Category: Expressive Arts

Whitecross Primary invite parents and community to celebrate their anniversary

WP_20151202_001 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. WP_20151202_002

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. WP_20151202_003

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.”  WP_20151202_005

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.

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Whitecross PS

IMG_4653Whitecross Primary School celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. The actual date is 5th December, but pupils, staff and parents are preparing to create a very special memento of the occasion.

Claire Quigley, head teacher at Whitecross PS , is collaborating with colleagues in Graeme HS and Camelon Education Centre to create a permanent clay tile installation for the foyer of the school. They are solving practical problems like how to get 250 plus tiles made and fired! But they are also building effective links between schools and their communities, as well as individual pupils. This all contributes to the life and ethos of both schools and the wider experiences of pupils. All of this is in addition to the art and design skills being developed by pupils.

Henry Meldrum, art and design teacher at Graeme High School saw an opportunity for his S2 class to support groups of Whitecross pupils in their creation of terracotta clay tiles for the installation. Each pupil will make at least one tile which shares their interpretation of their local area. On Friday 11th September, the first group of 12 primary 6-7 pupils from Mrs McNeill’s class in Whitecross PS visited Graeme HS to make their tiles.

IMG_4651After watching Mr Meldrum’s demonstration of clay techniques, the S2 pupils advised the primary pupils on how best to create their tile. They offered practical advice on techniques, and artistic advice on how the tile looked.

Daniel in S2 acted as photographer and Yvonne McBlain gathered the thoughts of the pupils involved:

Connor “I’m enjoying being in the high school, and I like using the clay. Also having a nice person to help me do shapes and have ideas about different things.

Abbie “It was very good that we had people to help us”

Thomas “I did it myself with no help!”

S2 also valued the experience:

Demi ” I’m enjoying working with the clay and the kids. It’s helping me knowing and understanding the clay…cos we’ve never used it in second year before.”

William “It’s fine – fun. Not helping me, but helping him”

Aimee ” I think it’s good because our class was chosen to help with this. It’s something different and it’ll give us an experience in working with younger ones.”

IMG_4654 Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support teacher, will lead a practical workshop with staff and parents on 30th September, to support them in making sure that everyone in Whitecross School, and its local area can create a tile for the installation.

On 2nd December, the school will be hosting an open afternoon and evening when pupils will be able to use new skills gained from their visits to Graeme HS art department to “teach” their parents, friends, former pupils, and wider community how to make their tile.

A date for the grand opening will be decided once everyone who wishes to be involved in the 60th birthday celebration has had the chance to contribute.

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Scottish Day of Dance

DSC_0328Morag Simpson and Morag Young, PE Lead Officers from Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team, along with Catherine Halcrow (PE Specialist), organised the Annual Day of Scottish Dance at Falkirk Town Hall on Friday 20th March 2015.

The event was a huge success with around 300 pupils attending. Once again the Jack Delaney band provided live music to accompany the dancers. The programme included a variety of dances with varying degrees of difficulty allowing schools to participate in as few or as many dances as they chose.

The day provides a great opportunity for schools to join in a fun celebration of Scottish dance, deepening their understanding of Scottish Culture at the same time. Pupils also gain the experience of mixing with other pupils from across Falkirk.

Thistle Wing Wheelchair Dancers again performed at the interval as did Larbert High S2 School of Dance Pupils. Both of these performances were very well received.

Our Provost Pat Reid showed his support again by attending the event and talking to many pupils and staff.

Both PE Lead Officers would like to say a big thank you to all the staff and pupils who worked hard at preparing the dances to make this day a big success. A great time was had by all.

Reminder: If you are interested in attending the Day of Dance in 2016 – There is an online resource available to assist you with the preparation of the dances.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJBh6ZaUFm-Fs9vS-uKUrfu4z5veg3s56

Falkirk Staff Online Spaces for Sharing Resources and Collaboration

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer within the Curriculum Support team of Service and School Improvement, Falkirk Council Education Services, has been supporting many central staff and staff within educational establishments across Falkirk Council to set up shared online spaces for making available resources to colleagues working in Falkirk Council, and to provide them with tools to collaborate.

