Category: Curriculum Level

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

Falkirk Music Show Reel

Gayle Martin, Arts & Culture Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team has created a show reel of some of our senior music ensembles and projects that performed at the School Senior Concerts in March.  The clips were filmed during rehearsals prior o the concerts at Falkirk Town Hall on 25th & 27th March.  The film shows both the talent and achievement by pupils and staff, with new compositions and arrangements by three senior pupils – Christopher Paully of Falkirk High, Andrew Brown of Graeme High and Danielle McKenna from St Mungo’s High.  Their composition was part of New Found Sound Project, where they worked alongside composer Tom Butler from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to create a new piano composition to accompany silent film.  Percussion Tutor Stuart Blackwood composed a new piece of music The Americas and Guitar Tutor Keith Jenner arranged The Beatles Eleanor Rigby, which was conducted by Strings Tutor Gisela Hans and performed by Senior String Ensemble.  Also performing in the clip is Falkirk Traditional Music Project band Up Beat, supported by senior YMI Trad Tutor John Somerville and YMI Trad Tutors Marc Duff and Steven Holland.  The final clip is an excerpt from Falkirk Schools Senior Orchestra rehearsal which is conducted by Brass Tutor Ian Boutler, with pupils from across all secondary schools.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/AOv9sFyxPOw" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

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.

Early Years Conference

Karen Thomson –  Senior Early Years Officer, Curriculum Support Team, together with Daniel Barrie – Quality Improvement Officer, Heather Hush – Headteacher, Denny Nursery and Avril Robertson – Headteacher, Queen Street Nursery, organised the Early Years Conference on 13th February 2013.  This event was held at St. Bernadette’s Primary School in Larbert and participants were able to take part in 2 workshops throughout the day (from a choice of 13) as well as hear from Tam Bailie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People and Kerry Crichton, Health and Wellbeing Development Officer, Education Scotland.

Despite the snowy weather this event was a great success and the outdoor workshops still managed to take place due to the Yurts that were kindly loaned by Falkirk Community Trust.   

The workshops were:-

ENTER THE EXCITING WORLD OF BLOGGING (A BEGINNER’S GUIDE)

Mary Jalland and Siobhan Cunningham were kind enough to showcase the blogs they have developed at Westquarter Primary School and Nursery Class. 

Mary and Siobhan also gave delegates some introduction information in getting their own nursery/school blog started. 

Blogging links (information given out during workshop)

Here are some of the comments from the workshop:

“Thanks very much for the very useful handout and great presentation.”

“Can see the benefits to parents/carers and how they could be more involved in the life of the nursery.”

“very informative and a great presentation – will take ideas back to setting – thank you for all the information.”

THE GRUFFALO – OUTDOOR STORYTELLING

Many thanks to Yvonne Manning from Library Services for facilitating the storytelling workshop – fortunately we had managed to get a loan of a yurt from Falkirk Community Trust which was very useful due to the snow that morning!

Here is a selection of the comments:

“good to see storytelling to children without books, using visual props and the child’s imagination.”

“I am going to get the sewing machine out and make my own story cloak!  Wil love trying out my abilities at oral story telling!”

“few good ideas for oral stories – liked snowdrop and story stick.  Seen some new stories to read.”

REFLECTING ON LITERACY DEVELOPMENT FOR UNDER THREES

Many thanks to Avril Robertson, Headteacher – Queen Street Nursery for facilitating this workshop.

Here are some of the comments from the exit passes:

“A good tool for self-evaluation in line with Child at the Centre.  Good opportunity for idea sharing.”

“good ideas to support children with additional support needs and provide early literacy activities.”

“useful literacy development tools and being able to recognise different ways to help develop children’s literacy.”

TRANSFORMING PRIMARY 1 LEARNING SPACES

Ashley Johnston, Principal Teacher, St Margaret’s Primary School has been develoing the Primary 1 space and shared the journey with the delegates.

Here are some of the comments:

“Greater use of variety of tasks for maths including outdoors.  More play for deeper learning and consolidation.”

“I will look at classroom organisation and how to move away from whole class lessons and speak to stage partner about possibility of changing use of classrooms.”

Seeing how well two Primary 1 classes can work together and also hearing that the the work we do in nursery is appreciated and useful to P1 teachers.”

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT

Many thanks to Laura Jarvie, Depute Headteacher for facilitating the Parental Involvement Workshop.

Click here for Presentation

Here are the comments from delegates:

“I will always

make myself available for parents who just want someone to listen to and to make them understand they are not alone.  Will always try to give my best advice to make them feel valued.”

FIRE – A VALUABLE LESSON?

Jane Jackson, Outdoor Learning Development Officer, held the Fire Workshop at the Conference – this was not an easy task with the snow, however all participants managed to get the fire lit with a variety of materials/resources.

