Author: Y. McBlain

March 14, 2017

Falkirk Probationer Teachers Present their Practitioner Enquiry Projects

Between October 2016 and February 2017, probationer teachers working in Falkirk secondary schools have engaged in Practitioner Enquiry. The photo on the left shows a quick, light-hearted, visual evaluation by one of the teachers who took part in the process.

This experience is an important part of our Falkirk probationer induction programme, and helps probationers fulfil the following elements of the GTCS Standard for Full Registration (December 2012):

2.3.2 Have knowledge and understanding of the importance of research and engagement in professional enquiryProfessional Actions Registered teachers:-know how to access and apply relevant findings from educational research-know how to engage critically in enquiry, research and evaluation individually or collaboratively, and apply this in order to improve teaching and learning.
3.4.1 Read and critically engage with professional literature, educational research and policyProfessional Actions Registered teachers:-read, analyse and critically evaluate a range of appropriate educational and research literature;-systematically engage with research and literature to challenge and inform professional practice.

By including this experience in our induction programme, we hope to support newly qualified teachers in their development of an enquiring and reflective approach to their ongoing professional learning. The first years of teaching are challenging on so many levels, and we try to demonstrate how practitioner enquiry can become a natural, integrated part of teaching, rather than something huge which enlarges workload in an unsustainable way.

Teaching Scotland’s Future, (Scottish Government, 2011) stated that:

“Long term and sustained improvement which has a real impact on the quality of children’s learning will be better achieved through determined efforts to build the capacity of teachers themselves to take responsibility for their own professional development, building their pedagogical expertise, engaging with the need for change, undertaking well-thought through development and always evaluating impact in relation to improvement in the quality of children’s learning. That is the message from successful education systems across the world.”

When asked to share the impact the project has had on their practice, probationer teachers said:

“Better able to think critically about making positive impact on attainment & achievement”

“More aware of best ways to meet the needs of learners – approach to questioning has changed, and impact seen with pupils”

“Methodical application of new strategies rather than straight to it without evidential basis”

Gillian MacLennan, Graeme HS, Julie Cairney, Larbert HS, and Sarah McQuade and Kevin Smith, from Braes HS, took on the role of mentors for the probationer teachers throughout their practitioner enquiry. Laura Baird, probationer support teacher, and Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support teacher, led the project and probationers got help and encouragement from their probation support team “in school” too. Professional Learning Co-ordinators and probationer supporters joined members from the Service Support and Improvement team on 21st and 22nd February to take part in the presentation event. Click here to visit the OneNote document in Glow where probationer teachers shared their presentations and academic posters – the photo on the right shows a selection of these displayed in Camelon Education Centre.

Gillian said: “I have been impressed by this enquiry process which puts learning at the centre and moves teachers towards research based practice, rooted in improving pupils’ experience and attainment.”

Probationer teachers gave useful evaluation – click here to view the summary of their comments. This feedback will be used to shape and improve this element of the Falkirk Children’s Services probationer teacher induction programme.

January 30, 2017

Denny Cluster Continue Their Collaboration for Skills Transition

Yvonne McBlain joined primary and secondary teachers from the Denny cluster at their transition project meeting on January 26th between 4-5.15pm. They have been working together for over a year to develop quality, skill-based transition within their cluster. Their task is “To build a shared pathway of progressive learning across the broad, general education in the Denny cluster”. Click on the slide to view the presentation used by the group.

The transition group have identified a core group of skills which they know their pupils need to develop across the curriculum to help them raise their attainment. These are:

◦Working with others

◦Note-taking

◦Presentation skills

The teachers are currently planning interdisciplinary and cross-curricular learning experiences which will help pupils progress these skills. Click here to see one of the emerging plans which staff are working on. They are being creative and flexible in their approach to what, when, and how the learning can support transition. Once the learning experiences have been planned (involving the pupils where possible), the teachers will work out which ones can happen during a transition showcase event or time period, and which ones should be delivered in another way. Some of the groups are planning to use a Scottish/Jamaica context to engage pupils in this work, and to extend their understanding of global citizenship and international education. This helps all of the schools build Learning for Sustainability into their curriculum framework as once of the cross-cutting themes too.

