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.
Category: First Level
Inter-Authority Moderation
Gillian Campbell (CSO Secondary) has been working with two Falkirk Primary Head Teachers and Glasgow, West Lothian and North Lanarkshire Education Authorities on a major project on moderation. This Education Scotland funded piece of work focused on moderation of their self evaluation procedures and Falkirk were represented by Cathy Quinn (St Bernadette’s RCPS) and Linda-Anne Reid (Stenhousemuir Primary).
One Head Teacher from each of the four authorities involved joined in two seperate groups to visit each other’s schools and act as critical friends. Suggested discussion points had been devised by the group based on the Self Evaluation expectations from Education Scotland. Meanwhile the 4 Local Authority leads met to discuss how each handled quality assurance at a strategic level in their councils. From this work we will look at impact and how individuals, authorities and the whole group will further develop aspects in our schools and authorities.
All 8 Head Teachers and 4 authority represenatives will meet to share their experience and contribute to the final report. If Education Scotland give their approval to the content of the final report then the work will be put on the National Assessment Resource during the summer.
For more information on this project, or assessment/moderation in Falkirk generally, email: gillian.campbell@falkirk.gov.uk
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.
The Thinking Reader – Active Literacy
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer, School and Service Improvement team led a CPD session on The Thinking Reader approach to active reading. 54 colleagues attended the session.
Kristina McGinley, Hallglen PS, Aimee Roan, Carron Primary School, Anita Cowan, St. Mary’s RCPS and Alison Marshall, Drumbowie PS all shared good practice in this area. Kristina had observed Sharon teaching using this approach, whilst the other three ladies had attended the course in November. All four teachers explained how using this approach to reading had led to noticeable increased attainment in reading skills.
Colleagues then participated in a Thinking Reader lesson before considering how they could use it in their own establishments. They all engaged in professional dialogue considering how this approach could be used to develop the six reading comprehension skills across a range of texts from a range of genres.
Schools Library Service also contributed to the session by providing a wide range of resources which support this reading approach.
All resources produced so far for the Thinking Reader can be found on the Active Literacy Resource section on GLOW.
Monitoring for Improvement in Active Methodologies
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer of the Service and School Improvement Team, delivered a session to 25 Principal Teachers as part of their network programme. The course asked participants to consider how the use of active learning methodologies raises attainment across the curriculum.
Colleagues began the session using a placemat activity to examine questions, challenges, successes and barriers to monitoring active methodologies.
Sharon then provided an overview of the active literacy programme from Nursery to S1 which included: spelling and phonics, reading and writing. The principal teachers were provided with a range of materials to support effective monitoring in this area. They then watched a range of good practice videos highlighting active literacy strategies and methodologies in action in Falkirk schools.
Sharon then provided an overview of effective teaching strategies within cooperative learning and what to look out for in a ‘cooperative learning’ environment. Again, colleagues were able to watch a short series of videos highlighting the five basic elements of a cooperative learning lesson. Discussions were stimulated around the use of effective questioning and use of Assessment for Learning techniques.
The session concluded with participants stating next steps to further development effective monitoring in active methodologies.
For further information, please contact Sharon Wallace – sharon.wallace@falkirk.gov.uk
Feedback was positive with colleagues expressing thanks for the opportunity to see the whole programme across all stages.
Active Approaches to Numeracy
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer of the Service and School Improvement Team recently organised a professional learning opportunity entitled ‘Active Approaches to Numeracy’. 57 colleagues from Primary, Secondary and the Curriculum Support team (including QIO) spent the day examining a range of active strategies to improve attainment in mental mathematics.
Helen MacKinven, from Big Maths provided an overview of strategies including: jigsaw numbers, CLIC and partitioning. Colleagues were also treated to the experience of a ‘Beat That’ mental maths quiz.
Clusters then worked together to look at ways forward to improve attainment in mental maths. Feedback from this day has been extremely positive.
A number of colleagues have put their names forward to be part of the Numeracy Mobilisation Team. This work will inform the update of Falkirk Council’s numeracy strategy. The first meeting for this group is being held on 12th February. For further information on this, please contact Sharon Wallace at sharon.wallace@falkirk.gov.uk
Using Media to Support Literacy Skills
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer of the Curriculum Support Team and John Doherty, Principal Teacher of English and Literacy at Larbert High School this week delivered a CPD opportunity to staff from the Braes Cluster.
