Category: Curriculum Level

December 13, 2021

Social Studies Updates and Support from Education Scotland

The following information, resource links and opportunities were shared at the latest National Social studies network meeting by Senior Education Officer Lynne Robertson, Education Scotland.

There are new national Social Studies Microsoft Teams where practitioners and senior leaders can keep up to date with all developments & opportunities, including professional learning. The primary Team code is 8wgkwpp and the secondary Team code is1zy7b8q
A wide range of teaching support resources for social studies are available from Glow Social Studies Network (#socialstudies ) – Resources (sharepoint.com). (Glow login req’d)
A Social Studies Skills Progression Framework has been created here. It is a support document which complements the social studies Experiences and Outcomes and the Benchmarks, and is in line with the Principles and Practice document. The following extract explains its purpose and the image below shows how it is structured. “Practitioners should plan learning, teaching and assessment using the Experiences and Outcomes.
Social studies is a content heavy subject area, and the ability to learn content is important. However it would not be best practice for a similar content area to be taught repeatedly during the broad general education to gauge the progress of learners. Therefore teachers cannot signpost the next steps for a learner by referring simply to content.
Social studies also has various gaps in the experiences and outcomes, across early to fourth level. As a result it can be difficult for teachers to assess the progress of children and young people.
The purpose of this support document is to guide practitioners in evaluating the progress of children and young people in how skills can be developed from early to fourth level. The skills in the tables below have been identified from the Es and Os and benchmarks. Where that skill is not mentioned in one or more of the five levels across the broad general education, the gap has been filled to enable progression to occur from each level to the next for each skill.”
A full list of social studies resource links is available here . A summary of BGE @ GU Social studies resources produced by teachers in partnership with Glasgow University can be found here and includes:
- People of Medieval Scotland (30 resources)
- The Vikings in Scotland
- History of Weather
- Homes in High Places
- Alfred Nobel and the Peace Prize

5. Statistics showing the number of pupils participating in NQ 5 and Higher grades were shared – see below.

October 4, 2019

Laurieston Primary School Develops Pupil Voice within School Improvement Processes

In May 2019, Beverley Keith, head teacher at Laurieston PS and Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, met to explore how to meaningfully involve staff, pupils, parents and the local community in the school’s review of its curriculum rationale and development. Beverley and Yvonne outlined a proposal which aimed to:

Develop pupil understanding of the curriculum (so that they have a more informed voice in its development)
Provide opportunities for pupil, staff, parent and other stakeholder reflection on what a Laurieston School curriculum should provide
Ensure that all voices in our school and community shape and inform our curriculum
Explore links and ways to connect or streamline our curriculum
Build on good practice in teaching and learning

This proposal was shared with staff alongside a suggested schedule for pupil and staff involvement. These were examined during an August inset afternoon where staff also explored the latest advice regarding the curriculum and self-evaluated what was working well and what they wanted to do to improve their curriculum. Yvonne set up a Microsoft Teams area within Glow so that staff could collate this evidence relating to HGIOS QI 2.2 Curriculum and make it easy for them to access (we noted that this would also cut down on workload and paperwork when preparing for VSE or HMIE).

Staff were enthusiastic about involving their other stakeholders in their curriculum rationale review process and used a collegiate session to explore how other schools were using HGIOURS (Education Scotland 2018) for this purpose. Yvonne shared developments at Avonbridge PS and Shieldhill PS and staff agreed that they wanted to adapt the HGIOURS toolkit Yvonne created for use in enabling pupils to shape their curriculum (click here to find out more about this toolkit). Laura Gavin, senior early years officer, and Claire Thompson, primary 6 class teacher volunteered to lead this process with the new pupil council appointed by their pupils. Sixteen pupils representing every class in the school and nursery met in early September to engage with the toolkit and begin their evaluation of their Laurieston curriculum.

Laura and Claire met regularly with pupils over the next month to support them in exploring how they could address the areas for development they had identified. They were very interested to hear how Shieldhill PS pupils were doing this in their school so invited them for a visit. On 23rd September four pupils from Shieldhill PS shared their process with Laurieston’s pupil council members (read more about this by clicking here). When asked how this helped pupils said:

“It’s been a great visit cos we get their ideas and maybe we can change them a wee bit.”

