the last year, the Modern Languages Department in Carnoustie High School established links with Mme Virginie Ernoult, Coordinator of English Teaching in the secondary school Collège le Mauldre  in Maule. The result was that over 180 pupils and four teachers took part in letter and information exchanges.  The pupils were motivated to write about their lives and very excited to receive their cards and letters.  Discussions between the schools on a two-way pupil visit are in the initial stages.

The Modern Language teachers in the High School are very happy that the twinning link is providing opportunities for the young people to correspond with French pupils of the same age. Young people become motivated to learn languages when they discover the excitement of communicating with a potential friend.

Mr Donald Currie, Head Teacher, accepting the shield from Mr Roger Jeffrey of the Carnoustie –Maule Twinning Association.

posted by Pauline Stephen, Head of Schools & Learning

Three Sleeps until the Angus Learning Festival 2015!……………………Connect, Collaborate & Aspire

This Thursday sees the first Angus Learning Festival.  I say first, as depending on the feedback as to the success of the event we may well look to how we make it a regular feature in our annual calendar.  There are over 1000 teachers in Angus.  The wealth of experience, talent and skill in a group that size is vast.  We need to look for more opportunities to share and hear about each other’s practice and then consider how it would work in our own context.  One of the key messages coming from the newly launched How Good is Our School 4 is that you can only be excellent if you collaborate. 

So we are looking forward to welcoming nearly 400 Angus teachers over the course of the day to come together to consider the national education drivers and our collective attainment challenge.  We will hear about established and emerging practice from primary and secondary colleagues in Angus Schools. Facilitated workshops will consider how we move forward with growth mind-set approaches, how teachers really do make the difference, how to embed a language of learning across a school and how to plan and assess for quality learning.  We will also be joined by colleagues from the Winning Scotland Foundation and Midlothian Council to explore practices from other areas.  Maybe see you there!

Please follow our progress on Twitter using #ALF2015