Year: 2013

Twitter to support Falkirk Early Years Collaborative

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support team, presented to the Falkirk Early Years Collaborative about ways to harness Twitter to support their work.

Throughout the country local Early Years Collaborative teams (which comprise a coalition of Community Planning Partners, including social services, health, education, police and third sector professionals working towards improving children’s start in life) have been encouraged to make use of Twitter as part of local input to the national campaign #BestPlaceToGrowUp. The Falkirk Early Years Collaborative now has a Twitter account.

Resources shared included those which showed how schools locally and elsewhere have been making use of Twitter for sharing the activities of the whole school, class, school-group or faculty. In addition there were resources shared supporting education staff in making use of Twitter to develop Professional Learning Networks.

Shared with members of the Falkirk Early Years Collaborative was the excellent “Twitter for Educators: A Beginner’s Guide” written by Amber Coggin with Alison Flowers and Deana Nunn. This is in the form of a very visual, graphically-engaging set of poster-like pages in booklet form, guiding teachers through getting started with Twitter.

Active Literacy – Differentiation – Bowhouse Primary School

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team has been looking for how class teachers in Falkirk have been differentiating the Active Literacy resource to meet the needs of all pupils.

Sharon met with P4 Class Teacher, Nicola Lorenzetti and her pupils in action with Active Literacy activities. The pupils were working through an exciting range of differentiated Active Literacy activities and eloquently explained to Sharon what they were doing.

Nicola Lorenzetti has organised individual literacy trays which contain all the resources needed for Active Literacy teaching, consolidation and application across other areas. These trays provide breadth, challenge and allow pupils to apply their skills across a range of activities including working with non-fiction texts, use of ICT and talking and listening activities.

This good practice is going to be shared at a forthcoming Active Literacy CPD event.

Active Literacy – CPD tv

Sharon Wallace, Effective teaching and learning teacher, Curriculum Support team, has been working on GLOW CPD tv sessions relating to Active Literacy.

The short CPD tv clips provide an introduction to each stage/ aspect of Active Literacy for class teachers.

http://www.youtube.com/user/fcEducationServices

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Al8aAuatSpc" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/eTnP9ArCeck" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/NuHmDLxFREs" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/32oXIbrzzgo" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/D0Sb-Jm_mEA" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/A62fESpf8DY" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Rkz1CuJnx7M" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/i4cA9YJl-O8" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

RED Book Award

Yvonne Manning, Principal Librarian, Curriculum Support Team, Falkirk Council Education Services organised the Falkirk Council Book Award called Read Enjoy Debate. A shortlist of four books was read by students in each of the mainstream secondary schools between August and December 2102. Voting took place and book reviews were submitted in December. The award ceremony was held on 23rd January 2013 at Falkirk Town Hall, where the young people presented creative interpretations of each of the shortlisted books. The shortlisted authors attended and there was a lively question and answer session. The day culminated in the opening of the red envelope to reveal the winning book… and the winner: An Act of Love by Alan Gibbons.

The shortlist:

An Act of Love by Alan Gibbons

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

Gladiator by Simon Scarrow

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

“Best day out I have had in a long time. I was really impressed by the seamless efficiency of it all and the enthusiasm of all involved.”  Simon Scarrow, shortlisted author.

“It is a brilliant event and we are delighted to be associated with it. Congratulations to you all for putting on such a super day.” John MacPherson, Bright Red Publishing Ltd (sponsor).

“My class thoroughly enjoyed their day out. Thank you so much for inviting us along. I have had nothing but positive feedback from the pupils and staff. It’s such a wonderful event to attend and I hope to work with you again in the future.” Falkirk High School

Images of the RED Book Award ceremony can be viewed on Flickr: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjDSm27M

Putting it on Record

Stuart Lennie, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support Team of Falkirk Council Education Services, is supporting the introduction of YouTube access for pupils in Falkirk Council classrooms.