Eilidh King, primary 7 teacher at Denny PS, and Kerry Smith, English teacher at Denny HS have already benefitted from this collaboration. Their collaborative planning during the transition project inspired them to design an engaging Christmas learning experience which involved Kerry and Eilidh team teaching together at Denny PS. Eilidh’s class thoroughly enjoyed finding their Christmas clues and solving the Santa mystery!

This slide shows some of the elements of national policy and daily practice which the group have pulled together during their planning:

The transition group consists of a small number of secondary teachers from Denny High school, and primary teachers from most of the Denny cluster schools. The group is led by Judith Donaldson, teacher of home economics, and Iain Farrington, primary 7 teacher at Antonine PS. Aileen McKeown, DHT, Denny HS, and Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, form the remainder of a small, strategic working group with Iain and Judith. The project is fully supported by the cluster head teachers, and Aileen provides updates for them at cluster meetings. Everyone involved is looking forward to putting their plans into action with pupils between spring and summer 2017.

June 20, 2016

St Patrick’s RC PS enjoys the benefits of student exchange

Pupils and staff at St Patrick’s RC PS in Denny have enjoyed hosting student teacher Marjorie Brewer from Chicago, USA. Marjorie arrived in Scotland in early May, and has been working with Victoria Daly’s primary 1 class, and Antoinette Irwin’s primary 5 class.

She feels she has benefitted a great deal from getting to know the Scottish school system, and from experiencing both primary stages, and being part of the wider life of the school.

Marjorie’s student teacher exchange placement at St Patrick’s RC PS was arranged between head teacher Anne O’Donnell, Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, Falkirk Children’s Services, and Laura Stachowski, Director, Global Gateway for Teachers, Indiana University Bloomington. When Yvonne popped into school for a quick visit, primary 5 were enjoying a writing lesson led by Marjorie. She used a power point about her home city as a stimulus for the lesson, and adapted elements of Antionette’s practice to give pupils sufficient structure, but also room for personal freedom and creativity within their writing task. Pupils were responding well, by creating a diary of their imaginary visit to that city.

Finlay in primary 5 feels that having a student teacher from another country has been “A new experience – a bit more fun.”. Emma B enjoyed learning about schooling in Chicago – “Miss Brewer did a big powerpoint to show us what it was like and gave us tasks to do…we learned about Will’s Tower and the schools she was in before here…they have different desks,… where they put their school bags,… they don’t wear uniforms…” and Sophie T said that Marjorie has taught them “strategies like Venn diagrams … when she needs quiet, she says “To infinity” and we shout “and BEYOND!”

Antionette said “It’s been a super experience. Listening and hearing about other methodologies and the ways that things are structured in America has had the kids fascinated. It’s not that different, but it’s nice for them to hear how children of the same age learn.”

Marjorie has been made very welcome by her ” homestay mom” Morag Duff, learning support teacher at St Patrick’s. Morag took Marjorie to see some of our local sights, and Marjorie will continue her travels once her placement at St Patrick’s RC PS ends. Marjorie has been keeping her own blog about her experience – click here to view.

April 26, 2016

Curriculum Development at Hallglen PS

On 19th April, Yvonne McBlain popped back to gather staff feedback on their curriculum development so far at Hallglen Primary School. 10 staff members were kind enough to give their time and views during this informal evaluation activity. You can read more about Hallglen’s curriculum development process here.

