Year: 2013

Sharing the Learning with Parents and Carers at Shieldhill Primary School

 

Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer of the Curriculum Support Team has recently been working with a group of children from P2 to P4 in Shieldhill Primary School. The children were very enthusiastic and keen to be helping out at an upcoming session for parents and carers. Pupils demonstrated their knowledge of active literacy strategies and methodologies with confidence. They are very much looking forward to being ‘reciprocal teachers’ to their visitors at the active literacy workshop.

The children were able to eloquently explain about a range of strategies including: the five finger strategy, Elkonin boxes and diacritical marking.

Other activities on the agenda for the workshop are spell-er-cize, fun spelling tasks for their common/ tricky words and looking at their favourite ‘texts’.

Developing Active Literacy Reading Skills at Antonine Primary

Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer of the Curriculum Support Team has been engaging in professional learning opportunities at Antonine Primary School relating to Active Literacy.

Teachers and member of the Senior Management Team were all really enthuisastic about taking forward active literacy in their school.

The P7 teacher has developed some super resources relating to the development of the six comprehension strategies for reading and her pupils are responding well to them. Sharon was impressed with the jotters demonstrating a great awareness of comprehension strategy 2 – metalinguistics.

The class teachers were so excited the head teacher reported, “P6 and P7 teachers apparently couldn’t sleep last night….they were both excited about AL in their classes this year!!!”

Gateway to CPD now open!

CPD Manager Portal

Stuart Lennie, along with Lynne Lauder and Anne Hutchison of the Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support team have been working to commission and implement a new way for staff to search, request, and record CPD opportunities.

The new CPD Manager Portal is now live for all Falkirk Council Education Services staff, and can be accessed here:

http://falkirk.cpdservice.net

All Falkirk Education Services staff should have received their logins via email by now. If you have not received your email, please contact cpd.educ@falkirk.gov.uk from your Falkirk Council emial address.

Active Literacy for P6/7/S1 – New Online Support Materials

Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer, Curriculum Support Team, has been working on a number of new CPD training support videos for Active Literacy.

These short video sessions are aimed at Second level, however some of the materials can be adapted and applied to earlier stages.  

Sharon has recorded nine short videos for ‘Reading’ including using film trailers, critical analysis, non-fiction analysis and moving image education. There are two sessions relating to spelling and these include the new spelling section and vocabulary building which explores homophones and affixes. There is one training session called ‘Developing Writing at Second Level’ and this looks at incorporating a range of different genres, as well as the use of mixed ability writing trios and effective conferencing to improve writing skills.

 These short animation videos are part of a series of CPD online sessions which range from P1 to S1.[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/gvXEPThdi2c" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

Frankie and Bennys support for schools recognised by an Enterprise Champion Award

Lynne Lauder, Enterprise Co-ordinator, Curriculum Support team met last week with Jenn Rough of Frankie and Bennys Restaurant to begin planning for school visits for the 2013-14 session.  Jenn is pictured here collecting her Enterprise Champion Award from Andrew Sutherland, Director of Education.

Information and booking forms for next session will go out to schools on 12th August 2013.  Places go quickly, so interested schools will need to be quick of the mark to get a place booked.

Frankie and Bennys have supported the schools for the past 3 years hosting visits for up to 30 pupils from P5 and P6 which allow them to experience the working environment of a busy restaurant.

During their two-hour visit the children  enjoy the individual attention of the restaurant manager, kitchen manager, and staff.  The aim is for pupils to experience the grown up world in an exciting and productive atmosphere.  Towards the end of the visit the children  choose pizza toppings and aid the chef in the preparation of their very own pizzas; of course they do not participate in the actual cooking process or enter the kitchen for safety reasons.  Although the children may see this as the highlight, it is in fact the ‘process’ which holds the real value, as the children learn about hygiene, food/ingredients, numeracy, co-operation, teamwork and health and safety, in a fun and constructive environment.

For further information contact lynne.lauder@falkirk.gov.uk

Bo’ness Children’s Fair Festival

Daniel Barrie, Quality Improvement Officer with Falkirk Council Education Improvement Team attended the Bo’ness Children’s Fair Festival on Friday 28th June.

This retinue this year were pupils from St Mary’s Primary School and the theme for the fair was “The Railway Children”.

Well done to Mrs Hanlon, staff, pupils and parents who had worked very hard in preparing for the fair day – all that effort was very worthwhile – everyone looked fantastic and the crowing ceremony was very enjoyable.

Congratulations also to all of the Bo’ness schools for the excellent entertainment provided by the presentees who performed very well and looked fantastic.

Even the less than favourable weather couldn’t take away from “the best day of the year”

Edinburgh International Book Festival Outreach Programme

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Yvonne Manning, Principal Librarian, Curriculum Support Team, Falkirk Council Education Services has arranged for author Pippa Goodhart and James Carter to visit Falkirk Council in August 2013 as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival Outreach Programme. Pippa Goodhart has written many wonderful picture books, including ‘Just Imagine’ and ‘You Choose’. She is also the author of the very popular books ‘Winnie the Witch’, written under the name Laura Owen. James Carter is a poet and brings his poems alive with music at his appearances in nurseries and schools. His books include ‘Hey Little Bug, Poems for Little Creatures’. Yvonne is working in partnership with Community Learning and Development and Pippa will be leading a session with young families from adult learning groups, while James will be visiting Denny Nursery.

2 schools shortlisted for National Enterprise Educator Awards

Lynne Lauder, Enterprise Co-ordinator, Curriculum Support Team was delighted to hear that 2 Falkirk Schools had been shortlisted in this year’s National Enterprise Educations Awards.

Davina Gallacher, Graeme HS has been shortlisted in the ‘Enterprise Educator’ category for her partnership work with Cala Homes and Carrongrange School has been shortlisted under ‘Enterprise Society Champions’ for their work on the Social Enterprise Cafe.

Awards will be announce on 12th September but in the meantime we wish both schools the best of success and congratulate them on all the hard work and commitment to enterprise in education they have demonstrated.

As Director Andrew Sutherland said “Excellent news! Well done to all concerned”

Innovation in moderation in Falkirk Schools

Carol Paton, Curriculum Support Officer offered all establishments the opportunity to access some additional funding to support innovative practices in moderation. In January this year, 3 Primary Schools, 3 Secondary Schools, 2 Clusters and 1 Special School successfully bid for funding. This innovative work allowed teachers to think differently about moderation. Projects focussed on moderation through teacher discussion and collegiate approaches at the planning stage; the use of visualisers to develop consistent approaches to the teaching and application of numeracy skills across learning. The development of agreed success criteria at the planning stage also featured – most  interestingly in a PE – English collaborative project.

For more information on some of these projects use the links below.

Graeme High School – Numeracy across learning using visualisers Graeme High School – moderation report ( Numeracy)

Graeme High School – Presentation skillsGraeme High School – literacy ( Presentations)

Larbert High School – Numeracy PassportsLarbert High School Approaches to assessment and moderation 2012 Report master

St. Andrew’s Primary – a new approach to planning in  ScienceSt Andrew’s Primary – report

St. Mungo’s cluster – starting to think about mental agility across the clusterApproaches to assessment and moderation feedback June 2013