The aims for this session were:
•To provide an overview of ways to use ‘cultural tools’ to support pupils to learn and express their ideas
•To explore ways pupils can read with understanding, communicate effectively face to face, in writing and through an increased range of media
Sharon began with an overview of the six reading comprehension skills and outlining the range of media resources available to support the development of these skills.
John began by outlining the key differences between a ‘book’ as text and ‘film’ as text:
John then identified the different types of camera angles: close-up, extreme close-up, high/ how angle shot, long shot, point of view shot, zoom and tracking. John showed different stills from a range of films and the teachers identified each shot. The teachers were then asked to use their mobile devices to produce a camera shot from this list.
John then went onto analysing the use of music in film and we learned that music in film is known as the soundtrack. It can be divided into two categories –
a. Diegetic music (in the film – characters can hear)
b. Non-diegetic music (music that characters cannot hear – not part of the film’s ‘reality’)
We then analysed a scene from Jurassic Park identifying examples of diagetic and non-diagetic music.
The final part of the course looked at the effect of lighting in film. We analysed a range of stills taken from recent films and examined the effect the lighting had on the meaning of the text.
At the end of the session, colleagues put all of their newly learned knowledge and skills to the test by analysing the film trailer for War Horse.
Feedback from this session was very positive and the course will be running again at Camelon Education Centre on March 5th from 4 til 5.30pm. (Course Code SW008). We are also hoping the Film Club will be attending this session too to share how Falkirk establishments can sign up to the fabulous range of resources on offer to support the development of literacy skills using film as text.
For more information about this and other literacy courses, please contact Sharon Wallace.
Active Literacy – Networking
Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer of the Curriculum Support Team has hosted three Active Literacy Networking sessions this week at Camelon Education Centre. Colleagues participated in Early, First and Second level network meetings with a focus on sharing good practice and professional discussion around literacy.
Colleagues from a number of Falkirk Council establishments participated in a range of activities including: updates, Using Smart Notebook Toolkit 2.0 and sharing good practice. Sharon was delighted to hear all the good practice and good news stories happening. It is really encouraging to hear how confident pupils are using the six key comprehension strategies in reading and how much pupils are enjoying learning new strategies to help with their common/ tricky words.
Teachers were provided with an update of all things new in the world of literacy including:
- The Literacy Strategy
- Every Day’s a Learning Day
- The Daily What (Bothkennar’s article)
- Courses delivered this term including Using Twixter and Fakebook
- The Thinking Reader approach
- Using Blooms fans and comprehension skills triangles
Sharon demonstrated how Smart Notebook Toolkit 2.0 can be used to create effective learning experiences for spellings and phonics. Colleagues then produced their own Active Literacy games using anagram, keyword, multiple choice, sentence arrange, vortex sort, word biz and word guess.
Sharon then invited colleagues to share examples of good practice and these included:
- Bainsford Primary teachers Emma Cuthbert and Claire Morrison shared some fabulous evidence of literacy using the outdoor environment and also how they have been engaging with parents and consolidating phoneme work. They also recommended the use of online support materials such as Geraldine the Giraffe!
- Helen McNeill from Whitecross Primary shared some fabulous task cards she has produced to enable her learners to be independent in their Active Literacy activities.
- Laura Cotton, a probationer from Bo’ness Public has produced her own materials using Toolkit 2.0 and she shared her lesson on the phoneme ‘ee’
Some colleagues were unable to attend, but still shared their good practice and these included:
- Andrew Watson, DHT from Bonnybridge Primary kindly shared his reading planner for ‘The Wreck of the Zanzibar’
- Carol from Laurieston shared her Reading toolkit for second level
- Alison Marshall from Drumbowie shared her reading planner for Carrie’s War
Suggestions for the theme for the next round of network meetings included – more ideas using Toolkit 2.0 and reading. The Daily What and Film Club have offered to attend our network meetings to share what they can do to support schools too.