Staff described the following impact:

Increased knowledge of the curriculum – specifically their ability to interpret the skills, knowledge and understanding built into the experiences and outcomes. This has helped them to build their curriculum more effectively, and enabled better planning.
Although they didn’t realise it at the time, they were moderating their teaching and learning in various ways – through collegiate discussion, learning walks, and then joint planning with stage and level partners. This has helped integrate moderation and collegiality naturally, and contributed to a positive ethos and culture of sharing good practice and ongoing self-evaluation.
Have a powerful understanding of progression – know which E & Os needed to be consistently progressed, and which ones could be done less often.
Topics in school have changed radically and are much more relevant and responsive to pupil needs. Everyone in school has an overview of which contexts are being used – not just for their own stage or level. This has enabled more powerful and effective transition between stages, and teachers feel confident and clear about what they have to teach and why.There is greater consistency across the school – they have a shared language, u nderstanding and vision for their curriculum
Learning walks, peer moderation and observation visits are all more purposeful and help staff evaluate their progress together.
Next steps in curriculum development are therefore clearer to all, but staff are looking forward to their formal, whole school collegiate evaluation of the changes made this session.
There is the facility to offer pupils flexible and responsive progression pathways across the curriculum

One of the new developments staff have worked on this session, is pupil understanding of the curriculum. This was felt to be a valuable way to increase attainment and pupil participation, and teachers developed specific learning experiences for their classes. Staff can see ways in which these lessons can be made more meaningful and appropriate to age and stage, and further development of these lessons will be done, but already the following impact has been observed:

Children can have a genuine input into planning their learning.
They now quite naturally reflect upon and evaluate their learning in action during a project as well as at the end.
Pupils have the vocabulary and language to comment effectively on their learning.
The curriculum lessons have “made the penny drop” for a number of pupils – they can better understand the purpose and structure of the learning they need.
Pupils have a better appreciation of what learning is and what they need to do to help themselves learn.
They are now getting to know their curriculum and can see and comment on links across the curriculum. (Staff are therefore tackling the very challenging job of developing pupil understanding of interdisciplinary learning.)
Pupils have the confidence to make respectful suggestions about how the teaching they receive could better meet their needs.
They are better motivated and engaged by their learning.
They think more deeply about their learning and can talk about it fluently.

The need for a pupil curriculum understanding lesson was discussed at the last inset day and staff agreed to teach their lessons at the same time in the session. A general lesson was provided which each staff member adapted for their class if they wanted to. Stacey Walker, Kara-Anne Kelly and Louise McGlynn all talked enthusiastically about what they did, why they did it, and what the outcomes were. Stacey, Kara-Ann and Laura Hurren then gathered the photos of work and displays shared in this post. Click here to listen to their description of this work. Yvonne would like to thank everyone involved for their time, especially Stacey, Kara-Anne and Laura for taking the time to record these files.

March 24, 2016

Building resilience at St Francis-Xavier School – the journey

On Thursday 17th March 2016, Helen Quinn, primary 7 teacher, met with Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, to describe how she and her colleagues at St Francis-Xavier RC PS have developed their pupils’ resilience.

The journey began in 2012 with a partnership between the school and Dr Sally Paul of the University of Strathclyde, who was then a social worker with Strathcarron Hospice. Members of staff wanted to ensure that they were supporting pupils who had been bereaved. Some felt they coped by avoiding potentially emotional or upsetting conversations while others were keen to demonstrate their understanding, but they lacked confidence in what they should and shouldn’t do and say. With Sally’s support, Helen and other members of staff, began a whole school action research project which continues to grow and develop in a very positive way.

The process included:

academic reading
consultation with parents,
staff collaboration to create learning resources (click here to see the progressive package used throughout the school)
whole school use of the package
on going review and development

During this process, the scope of the learning resource widened to include resilience generally, rather than specifically for supporting pupils with their ability to cope with bereavement. However, pupils showed a keen interest in learning about the “nitty, gritty” and practicalities of death – the physiological changes, causes, legal procedures and different religious customs and rituals past and present. Staff responded to this interest by creating another learning resource specific to primary 6 and 7 pupils. Click here to view this resource. Pupils voluntarily did much more than required for a homework task as part of this unit, and parents shared positive feelings about the value of this work, and said how worthwhile the whole project had been for their children.

