All of our classrooms are introducing the learning pit this term. We had a bit of training from our impact coaches and classes are having a go. The learning pit helps pupils understand the learning process and identify tools that can help them when facing challenge.
Reading
On the in-service days staff also looked at two new resources to support the teaching of reading. We are currently trialling these in the classroom before making a decision on which one to purchase. This will help ensure consistency throughout the school and also reduce the workload for staff in the long run, in preparing multiple reading resources.
We had two busy in-service days in February. Teaching staff had training from Shirley Clark on improving teaching and learning. Lots of ideas were taken away to try out in their classrooms. Our next steps would include have a shared approach to marking, improving the language used in our learning pits and considering how to improve and enhance opportunities for talking to support learning in the classroom.
Next Steps
We asked around the school what next steps are.
P1 said they show you what your next step is.
P4’s told us that they let you remember what step you are working on and what you need to achieve to get to the next one.
P6 & 7 said they help you know where yo are and where you are going to with your learning.
TalkBoost Literacy
We have been interviewing P1 and Psa’s about TalkBoost. The P1s really like TalkBoost and the Psa said it is a program of lots of little sessions that focuses on listening skills it is fun and interactive .P47 staff have been trained in TalkBoost now too. we will be starting gropes in P4-7 soon.
Pupil parliament / learning, teaching and assesment
Last Friday Archie, Corey and Taylor interviewed a P3, P5, P6 and P7.
We interviewed 2 P3s about how they get feedback in writing and they said: traffic lights and check marks help them improve their work and helps them in their writing.
We interviewed a P5 about feedback in writing and they said: Success criteria are given numbers- and we know what number we have to work on.
They look at next steps in their jotter to reach their next step in writing. When they get their feedback they try to improve their VCOP and writing,
We interviewed a P6 about their feedback and writing they said: Their next step was to add more connectives and do better with their VCOP. They also said to try and add more VCOP into their writing and helps them improve their story writing.
We interviewed a P7 about their feedback and writing they said: To use more VCOP and take the feedback from the teacher in and use it to improve their writing. Then the teacher writes down the feedback to help you improve.
Leadership
We went round the school to ask people 3 questions about learning buddies and what they thought about it.
We asked them what is a learning buddy the P6 said that a learning buddy is when you sound out letters, the P2 said that a learning buddy is someone who takes you to the library to read books and the P1 said that a learning buddy is when they take us at lunch time to sound out letters.
The second question that we asked was how does it help. The P6 said that it helps them understand letters, P2 said that they help you read and the P1 said it helps me understand stand letters more.
We also asked what do you like best about it. The P6 said that we get to help them learn, the P2 said my favourite part is reading books and the P1 said I like it best because they get to take me out at lunch time.
We really enjoyed going around the school to ask them all about leadership.
Reflective Rattlesnake Time
We had to find out some information from the P4s and P6s about reflective rattlesnake time. First we went to the p4 class .
the P4s thought reflective rattlesnake time helped them doing writing and getting feedback from the teacher on how they did.
The P4s like reflective rattlesnake time because it helps them learn and whatever they do wrong they know what to do next time.
Reflective rattlesnake time helps the P4s with there Numeracy and Writing stories.
Next we interviewed the P6s, for reflective rattlesnake time the P6s do blookets, literacy and numeracy.
It helps the P6s with there learning and improving on there skills of numeracy and literacy.
The P6s like doing the blookets because they have fun and they enjoy doing the blookets.
Sharing with families and technology
Interviews:
We interviewed Miss Irvine to ask about how we share our progress with parents and families and she said, we have Facebook pages to give more information about our learning, we have online assembly’s to see how the children are doing with there learning, we have parents evening which tells the parent how you have been doing in class and in learning, we have reports which will tell you how good you have been over the past few terms and we have Blogs were you can share your learning and let people know what you have been doing and we have so much more.
We have been doing homework previews which is an online page on Google classrooms which is work that we have been given to practise. There are workshops in nursery for parents to come in and know how the nursery and p1s are learning and we can also phone parents if anything anything has happened with learning or anything that has happened with the children.
Digital learning
We use digital technology in class for writing stories and also use it for work on Google classrooms we also use it smartly and correctly. Technology improves our learning and understanding with learning by if you make any mistakes it has auto correct to help you it also is very smart because it tells you if you do anything wrong and a lot of the time it’s easier to use. We like technology because it’s helpful with a lot of things like writing and spelling practice and typing practice, it’s also fun to try new things as well like math, literacy and writing.
Pupil Parliament leadership
What is pupil parliament?
Pupil parliament is a group of people that help to do things with teachers, pupils and things around the school to improve the school.
What is pupil parliament working on right now?
Pupil Parliament right now are working on fundraising for a new shed
What do you like best about being in Pupil Parliament?
The thing that we like best about it are the meetings.