Category: Literacy

St Andrew’s Nursery Class – Outdoor Learning

St Andrew’s Nursery Class are the latest nursery to embark on the Outdoor Learning Project.  Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team, has supported staff, pupils and parents in the development of this programme.

Having met with staff and identified a site within Callendar Park, Karen met with parents to offer an information session (click here for presentation).  Some of the staff also visited another nursery to see how they ran their outdoor sessions as part of the preparation to getting off-site. 

The main aim of the project is to give children the opportunity to explore and play in the natural environment, using it as a stimulus for learning.  The children are actively encouraged to self-assess the risks and challenge themselves in this new exciting environment.  During the first session, the children took part in a number of activites:-

Measuring – children used a variety of materials to measure their hand, arm, leg and height and compare the sizes.  (I have experimented with everyday items as units of measure to investigate and compare sizes and amounts in my environment, sharing my findings with others – MNU 0-11a).

Sorting and Matching – the children found a variety of objects and brought them back to camp.  They were then involved in the discussion how to categorise these – this became a detailed discussion as some children were wishing alternative categories.  “I want to put the green leaf in the green pile and not with the other brown leaves”.  The children also discussed at great length how to sort the varying sizes of sticks and how to tell the difference between a stick and a twig.  (I can match objects, and sort using my own and others’ criteria, sharing my ideas with others – MNU 0-20b).

It was then decided that the children would go exploring to see what else we could find.  A group of children found a huge puddle that ran all the way under the bridge and had a fantastic time splashing and playing the water – they were very wet!!  We also found frog spawn at the side of the water which has brought to life the Spring/Life Cycle Topic they are currently investigating in nursery.

A great first session in the woods!

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Bright Beginnings Nursery

On the way to camp - this is very interesting!

Bright Beginnings Nursery is the first Falkirk Council Commissioned Partner Nursery to embark on the Outdoor Learning Project.  Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team initially visted the staff during a meeting to discuss any issues and logistics they may face while taking on this new venture.  Karen then attended a parents information session in February to explain the benefits of Outdoor Learning and Natural Play.  The staff also came along to a visit to Callendar Park with Comely Park Nursery Class as an informal training session (many thanks to Comely Park staff for enabling this to happen) – staff have commented how beneficial this session was and the children at Bright Beginnings are now going out to Callendar Park to spend a nursery session outdoors.  The feedback from staff, children and parents has been excellent.  The Manager has stated that this has been an excellent project for all the staff to be working on and the staff who have already been are very enthusiastic about going back (as are the children!).  Initially it is the 3-5 year old children who are taking part in this project, however parents of the younger children are now asking when it will be their child’s turn.  Once the staff and 3-5 aged children have established their sessions in the woods it is hoped that the 2 year old children will also have the opportunity to experience this exciting learning environmnent.  Watch this space!!

During the sessions, children were interested in Callendar House and the children visited the kitchen and the exhibition in the gallery.

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Stirling University – Outdoor Learning

Initial Task - Den Building

Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team was invited to facilitate an Outdoor Learning session  for Third year initial teacher education students at Stirling University. The students were provided with a brief overview of how Outdoor Learning has developed in early years establishments over the last year.

The students then took part in a variety of different activities ranging from den building to  storytelling.  Here are some of the comments received from the students:-

“Unlike the weather, the morning we spent with Karen was fantastic.  Not only was it great fun and full of inspiring ideas, but I feel it’s really given me the confidence I was lacking to take children outside and utilise the natural resources we are surrounded with.  I’ve since contacted a local nursery and I’m scheduled to spend time with them during their forest school sessions.  This will help develop my knowledge and confidence further in this aspect of teaching, however without Karen’s enthusiasm its not something I would probably have done.”  

“The session served in the first instance to help when dealing with concerns from care-givers on the risks associated with outdoor learning, Karen and Laura highlighted that the use of research and associated data on accidents would be key in allaying concerns.  The practical element of the lesson highlighted the opportunities for cross curricular learning with the literacy and story telling exercises, numeracy with the clock making, learning new skill, taking risks through novel physical activity and hopefully the children then becoming advocates in their own households when they return home expressing the enjoyment they have had during the lesson.”

 “The session was great, I really enjoyed the teaching ideas for the early level, such as finding the numbers hidden in the woods, and making a clock to teach time. I feel a lot more confident about taking learning outdoors and can’t wait to try out some of the ideas!”

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Creativity – What Is It?