YouTube is an online video streaming website that can provide useful knowledge and education content for all stages in schools and nurseries. In addition, users can create content and upload it to the site in order to store it or share knowledge or learning with others.

YouTube has been open to staff in Falkirk Council for many years and has proven to be a vital tool in terms of classroom practice and staff development. It is regularly the top visited site in education establishments and staff now integrate the content into their lesson plans and activities.

Currently, all pupils are blocked from access to the YouTube site, plus any embedded YouTube content in other websites, in Falkirk schools. This decision was taken based on two main factors:

  • The limited bandwidth available to our schools and the demands upon it.
  • The proportion of content deemed unsuitable by staff.

Recent developments in bandwidth improvements and safety filters put us in a position where these two factors no longer apply.

To facilitate such change, a Technologies in the Classroom group has been formed, made up of classroom practitioners from all stages of education in Falkirk Council. This group will have the mandate to call upon advice from appropriate groups of additional individuals including pupils, parents, and partners.

The immediate tasks for this group will be to:

  • Create support materials for staff and pupils
  • Develop methods to educate staff, pupils, and parents on the safe filtering features in Social Media sites and to ensure acceptable use in line with the Acceptable Use Policy and schools’ positive behaviour policies
  • Pilot pupil access with schools
  • Work to gather and analyse evidence of how YouTube is enhancing learning through previously unavailable delivery methods such as Flipped Learning models which enables pupils to bring to the classroom project work and studies undertaken outwith the school.

Here is an example of one of the support videos for teachers, hosted on YouTube:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/tkMPZuNFNBs" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

In addition, education establishments will be set up with individual YouTube channels to act as an official public repository of content for their establishment.

Reading Flash Mob

Yvonne Manning, Principal Librarian, Curriculum Support Team, Falkirk Council Education Services organised a reading flash mob on 30th November 2012 to celebrate Book Week Scotland. Pupils from Bantaskin Primary School and Windsor Park School met in Falkirk Town Centre each with a book, and at 11am the reading began, starting with one voice and building up to over 50 voices reading aloud. At the signal (a whistle) the reading immediately stopped and everyone walked off in the spirit of a flash mob.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/TChhGYLcWbs" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

Book Week Scotland is organised by Scottish Book Trust, http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/

Small Schools World of Work Day at Scottish Prison Service College

Lynne Lauder, Enterprise Co-ordinator, Curriculum Support team delivered the opening session at the latest Small School World of Work day which was hosted by the Scottish Prison Service College at Polmont Young Offenders Institute on 28th February.

The event which was  planned, resourced and  managed by a team of teachers from the Small School Cluster led by Shirley Garioch from Avonbridge PS, gathered 108 pupils  from Avonbridge, Bothkennar, Blackness, California, Drumbowie, Limerigg and Whitecross Primary Schools to undertake four work based sessions with employers. 

The focus of the day was ‘planning for choices and changes’ and the young people were looking at how the skills they are developing in school transfer to a work environment.

Workshops were provided by a Veterinary Nurse,  Childsmile Consultant,  Police Diver,  Mathieson’s Baker, Glisten Hairdresser, Scottish Prison Service  Officer, the Marketing Manager from the Helix and a farmer from RHET accompanied by Valerie, the Forth Valley model Cow!

The young people were a real credit to their schools and following the highly successful event, our partners at Scottish Prison Service said they would be delighted to welcome pupils back.

A coffee, a croissant and a controversy!

Carol Paton, Curriculum Support Officer Secondary, Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Team recently led a session on the Glasgow University Research Paper  ‘Assessment at Transition’.  Sixteen Headteachers and Deputes from across Falkirk explored together some of the key challenges from this research paper around the purposes and potential of assessement at transition. Together they examined their current transition programmes in respect of planning, pedagogy, progress and standards. They challenged each others’ thinking and took inspiration from some of the transformational practice described.

Participants said: