Yvonne McBlain from Falkirk Education Services curriculum support team has been finding out about some excellent partnership work instigated by Sarah Ritchie, principal teacher at Bonnybridge Primary School. Bonnybridge Primary School has formed a partnership with Spire Junior School in Uganda. Spire Junior school is located in Bwaise –Kazo Nakamiro Zone in Kampala District the major city in Uganda. The partnership aims to increase understanding and awareness of each other’s culture, tradition and life style, encourage open mindness, critical thinking and reasoning in pupils and give pupils a true sense of global citizenship. Pupils in Primary 5 have been working closely with their peers in Uganda exchanging letters and photographs. Click here to view some of these letters written by primary 2 pupils. This joint project, Through My Window, compares the impact that the environment has on the daily lives of pupils in both countries. The partnership has been hugely successful for both schools and has had a positive impact on pupils. To ensure the growth of the partnership Mrs Stocks, head teacher at Bonnybridge PS, and Mrs Ritchie secured funding from the British Council visited Uganda in October. 3 planes and 14 hours later they found themselves in the city of Kampala where they were very warmly welcomed by Peter Basoga, Principal Teacher of Spire Junior School, and Godfrey Muyodi, class teacher. Over the course of the week Jill Stocks and Sarah Ritchie met with teachers and pupils, observed lessons and took part in the daily life of the school. The arrived colleagues and left friends – look at the leaver’s assembly planned for them here. Peter Basoga and Godfrey Muyodi from Spire Junior School will visit Bonnybridge Primary School in December 2013. Click here to view the welcome received by Sarah and Jill, and here to see Bonnybridge pupils talking about the project.
Category: Curricular Areas
Gymnastics
Morag Young and Morag Simpson, Physical Education Lead Officers from Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team organised a Gymnastics twilight for primary class teachers and specialists. This course was led by Anne Murphy, from Education Scotland. Anne demonstrated how to provide a progressive Gymnastics programme focussing on the Significant Aspects of Learning in PE from Early Level through to Second Level. This was a practical course and participants were very impressed by the way in which the course was delivered in an extremely inclusive manner. Course participants were able to identify that this method of teaching Gymnastics would ensure a positive learning experience for all.
Examples of the very positive feedback are shown below.
“Better quality lessons and learning experience for the children”
“I think my learners will have a more positive and richer learning experience”
“more valuable experience for all the children especially those who are not so confident in this area”
Inchlair Nursery learns about the Commonwealth Games
Yvonne McBlain from Falkirk Education Services Curriculum Support team has been finding out about some active and engaging interdisciplinary learning happening at Inchlair Nursery School. The pre and ante-pre school children have become immersed in preparations for the Commonwealth Games following their reading of the story “Captain Bristle’s Thistles”. This story (click to see the story video) really captured the imaginations of the children and has led very naturally into development of their knowledge within various disciplines. Isobel Edmond, head teacher at the nursery, has worked with staff colleagues to involve parents in extending and deepening pupil understanding of this international event. Click here to see one of the documents used to keep parents informed of developments with this interdisciplinary work. Click here to see how one of the children continued to develop his learning at home with his mum. Staff are responding to the children’s interest in the progress of the Queen’s Baton Relay by using a map display within the nursery. The children are developing this display by noting and bringing in photos or other items which show their links to the relay route on the map. Click on the photograph at the start of this post to watch Inchlair pupils sharing their learning.
Reading is Rubbish?! Engaging Families in the Learning
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer, Curriculum Support Team has taken part in a recent workshop activity held at Falkirk High School.
The title of the event was ‘Reading is Rubbish’ and was aimed at parents and families of pupils in Falkirk schools. There were several workshops on offer at the event, which was led by author and patron of reading at Falkirk High School, Catherine MacPhail.
Sharon delivered two workshops to several parents, carers and pupils entitled: ‘Using Chocolate Cake to Demonstrate Reading Strategies’. Sharon used Michael Rosen’s poem ‘Chocolate Cake’ as a stimulus for developing reading and writing skills.
Participants engaged in several activities which addressed the six key comprehension strategies in active literacy reading. They were tempted by the lure of a piece of rich, icky-sticky, ooey-gooey, scrumptious chocolate cake and used fabulous adjectives to describe the treat.
Feedback from the workshop was extremely positive and families went away learning several new strategies to help their children with the development of reading skills at home.
Feedback included:
“I just wanted to say how much we thoroughly enjoyed the “Reading is Rubbish” event on Wednesday. Having attended the “chocolate poem workshop” – My daughter, who is 3, stood up in nursery and told all of her peers that “reading is not rubbish, it’s great fun and you even get chocolate cake!” My son who is P5 (and my reluctant reader) actually enjoyed it more than I thought he would have, he was telling everyone how great it was. I thought the workshop I attended was excellent.”