Gayle Martin, Arts & Culture Officer, Curriculum Support Falkirk Council is working in partnership with Stirling and Clackmannanshire Council to develop Creative Learning.  Gayle recently attended a presentation by Sheila Paige of Education Scotland who is leading Creativity Across Learning, which is a creative review across a range of education establishments in Scotland.  The review will complete in June and results will be published in September.  As part of this Sheila was able to share how Education Scotland has defined Creativity, which is listed below:

 Definitions of Creativity

 Creative skills, sometimes referred to as capacities, include being:

  • Inquisitive
  • Open-minded
  • Able to harness imagination
  • Able to identify and solve problems

 We also define people who have well-formed creative skills as being:

  • Confident in their right and ability to influence change

 These organisers are used to describe more fully those key learning behaviours which will support the development of these skills and capacities.  The following list aims to expand these concepts.  It is not exhaustive but includes:

  • Being curious
  • Registering patterns and anomalies
  • Drawing on previous knowledge
  • Researching productively
  • Formulating good questions
  • Defining problems
  • Exploring multiple viewpoints
  • Functioning with uncertainty
  • Lateral thinking
  • Hypothesising
  • Synthesising and refining multiple options and viewpoints
  • Inventing
  • Crafting, delivering and presenting solutions
  • Applying discipline and resilience
  • Evaluating impact and success of solutions
  • Identifying next steps in refinement or development of process

We would also expect children and young people to become increasingly:

  • Motivated and ambitious for change
  • Confident in validity of their own viewpoint
  • Able to apply a creative process to other situations
  • Able to lead and work well with others

Active Literacy in the Secondary School

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team is currently working with two Falkirk Secondary Schools on a very exciting Active Literacy transition project.

The recently published Active Literacy pack takes the Active Literacy programme into S1 and Sharon is currently team teaching with John Doherty at Larbert High School and an S1 class, and soon Graeme High School, also with an S1 class on higher order reading skills.

The P4/5 Active Literacy pack develops the higher order skills introduced at P1-3 and the P6/7/S1 pack takes these skills even further.

The S1 classes are developing the six key reading comprehension skills using the Alfred Noyes poem ‘The Highwayman’ as a ‘text’.

The initial lesson looked at Strategy 1 – prior knowledge of ‘highwaymen’ and this period in time, followed by Strategy 2 – using ‘metalinguistics’ – picking out key phrases/ interesting vocabulary. The pupils then used Strategy 3 – using visualisers to produce a mind-map which incorporated the main themes of a non-fiction text about ‘Highwaymen’.

This is a very exciting project taking the Active Literacy programme into S1 and the skills even further into real life.

The second lesson in this series was really successful and examined comprehension strategies 3 (using visualisers), 4 (inference), 5 (main ideas) and 6 (paraphrasing). In a very short timescale, S1 pupils from Larbert High were able to produce visualisers to summarise the main ideas of two stanzas from the poem. Working in cooperative groups on two different stanzas each, the pupils were able to cover the entire poem. They then went onto producing a summary/ paraphrase of those two stanzas using only 140 characters and published these live on twitter.

Some of the tweets included:

‘The highwayman knocks on the window of the inn and finds Bess #younglove x’

‘The Highwayman is a structured poem which has good describing words #shotottheface‘

‘The highwayman rides to the inn. Sings a song to the girl. Redcoats make her shoot herself. #death‘

Sharing the Learning of Active Literacy – A Collaborative Approach to Achieving!

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team has been investigating the role of other stakeholders to support pupil attainment in Active Literacy. Sharon has devised a series of sessions useful for Support for Learning Assistants in order to share the Active Literacy Programme. These two sessions have already been delivered in establishments across Falkirk and proving popular, as these quotes demonstrate:

“I wish the sessions were longer, I have learned so much already this morning!”

“I am excited to try out some of these ideas with the pupils I support!”

The two sessions look at spellings and phonics, and reading and writing and Sharon provides participants with useful handouts on activities which consolidate classroom learning in Active Literacy. Support for Learning Assistants are given a brief overview of the programme, along with practical tips to use with the pupils they support. These are hands-on sessions with Support for Learning Assistants having a go at some activities such as the five finger strategy, Elkonin boxes and diacritical marking.

The impact on pupil learning is that Support for Learning Assistants are able to use the same language associated with the Active Literacy programme and look at alternative ways to enhance the learning e.g. through the use of the outdoor environment, Smart boards, CD-roms and other sensory experiences.