“We’ve been taught stuff we didn’t know… like about that Glow stuff.”

“I like how everything was unique to them.”

“I like having someone else’s input and opinion.”

Laura and Claire also valued the opportunity to hear what the pupils had done and were extremely impressed by how confident they were in answering questions (with no initial preparation) sharing their process and skills. The Laurieston PS pupils seemed particularly interested in the idea of hosting a school assembly and using the toolkit in some way to gather all pupil voices. Just before they left Shieldhill pupils said they had also benefited from the visit and would value “another catch up – maybe you could come to us?”

Laura, Claire and Yvonne discussed next steps when the children went back to class. Laura and Claire decided to work with their pupil council members the following week to support them in pulling together next steps and exploring whether and how the original schedule was still appropriate in the light of the progress and ideas put forward by their children. Yvonne is on standby if needed and is excited to see what happens next…

October 2, 2019

Developing Pupil Voice and Participation at Shieldhill Primary School

In May 2019, Robyn Wisbey, head teacher at Shieldhill PS & Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, met to discuss recent developments and ideas around How Good is Our School part 2 (2018). Robyn had been developing children’s involvement in her schools’ self-evaluation processes and was interested to hear how the HGIOURS toolkit Yvonne created had been adapted and used by colleagues at Avonbridge PS.

In order to develop pupil voice and participation, Yvonne, Robyn, and Belinda Tomasik, depute head teacher, agreed that primary 6 pupils at Shieldhill could be offered the opportunity to start and lead this new self-evaluation process in their school. If this worked well, in session 2019-20, these pupils would be ready and able primary 7 leaders for school self-evaluation alongside more traditional routine processes.

Yvonne, Belinda and colleagues in school used the HGIOURS toolkit with primary 6 pupils to gather their evaluation and displayed pupil analysis of the 5 themes. The adults explained the purpose of HGIOURS part 2 and how it was co-created with Scottish children and young people. Pupils were asked to consider how they could lead a process in their school which would enable every child to share what they thought their school was good at or needed to do better. Click here to view their initial ideas.

At that point, Jan Archibald took over as primary 6 class teacher and supported the children in developing and taking their ideas forward. She encouraged their creativity and problem solving as well as the digital and literacy skills they used to create pupil-friendly versions of their questions and video explanations for younger pupils. Pupils were encouraged to solve any problems which occurred with as little adult intervention as possible. At each stage in this process all adults took care to make explicit the skills being developed and applied by pupils. These included: working with others, time management, digital skills, drafting and paraphrasing. Pupils needed support with their organisation and planning skills , and Yvonne prompted their thinking by asking questions to help them identify and sequence the tasks required to bring their ideas to fruition. Yvonne, Jan and Belinda observed that not all pupils were equally engaged with or interested in leading the involvement of their fellow pupils or managing their self-evaluation process. In consultation with Robyn, it was agreed that pupils could decide whether they wanted to continue with their HGIOURS role. By the time pupils moved into primary 7 and Isla Dyer took over as their teacher, a team of 14 children had volunteered to drive this work forward.

At an early stage in the process Belinda and Yvonne set up and populated a Microsoft Teams area for our HGIOURS group to ease communication and to store files so that everyone could see and work on these. The pupils used this platform very effectively, and Yvonne and Belinda found it really valuable for collaborative working. Yvonne in particular was able to stay in touch with developments remotely from her base in Camelon Education Centre – offering feedback and praise for the preparations pupils were making.

High praise was due to the pupils when they scripted, prepared and led a school assembly to share their self-evaluation task/purpose and alert fellow pupils to their upcoming visits. (Pupil presentation slides provided above & right) They have interpreted HGIOURS Features of Effective Practice for younger pupils and adapted and prepared a Microsoft Forms survey version for use across certain school stages.

Pupils have consulted with nursery staff to explore how best to involve the youngest children in their school. In addition, on 23rd September, a team of 4 pupils were invited by pupil council members at Laurieston PS to share their progress so far. Nathan, Eilidh, Ella and Hannah seriously impressed Laurieston pupils and staff with their confidence, their knowledge and their ability to share and explain their process with such clarity. Watch this space for further developments…

October 2, 2019

Supporting pupil voice & participation using How Good is OUR School

Pupils in Falkirk Children’s Services schools are beginning to use How Good is OUR School (Education Scotland 2018) to contribute to the self-evaluation and improvement of their schools. Senior leaders and practitioners are using the Features of Effective Practice (see example below) to support children and young people in their consideration of what their school does well, or needs to do better.