Staff would probably say that they are still travelling this journey with their pupils and parents. It has become a collaborative “action research” project which has had the following impact:

staff now have a progressive learning resource which contributes to their broad general education within Curriculum for Excellence
this resource form part of their progressive programme for Mental, social and emotional wellbeing within Health and Wellbeing
staff feel confident and comfortable delivering learning around sensitive and emotional issues
pupils can talk eloquently about their feelings and how to cope with a wide range of challenges
they say and do things which show that they are able to respond to new and challenging situations
they are able to empathise with others experiencing difficulties
they know what kinds of things they can say and do to others to help them
death, bereavement, and the customs around dying have been de-mystified for them
pupils see death as a part of life
parents have admiration for all of the above and obviously feel that this work has enriched the learning their children are receiving

The materials and training developed run alongside the curriculum, ensuring that staff are skilled and supported in acknowledging and supporting children through specific bereavement experiences. Staff attend training offered by Strathcarron Hospice on Childhood bereavement. As part of the research, the staff advised Strathcarron Hospice in developing this training programme which is now offered to all schools free of charge in Forth Valley and North Lanarkshire. The link to Strathcarron’s Bereavement Training http://strathcarronhospice.net/schools/

Supporting children, and staff, with bereavement also means that the school adopts Falkirk Council’s ‘Service Circular’ on Bereavement, which offers specific guidance on managing bereavement in schools. This was developed in response to the research in the school which coincided with instances in another school where there had been a significant bereavement and staff were aware that there was no specific guidance from the Local Authority. Sally, Helen and pupils at St Francis helped to develop this alongside other staff within the local authority.

You can read more about the pupils’ views of this work by clicking to their post here.

March 21, 2016

Building Resilience at St Francis Xavier RC PS

Over the past two years, pupils and staff at St Francis Xavier Primary School have been building their emotional resilience in lots of different ways. With the support of Mrs Quinn, nine pupils from the primary 6 and 7 classes wrote this blog post to explain what they did, and what they feel they have learned:

Discussing coping strategies – “Not to be too sad” Aleena, “You’ve got the right to feel how you feel, you’ve got to try and move on” Samuel
Learning how to work better with other people – Ashleigh “Co-operating with others helps take your mind off bad things, by learning how to work with other people, you can learn how to help them if they are going through grief.” Jenna “When we are doing group tasks together, we were learning how to work as a team and talk out loud to each other.” Darcy “If you work better with them, they work better with you, you get a better job done.” Alicia “It helps you to know how they are feeling on the inside, so you can talk to them in a kind way. So when something happens to them, they don’t show it on the outside, but you know how they are feeling on the inside.” Samuel “Learning how to work better with people makes you more confident about telling them personal things.” Kirsten

3. Sharing their knowledge of how to cope with bullying: “Instead of taking it really, really personally, you may feel terrible on the inside but don’t show it because if they see that they’ll see that it’s hurting you and keep on doing it. So don’t show it and they’ll probably stop – they just want attention.” Lewis “Instead of hiding it, you should tell someone about it.” Lucy, “If you don’t speak up, it probably won’t stop, if you share your knowledge, it could make a big difference to somebody else” Alicia

4. Exploring death rituals – “Exploring the death rituals, you realise that everybody dies and that everybody has a different way to celebrate them.” Alicia, “We looked at different ways that different religions showed death, and I really liked seeing how everybody share theirs. It was interesting that we all did much more homework than usual for this task.” Jenna

5. Developing our understanding of grief – “It’s helped me by giving me different ways to deal with it.” Lucy, “It’s helped me because I understand other people’s grief now and can support them better.” Darcy

6. Realising that death is a part of life “You can’t stop it from happening and it will happen to everyone eventually.” Aleena “We kind of realised it more because it has to happen eventually – you can’t live forever. When we were talking in groups or as a class about people who have passed away it makes you realise that you are not the only one who’s been through it – made you see more clearly.” Jenna “We all realise that it hurts more, you don’t realise that it hurts so bad when it’s someone who is really close.” Kirsten

