Category: Health and Wellbeing

Safe and Responsible Use of Social Networking Peer Education Tour

Well done to the Larbert HS Pupils who planned and delivered  a fantastic Theatre in Education  social networking education tour for Larbert cluster primary schools. The primary pupils loved the experience and were very clear what they had learned from it.

“I won’t give out my personal details”

“I will think carefully before I post a picture of myself”

“I will consider others feelings when posting comments”

 This tour was part of an accredited Theatre in Education Project  for Creative Industries.  The pupils  took responsibility for planning the entire project which included liaising with each primary school, creating questionnaires for primary 7 pupils  on their social networking use that was used to inform what they included in the drama.  The pupils had to plan and create the drama and have regular team meetings to evaluate their progress and set targets to meet deadlines for the completed  script and devised workshop activities. At the end of the tour the pupils have to evaluate their own contribution to the process and identify improvements that they could make to the planning of the project that could be carried forward to the planning of another project.

Sharing Classroom Chick Egg Hatching

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support team of  Service and School Improvement, Falkirk Council Education Services, has provided advice on request to various schools when they are taking part in a chick egg hatching project as part of science, and health & wellbeing elements of the curriculum.

So that pupils can enjoy watching the activities of the egg hatching and of the chicks, and share that with their parents and carers, at times outwith normal classroom times, often schools want to find ways to share live video of the eggs and chicks.

At its simplest a school could use a class blog, or the school website or the class, school (or specially set up project) Twitter account to share periodic photographs with short descriptive text of the activity happening. Recorded video could also be similarly shared.

However schools most frequently want to be sharing what’s happening at times outwith the normal school day.

So this is where live streaming of video via a webcam connected to a PC can provide the answer.

St Patrick’s Primary school in Denny is one recent example of a Falkirk primary school which set up live video streaming of the chick egg hatching process. Click here to see recorded excerpts from the live stream of the chick egg hatching project at St Patrick’s Primary School.

Do you want to set up live video streaming for a chick egg hatching project in your school?

Click here for a description of the process for setting up live video streaming for a chick egg hatching project.

Raising the Bar in Physical Education

Morag Simpson and Morag Young PE Lead Officers for Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team organised a hugely successful Raising the Bar Event for Physical Education on the inservice day on Thursday 13th February.

The day provided the opportunity for delegates to expereince  a combination of  practical workshops and presentations from both Education Scotland and HMIE. Feedback from all sessions has been extremely positive with the opportunity for Q & A sessions being greatly appreciated by all.

Morag Simpson and Morag Young are hoping to provide the same opportunity at the next inservice day on the 2nd May 2014.

Here are some examples of feedback given:

“Excellent day, informative and very useful”

” A very interesting day with lots of fun ideas and activities”

” Great having notes and resource links”

“Excellent resources to support teaching”

Braes Cluster Day of Dance

Morag Simpson and  Morag Young, PE Lead Officers and Marian Boyle, Support Officer for Health and Wellbeing,  all within Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team organised and delivered a Day of  Sottish Dance for the Braes Cluster. Avonbridge Primary kindly agreed to host the event with Wallacestone Primary and Sheildhill Primary also attending. The day was a great success with lots of fun had by all and some fantastic dancing on display. The pupils from all schools worked well together, helping each other through the dances.

A huge thank you to Avonbridge for hosting and to all participants for performing so well on the day.

Larbert High School 16 Days of Action

Larbert High School pupils enjoyed the challenge of selling baking and merchandise to raise awareness and support for the White Ribbon 16 days of Action Campaign.

The 16 days of action campaign which raises awareness of domestic violence has been driven forward by a dedicated group of pupils from Larbert High School along with the support of their teacher, Stacey McMichan and school based Police Officer, Alan Imrie. In keeping with the campaign, pupils at Larbert High School have had the opportunity to sign a pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about domestic violence. School teacher Stacey McMichan said “Domestic violence is a huge problem in society. We hope that by raising awareness of this in a school environment we can highlight to young people the importance of acceptable behaviour in a relationship. By exploring this topic, the pupils will be better equipped as adults to recognise relationships which are not healthy and to speak out against abuse. I am aware that this topic may be sensitive for some pupils, and throughout the campaign we have encouraged pupils to speak to guidance staff or PC Imrie if they need any advice or support with any issues raised”In the New Year the school has plans to further develop the understanding of domestic violence, with trained staff delivering classroom inputs.

Further information can be found on this subject at www.whiteribbonscotland.org.uk.

Physical Education Conference

Morag Young and Morag Simpson, Physical Education Lead Officers for Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team attended the  inaugural conference for the Scottish Association of Physical Education Teachers (SATPE). This was held at  Tulliallan Castle on Saturday 2nd November 2013.   The occasion highlighted the importance of professional dialogue, the sharing of good practice and the unity of practitioners across the country. The key note speaker was Paralympian David Smith, a truly inspirational individual.

Presentations from the event will be available from the website shortly. www.SATPE.co.uk 

Individuals can join SATPE for £25 or a primary school membership costs £40. For this membership you will gain access to an online journal, teaching resources, notification of relevant events and discounts from association sponsors.

The PE Lead Officers across Scotland are encouraging schools to join the association to assist their professional development in reaching the 2 hour PE target.

Better Movers and Thinkers

Morag Young and Morag Simpson, Physical Education Lead Officers for Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team delivered a twilight course to primary staff on the  Better Movers and Thinkers Programme. This programme is an innovative, exciting and challenging movement and learning programme for Physical Education, that focuses directly on enhancing the links between moving and thinking and how these elements scaffold the development of physical performance and inter-disciplinary learning.  The practical content was delivered and developed in response to the questions and identified needs of the participants.

Feedback was extremely positive and participants are looking forward to the follow up session in February.

Examples of some feedback are shown below:

“Really interesting course with many ready to use ideas, can’t wait to try with my class!”

” Enjoyed the layering effect of tasks as it really allows for differentiation”

” ..will implement right away, very motivational”

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.