These online spaces provide a means to share resources within the education community of all Falkirk Council establishments and can be accessed from here: http://tinyurl.com/pvmjx92

Each site provides at least one document store, and in many cases multiple document stores for making accessible resources in different formats, as well as picture galleries for sharing examples of practice, a discussion area for asking questions or sharing ideas, a news area for updates, and a weblinks area for quick access to related material elsewhere online.

Some of these sites are for sharing centrally sourced resources, some are for providing the means for staff in establishments to share with others, some provide a means to share with specific colleagues in different establishments, some provide structured professional development combining reading material, presentations and video, space for reflective comments with colleagues undertaking the same professional development and making use of video-conferencing spaces, and some provide a common space for clusters of schools to plan together and to pool resources for activities across multiple establishments.

These shared online spaces include Active Learning, Active Literacy, Art Teachers Network Falkirk, Bilingual and Traveller Pupil Support Service, Denny Cluster (including for Mathematics and for Outdoor Learning Network), Education Communications, Education Matters, Employee Review and Development, Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes Expanded for all curricular areas and for all levels, Falkirk Confucius Classroom Hub, Falkirk Headteachers, Good Practice Network, Graeme Cluster Good Practice Network (including cluster transition event planning), ICT in Learning and Teaching, Instrumental Music Service for Falkirk Council, Interdisciplinary Learning in Falkirk Council, Numeracy and Mathematics, Physical Education, Primary Language Learning 1+2 Resource Bank, Specific Learning Differences, Storyline, Teaching for Deep Learning, and the To Lead or Not to Lead programme, amongst other online spaces specifically for staff working in Falkirk Council.

Staff within Falkirk Council Education Services can access the above spaces by clicking on this link.

Dance – Progression

Morag Young and Morag Simpson, Physical Education Lead Officers from Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team organised a series of two Dance twilight sessions for primary class teachers and specialists. These courses were led by Anne Murphy,  from Education Scotland. Anne demonstrated how to provide a progressive Dance programme focussing on the Significant Aspects of Learning in PE from Early Level through to Second Level.  Content examples were given to and developed by the group showing how to link learning in a dance context with all other curricular areas.

Examples of the very positive feedback are shown below.

“This has impacted on the way I would teach a dance block with the children now as it is not about following a routine.”

” Children will get more ownership of their learning through dance by using these approaches”

” Will now use the ideas given to promote higher order thinking skills while teaching dance.”

 

 

 

 

Avonbridge Dancers

Morag Young and Morag Simpson, PE Lead Officers for Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team arranged a visit to Avonbridge Primary School to work with their Scottish Country Dance group. The purpose of this visit was to showcase good practice in Scottish Country Dance and create a  resource for class teachers. The  resource will help with the delivery of this activity context through curricular PE or as an extra-curricular club in preparation for the annual Day of Dance . We would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to the pupils and staff of Avonbridge for their warm welcome and willingness to assist us with this project.  Particular thanks to Mrs Rankine for all her input with the dancers.

Get involved in Falkirk’s Town Heritage!