7. Discussing past experiences – “We all know that no matter who you are and what you’ve done, you’ll always be remembered and loved.” Samuel

March 4, 2016

St Mary’s RC PS perform with Scottish Opera

On 17th February, primary 6 and 7 pupils at St Mary’s RC PS performed “Fever!” with members of Scottish Opera to a very varied audience. In the morning they completed their dress rehearsal by performing for a group of visitors from the Scottish Government, which included Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe & External Affairs.

In the afternoon, they gave their actual performance for parents and guests in their local community. Both audiences gave the pupils rapturous applause and enjoyed the show immensely – as can be seen from the numerous videos and Tweets shared and liked – click here to take a look.

Audrey Mackay, music specialist at St Mary’s, instigated the project so that the pupils could experience the Scottish Opera Education Pack and extend their wider life experience in new ways. Audrey, and her colleagues at St Mary’s are delighted to see the impact this experience has had on pupils involved. Click here to view the pack, which includes lots of valuable preparatory learning linked to science, health and well-being, literacy and music of course. This builds pupil understanding of diseases and our immune system, and helps them connect their learning to real life. Taking part in the performance, and working with the accomplished performers from Scottish Opera made this even more engaging and gave pupils an experience which will stay with them for a long time.

When asked what their favourite parts of the performance were, Debbie said “The bit where we play the air guitar.” and Karis liked when “We turn around and put on our shades”.

December 9, 2015

Mariner Support Service Open Afternoon

Yvonne McBlain enjoyed popping into the Mariner Support Service Christmas Open Afternoon. Staff, pupils and parents have been working hard over the last weeks to prepare for this event and there was lots to see.

The event opened with a celebration of learning by pupils, with prizes for good work done this term. The young people demonstrated their enterprise and social skills during the event – selling home baking, raffle tickets, and meeting and greeting. Brandon was particularly welcoming, polite, and charming.

The parents’ group have been creating all sorts of crafts in school on Wednesday afternoons. These were all for sale to help raise money for school funds, and included Christmas tree decorations, wreaths, jewellery, and home baking. This is one of the ways in which Mariner Support Service builds connections with parents and carers.

This event was a valuable way to build the life and ethos of the school, while progressing young people’s skills and experiences.

December 9, 2015

Whitecross Primary invite parents and community to celebrate their anniversary

On 2nd of December, Claire Quigley, head teacher of Whitecross PS and her staff hosted an unusual celebratory event on the 60th anniversary of the opening of their school.

This involved visitors in making a terracotta clay tile which was personal to them. These will be dried, fired, and added to a tiled display in the foyer of the school. Every pupil in the school has already made their tile, and many were primed and ready to help their parents and guests make one too. Pupils from Graeme HS supported their primary colleagues in making their tiles, and Henry Meldrum, art teacher has fired them all.

Visitors were taken into the school hall, and shown examples of the pupils’ tiles. Claire and colleagues demonstrated how to make the basic tile slab, then guests could decide how it should be decorated. Tony Bragg, team manager – performance management, and Eddie MacLennan, team manager – workforce development, joined in, and Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, was delighted to make the “1955” date tiles which will be part of the commemorative display.

Jessie Dick came along and worked with her granddaughter Diane Balloch to make a tile. Both are former pupils of the school – Diane’s maiden name is Bryson, and her gran was known as Janet Reid, winner of the school dux medal in 1941-42. Jessie lives locally and enjoys return visits to the school, Diane said “It hasn’t really changed that much – the cloakrooms are gone – they’ve been made into classrooms now.”

Claire, staff colleagues, and pupils, will host a formal launch event to unveil the tile display when installation is complete.

Postscript from Claire 15th December 2015:

We are sad to say that in the short time since this event Jessie Dick sadly passed away. Our thoughts are with her family.