These sessions are proving very popular and have so far been delivered at St. Bernadette’s, Bainsford (incorporating Drumbowie Primary) and Laurieston.

Reading Champions

 Yvonne Manning, Principal Librarian, Curriculum Support Team, Falkirk Council Education Services organised a project with looked after and accommodated young people who worked with storytellers and an animator to create a film. The project was funded by Awards for All and is an example of very effective partnership work between Education, Social Work, Lisa Kapur Forde (Arts Development Officer, Falkirk Community Trust), storytellers – Ruth Kirkpatrick and Claire McNicol, musicians and Wrighteye film makers. The launch of the film took place in Falkirk Town Hall on 22/3/13. It was a wonderful occasion to celebrate the achievements of the young people. The storytellers and the young people told the story that they had created and then the film was shown. The film shows the group in Meadowbank Library working together on the story, making the characters, shooting the scenes and then viewing the animation of the story. The song that accompanies the story was written and sung by one of the young people. The film can be viewed by clicking this link – Tear Drops on the Wings

Feedback after the launch was exceptional, here is just a snapshot of what people said:

‘What a fantastic and moving film.  The music was wonderful and fitted perfectly with the story and the animation.  I was blown away by the whole event and by the talent and ability of the young people.  Thank you.’ Chief Governance Officer, Falkirk Council.

‘This has by far the best thing that’s happened for me for ages, thanks for sharing your work, talent and experiences.  I would be delighted if you would be prepared to show the film and tell the story at the Falkirk Parents and Families Workshop on 9th October 2013.  I think you could inspire so many more people there!, Thank you!!’ Co-ordinator, Children’s Services, Falkirk Council.

‘Incredible! I was unbelievably impressed with the quality of the film.  Thank you so much for giving us the chance to see it.  You are all brilliant.  Well done!!’ Clinical Psychologist.

‘Well done all involved.  A brilliant team effort.  Hope to see your film again soon.  Thank you so much!’  Child Health Commissioner, N.H.S. Forth Valley.

‘Excellent show, the young people have shown how much talent they have.  Through this film they have hopefully addressed some issues they have, they worked very well together, social skills proven, feelings revealed etc.  Well done to everyone who encouraged and taught, helped make this film.  What next for these young people, they need to get to the next stop.  BRAVO!!’ A Grandmother

‘…  Wow! Wonderful achievement to everyone who participated in the movie.  It was a lovely story well written.  The film makers were great and the music was showstopping! Simply stunning! Wonderful music.  To all of you, I wish you every success in the future.  Keep working hard; Keep positive: Keep doing good work and Thank You I loved it.’ Councillor, Falkirk Council.

And what next?

To nominate the film for an Award.

The young people will tell their story and show the film at a Parent and Families Workshop event in Falkirk Council in October 2013.

CELCIS (Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland) are very interested in showcasing the film at their annual conference in October 2013.

Education Scotland are very interested in sharing the project as an example of good practice.

A connection has been established between the Homes and Meadowbank Library. The young people all received a library membership card and borrowed books from the library. The plans  to reinforce this connection include a trip to the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August; library staff will visit the Homes in advance of the trip to read ‘tasters’ from the books by the author(s) with whom the young people will meet.

At least two of the young people have been offered opportunities to further explore  their musical interest and talent from the musicians and producer involved in the project.

The young people who were involved in this project wanted it to continue  and other young people are now very keen to be involved in a similiar project. With this in mind, Yvonne Manning, Lisa Kapur Forde and Jenny Kane (Leaving Care Service) are looking at other potential funding sources and build on the success.

Active Literacy – Stirling University Initial Teacher Education

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team has been busy sharing the active literacy message with initial teacher education students at Stirling University. Third year students were provided with a brief overview of the Active Literacy strategies and methodologies before embarking on a practical workshop of activities. The third year students participated in a traditional spelling test followed by an active learning spelling test. They commented on the difference between the two and how much more effective the learning was using the Active approach. They also attempted to split words into Elkonin boxes learned about single phonemes, joined phonemes and split phonemes. They examined a range of ‘texts’ including recipes, stories, picture books and film looking at how the six key comprehension reading strategies can be applied at early level. Students were enthused by this creative approach to active literacy and ‘on a mission’ to try out some of the methodologies on their next teaching placement. It was a really enjoyable morning and Dr. Lynsey Burke commented on how important it is to have had a valuable input and insight into current active literacy approaches within Falkirk Council.