 Yvonne McBlain, Curriculum Support Teacher with Falkirk Council Education Services recently met with Julia Branch, THI Heritage Engagement Officer from Falkirk Community Trust. During this meeting, Julia and Yvonne explored a range of ways in which the Falkirk Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI ) http://glo.li/194nhCZ could contribute to the range of teaching and learning experienced by our pupils. The THI Team has been given permission to start, and are keen to work with interested establishments, practitioners and young people. The THI is grant giving initiative funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Scotland & other local partners. The project’s overall aim is to breathe new life into Falkirk’s historic Town Centre by improving the physical appearance of the area and enhancing the things that make Falkirk special and unique. This will include repairing and conserving important historic buildings, restoring traditional shop frontages, and improving the public realm.  Alongside the physical regeneration work, Julia will be implementing a ‘Community Engagement’ programme, which will bring local history to life, offer the community and schools opportunities to learn about and promote Falkirk’s rich heritage. If you are interested in taking part in this part of the project or want more information please contact Julia via email julia.branch@falkirkcommunitytrust.org or phone 07739328530. Julia has created a really useful Pathfinder pack of classroom resources within Scran which you can access here http://glo.li/194nDtb , and more resources will follow.

Denny High School Pupils film local sporting celebrities

Yvonne McBlain of Falkirk Education Services Curriculum Support team is working with 4SIG2 and their Creative Digital Media teacher Sarah Felton to create a pupil version of our education policy Learning to Achieve. The 4th year pupils in this class are in the production phase of creating a magazine-style digital presentation which we hope will bring the paper version of the policy to life for secondary pupils all over Falkirk Council. The class decided that interviewing successful people who had attended our schools could be a really inspiring part of this presentation. Following lots of research, they organised and filmed Asia Bailey, former pupil of Larbert HS, and Jack Hamilton former pupil of Denny HS. Asia is about to become a full-time Tae Kwon Do athlete, and is currently German and Dutch Open Champion. Click here  for more information on her career so far. Jack has had a very successful junior football career for his club and national teams and is now a goal keeper with Hearts Football Club – click here for more information . Click here to see the design brief the pupils are working from – this includes the paper version of section 4 of the policy which was written by pupils from a range of our schools. The pupils were really grateful that Asia and Jack could give up some of their training time to be interviewed, and thrilled to meet these local sporting celebrities. One of the next jobs that these pupils have scheduled is to organise and film “Vox Pop” style interviews with pupils at all of our other secondary schools.

Larbert Cluster Interdisciplinary Planning

Yvonne McBlain of Falkirk Curriculum Support Team was thrilled to attend the first of a series of cross-sector cluster interdisciplinary planning sessions on Tuesday 17th September 2013. As chair of the Commonwealth Games Interdisciplinary Project sub-group, Linda-Anne Reid worked with colleagues to co-ordinate this collegiate planning. Early year’s practitioners and primary 1 teachers met in Stenhousemuir PS, first level teachers met in Carron PS, and second and third in Kinnaird PS. All staff were given relevant planning materials and information in advance, including the cluster plan, NAR planning flow chart, NAR planning flow chart  instructions and Falkirk Community Trust/Active Schools Going for Glasgow Accreditation paper. Isobel Edmond provided early level practitioners with a very clear introductory overview of the potential benefits of this interdisciplinary learning context.  Morag Carson then explained that each of  the 3 hour-long planning sessions would involve same stage groups planning within 3 bundles of E & Os. This means that the Larbert cluster will generate at least 3 interdisciplinary plans per level which meet experiences and outcomes from: Social subjects & Expressive Arts, Social subjects & Technology, & Social subjects and Science. They are more than happy for these plans to be made available across the authority when complete. Once these groups were established, their first task was to identify the small bundle of E & Os they felt could be progressed by this context, for their learners. Yvonne and Linda-Anne enjoyed a whistle-stop tour of the nursery and primary 1 groups, and then nipped up to Kinnaird PS to pop into the second and third level groups. The staff involved had already made choices about their E & Os , and begun to consider learning intentions, and the best activities to develop knowledge, understanding and skills within the Commonwealth Games context. There will be 2 further planning sessions on 30th October and 21st November, but some groups have opted to do one double session instead. Although clearly linking into national events taking place in 2014, this way of working across-cluster offers potential benefits on many levels: the planning of robust interdisciplinary learning, development of understanding of skills progression, and the sharing of practice generally. All in all, a really active, purposeful form of collegiate professional learning!