In February 2019, Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, worked with colleagues in Avonbridge PS to create a pupil toolkit using elements of HGIOURS. They designed tools and a process which would enable every child in their school to add their voice to a collective self-evaluation/review process. The picture below shows the pro forma developed, and readers can click here to see the Features of Effective practice for theme 1 – Our Relationships. These are parts of a toolkit created to enable pupils to engage meaningfully in school self-evaluation, so that they can play a genuine role in identifying and shaping the school improvement agenda alongside staff, parents and partners. Click here to view the Power Point presentation used to help pupils at Avonbridge PS understand and take part in this opportunity to make their voices heard.

Jacqueline McLaughlin, head teacher at Antonine PS then used the HGIOURS toolkit with pupils in her school to inform and shape school improvement. In September 2019 her pupil council used the kit to help them prepare for and involve their parent council too. Jonathan Crawford, acting depute headteacher is also making use of the kit with pupil council members at Wallacestone PS. In each case, the kit is acting as a mediation tool to make the process accessible and meaningful to the pupils involved.

In May 2019 Robyn Wisbey, head teacher at Shieldhill PS and her depute Belinda Tomasik asked Yvonne to work with their primary 6 pupils and their teacher to explore how the toolkit could develop genuine and sustainable pupil-led self-evaluation and improvement processes across their school and community. Read about how this work is developing by clicking here.

In August 2019, Beverley Keith, head teacher at Laurieston PS and her staff began their refresh and review of their curriculum with Yvonne during their August inset day. Click here to read how Claire Thompson, class teacher and Laura Gavin, senior early years officer are supporting their pupil council in using HGIOURS to ensure that pupil voice also informs their curriculum.

All of these developments naturally support schools and pupils with HGIOS 4 Leadership and Management – particularly QI 1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement and QI 1.2 Leadership of Learning – children and young people leading learning. As a result of the leadership opportunities provided through their engagement with HGIOURS school at these schools, pupil participation has very obviously impacted on pupil skills for learning life and work, and on their confidence, leadership and self-esteem. They have an increased sense of their own capacity to make a difference in their school and are totally committed to ensuring other pupils in their school have their voices heard too.

In addition, this work helps these schools address Aspects for improvement from the Thematic Inspection of Empowerment for Parent and Pupil Participation (Education Scotland 2019) :

Continue to increase children’s and young people’s opportunities to lead their own learning and contribute to school improvement.
Involve pupils, parents and partners more in curriculum design and evaluating the impact of curriculum change.

December 21, 2017

Grangemouth HS Developing Practitioner Enquiry for Professional Learning

Yvonne McBlain attended the most recent meeting of secondary professional learning co-ordinators to hear how Falkirk secondary schools are using an enquiring approach to their self-evaluation and development of teaching and learning. Yvonne provided an update on the success and impact of the practitioner enquiry element of Falkirk Children’s Services’ probationer induction programme. Co-ordinators from each school then shared how they are exploring the extent to which this approach can impact on learning. Ash Wood, depute head at Grangemouth HS wrote up the following account of what this looks like in his school.

We have purchased resources to supply a “practitioner enquiry” section for teachers in our library. We also offer limited financial support to enable teachers to buy resources to support their enquiry. When they have completed their findings these resources are added to the library. We have created a one side of A4 template for teachers to complete to share their findings with their colleagues. Mrs Laura Gallagher (Teacher of Chemistry) has developed an interactive “toolkit” for teachers to use to help them understand, prepare for and complete a practitioner enquiry. She has also conducted a pilot of the tool with her faculty colleagues and received very positive feedback both about the toolkit and the benefits of the practitioner enquiry process. Laura has also shared and demonstrated her toolkit to CPD Co-ordinators in the authority.

Dr Alex Fraser (Teacher of Biology) will present his practitioner enquiry on pupil voice to our Extended Leadership Team later this session to promote the benefits of practitioner enquiry and demonstrate its relevance. His findings will support PTs who have pupil voice as part of the Faculty Improvement Plans.