Better Movers and Thinkers at Wallacestone
Morag Young and Morag Simpson, Physical Education Lead Officers for Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team delivered an inservice course to primary teachers from Wallacestone 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. This was a practical session and all participants rose to the challenge! Initial feedback was extremely positive.
Scottish Learning Festival 2013 – Sharing Good Practice
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer, Curriculum Support Team delivered a workshop to 95 colleagues from across Scotland and beyond at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival.
The theme of the presentation was ‘Sharing the Learning with Parents/ Carers – Active Methodologies’ and the aim of the session was to provide an overview of the wide variety of approaches Falkirk establishments are using to share active methodologies with parents and carers.
The agenda for the workshop was:
- An overview of the Falkirk picture
- An explanation of the range of active methodologies used in Falkirk
- Parent/ carer workshops on offer
- Literature/ leaflets used
- Online methods – blogs/ you tube/ twitter
- Working in partnership with schools/ partners
- How this fits into Falkirk’s Literacy Strategy 2013 – 2016
Three pupils from Kinneil Primary School spoke eloquently and confidently about their experiences helping out at active learning workshops for parents. They talked about how attending the parental workshop gave their own parents ideas on how to support their homework.
Sharon shared a short video of Susan Dyer from Bankier Primary School explaining the impact an active learning workshop had on her school, as well as a video from a Bankier parent describing what it meant to her and her family.
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https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/LiteracyStrategy/
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Feedback included:
"Inspirational, you have really motivated me!"
"Thank you for sharing the Active Literacy parental leaflets - they are very useful."
Lots of delegates who attended this seminar then came along to Falkirk Council's stand in the Local Authority Village to enquire about our short animations Falkirk has developed on CfE and Active Literacy.
Active Literacy – Stirling University Input
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer, Curriculum Support Team has delivered an input to 45 second year ITE students at Stirling University. The session was based around Active Literacy and covered the following aims:
- To provide an overview of active approaches to literacy in the Early Years
- To outline key strategies and methodologies used for effective teaching and learning
- To examine ways forward for the student teachers careers to incorporate active approaches to literacy
Sharon provided these students with an overview of how Falkirk Council are meeting the literacy needs of our pupils from early to second level.
The students developed their knowledge and awareness of spelling and phonics strategies such as: five finger strategy, Elkonin boxes, diacritical marking, mnemonics, words within words, syllabification and compound words.
The active literacy animation for parents was shared, as well as Falkirk Council’s Literacy Strategy online support tool blog.
Sharon provided the students with an overview of the phoneme programme for each year group and how the 40 phonemes are covered across P1-3. Students used the reciprocal teaching method to work with a range of phoneme words to see how these are taught in Falkirk establishments.
There was an overview given of the six reading comprehension strategies and Sharon used the text ‘The Gruffalo’ to exemplify how each strategy can be used with this picture book.
The session concluded with the students reflecting on what they had learned, how this new knowledge impacts on their beliefs and understandings and what their next steps will be.
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!
Probationers Experience Active Literacy
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Team has delivered Active Literacy training this week to all primary probationer teachers in Falkirk.
The two sessions covered the range of strategies and methodologies used across all stages to develop skills in all areas of literacy.
The probationers enthusiastically participated in activities including a spelling test to highlight how we draw on our own phonological awareness, knowledge of spelling rules and phonemes to spell words. They also put a series of words into Elkonin boxes examining the 40 phonemes in the Active Literacy programme.
Sharon provided the primary probationers with a full overview of the programme from early to second level. They developed their knowledge of phonemic awareness, spelling strategies including: mnemonics, words within words and syllabification. Colleagues are aware of how the five finger strategy, effective use of resources such as Smart notebook tools, magnetic boards and letters and reciprocal teaching can enable pupils to become better spellers. Evidence is showing that pupils are transferring their knowledge of phonemes to other types of writing in different situations.
Sharon also explained how the six key comprehension reading strategies are used across a range of ‘texts’. Probationer teachers discussed the reading skills they are currently developing with their classes and how the six key comprehension strategies supports this development.
In terms of writing, Sharon provided colleagues with an overview of the seven different genres and how these should be addressed across the course of the year.
Sharon also shared the new Active Literacy for parents animation.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/TnXMSAcKcCo" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]Feedback so far has been very positive and has included:
“Thanks very much for the course. I feel really enthusiastic and excited to try out the Active Literacy strategies in class.”