Laura will promote her toolkit, and practitioner enquiry in general at our staff meeting in February. Leanne Welsh and Amy Nichol, two of our NQTs from last session who are now with us permanently, will also share their practitioner enquiries from last session to illustrate the process and how it has benefited their practice.

We are currently considering using our core School Improvement Groups as a way of taking practitioner enquiry forward, while conscious that the voluntary nature of the exercise is key to teacher “buy-in”.

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 11, 2016

Braes Cluster Day of Dance 2016

Morag Simpson and Morag Young, PE Lead Officers 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 Sheildhill Primary and California 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. We were treated to a creative Scottish Dance experience from California Primary at the interval. A huge thank you to Avonbridge for hosting and to all participants for performing so well on the day. We would also like to take this opportuity to thank Tesco in Camelon for providing the water and snack for the day.

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.

November 6, 2015

Pupils as Digital Leaders at Hallglen Primary School

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer within the Curriculum Support team of Service and School Improvement, Falkirk Council Children’s Services, supported a session with the Digital Leaders group of pupils in Hallglen Primary School.

These pupils are being supported for them to then support classes around the school in the use of technologies in their classrooms. They are led by teacher Louise McGlynn.

Communicating and Collaborating

This session let the pupils explore different features within Office 365, including a specially created SharePoint site for them in Microsoft Office 365 (which is accessed via their Glow username), their sites for each class, one for their Digital Leaders Group, their own site, the local authority site and a site within the national site. All learners in Glow have access to their own Outlook email account (each user has 50GB storage, and each email can have attachments up to 25MB), a discussion app (which provides the facility for pupils sharing questions, comments or responses to set tasks (peer to peer or teacher-pupils). weblink sharing, and a document store (where documents were created using Microsoft Word Online as part of Office 365, meaning that the document can be created online without need for the software to be installed on the PC or mobile device).

Simultaneous Collaborative Writing in Word Online

The pupils all worked simultaneously on a shared Word Online document in their Digital Leaders site (and were shown how the same could also be done in their own OneDrive personal storage area called MySite, giving them unlimited storage space online). They all collaborated on the same document online all at the same time from their own PCs – and there was general excitement as they vied with each other to add lines of text, increase or decrease font sizes, and see the resulting writing from the rest of the group change in front of their eyes, with flags in different colours indicating who had added or amended each section of the writing.

How to avoid being locked out of Glow when you forget your password

Pupils were shown how to set a recovery email address in their profile within Glow so that in the event that they forgot their password in the future they would not require to ask a member of staff to reset their password for them – they would simply be able to click on “Forgot your password?” on the login screen and an email would be sent to their recovery email address to then let them into Glow to reset their own password to one they will remember. To set up their recovery email address within Glow they login and on the RM Unify tiles screen click on their name at the top right-hand corner, then “My Profile” then add their email address, click save, and most importantly then go to that email account and click on the email which Glow will have sent to that email account and confirm it (without that last step the password recovery facility will not work.

Avatars

Pupils were shown how they could create an avatar (an image which would be seen throughout Office 365 as a fun representation of them) using one of the tools of their choice from this link, and how to add it to their Office 365 profile by going to Office 365, clicking on the head-and-shoulders icon at the top-right, then clicking on “change below the head-and-shoulders image to browse for their created avatar image and upload it. http://primaryschoolict.com/avatars/

Access via Mobile Device

Pupils were told about how they can be access Glow via a mobile device, with different apps for each tool, including Office Mobile (in order to be able to edit Word or Powerpoint for example) and OneDrive.

Newsfeed and Discussion tool for all pupils

Each class site in Hallglen Prmary School’s Glow site will have their own online collaborative class space created for them. Each class space is set up by default with access for pupils to view content added by their teacher, and with teachers able to add content anywhere in their site. The Discussion part and newsfeed app are both set for pupils to be able to contribute so that a teacher can set tasks, or ask questions and pupils are able to respond. The Digital Leaders have their own site which is set up for these specific pupils to be able to contribute in any part of their site, but with all other pupils to be able to respond to questions or tasks set by the digital leaders in the discussions part or newsfeed app.

Want to know more about Digital Leaders?

Several schools have pupils who act as supporters to other pupils in the use of digital technologies. More information about Digital Leaders can be found here: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/ICTFalkirkPrimaries/pupils-as-digital-leaders/