Some of the feedback from this seesion:-

“this has helped to develop my confidence to do this activity with pre-school children who will benefit from a valuable learning experience”

“Excellent workshop, covered all safety and fun aspects – brilliant!”

“Apart from the lovely smokey smell, the course was very well delivered,  The facilitator’s passion for outdoors and for re-introducing risk in a controlled way came across wel and is one I firmly agree with”

WHAT IS A NURTURE CLASS?

Many thanks to Belinda Tomasik and Carole Roberts for the Nurture Class Workshop.

Click here for The six principles of nurture groups

Click here for Nurture Class Presentation

Some of the feedback:-

“I now have a better understanding of what a nurture class is and the additional needs of some children.”

“The value of the team approach and the significant effect on the children and the support for parents/carers.”

“I am beginning to think of children that could be potential for our nurture room”

“I am going to consider how to make my class more of a nurturing environment.”

“Highlights the importance of what is going on at home and of building good relationships with the parent.”

ACTIVE LITERACY

Many thanks for Sharon Wallace, Caroline Sweeney and Chelsey Johnson for facilitating the Active Literacy Workshop. 

The feedback received was very positive – here are some of the things that delegates took away from the workshop:-

“The idea of creating a ‘bear hunt’ within our toic of Toys.  Loved the innovative idea of fan to blow ‘snow’ – great! Thank you!”

“More use of pair work to encourage working together.”

“I will use more visual aids and use some of the suggested ideas to enhance active literacy in practice.”

“I will access the North Lanarkshire Pack and use it within the nursery.  I will liaise with P1 teachers.”

“We do some of the ideas already but I now feel more confident in going back and going loads more, especially shoulder partners.”

“I will encourage the nursery to use terminology and partner work for active literacy.”

EARLY YEARS – PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Morag Simpson and Morag Young, PE Specialists/PE Lead Officers showcased some activities that Early Years children can take part in during the nursery sessions.

Early Years Presentation

“Lots of good ideas that will be of use in our nursery gym time”

“The warm up acivities were excellent.  Great links to literacy and numeracy.”

“PE is great resources fro interdisciplinarly learning!  Fab presenters!”

“Great, practical, easy ideas.”

“A lot of good ideas for use with 0-5 and tips of how to adjust to level of child.  Lots of great ideas for topics and especially early literacy and numeracy.”

Here is the handout that was given to all participants.

 

LEARNING JOURNEYS

Many thanks to Jan Baxter and the Peripatetic Support Team for the Learning Journey input at the Conference.  This gave participants an opportunity to look at some learning journeys from other establishments and raise any issues they have had while implementing these into their setting.  Click here for Learning Journeys Presentation. 

Here are some of the comments:-

“I will now use the children’s quotes in their Learning Journeys and continue to look at the child’s next steps.”

“Some reassurance that what we are doing is OK”

“I am going to collect some significant photos that could be used in future learning journeys.”

“Hurrah, I think the penny has dropped and should be able to fill in journeys with more confidence.”

“This workshop has clarified Learning Journeys for me and I feel we are making progress and are heading in the right direction.  We will continue to develop our learning journeys.”

LOOSE MATERIALS – NATURAL PLAY

Many thanks to Julie Buchanan from Grounds for Learning for delivering the Loose Materials Workshop (in the snow!)  It was great to see Outdoor Learning at it’s best in the weather.  Julie has thanked us for inviting her and let us know that she had a lovely day and it was great to be part of our exciting event!

Here are some of the weblinks that Julie mentioned during the workshop:-

http://www.ltl.org.uk/pdf/March-11Playnotes1300101493.pdf

http://www.ltl.org.uk/pdf/PN-Storing-your-resources1354030007.pdf

http://www.ltl.org.uk/pdf/Risk-benefit-pro-forma1354026507.pdf  

http://www.muddyfaces.co.uk/

Here is some of the feedback:-

“really good ideas.  A lot of everyday resources you can use that you already have.”

“the use of tarpaulin to make dens – simple but easy to use with children.  Will try to resource equipment for den making – it looks like fun!”

“Really liked the small loose meterials that can be used to be creative eg picture making and can then lead onto using other curricular areas eg storywriting about picture.”

CREATIVE DANCE

Many thanks to Kirsty Wallace who demonstrated how Creative Dance Project can be included in the Early Years.

Some of the comments from the exit passes were:-

“Inspirational – good ideas – very good!”

“I feel more confident in using the pack and making dances up myself.”

“lots of good ideas to help the children have fun through movement and dance.”

LEARNING INTENTIONS AND SUCCESS CRITERIA

Yvonne McBlain also facilitated the workshop “Strong Learning Intentions, Good Success Criteria AND Interdisciplinary Learning – How do we put it all together?”

Click here for the Presentation

Some of the evaluations are:-

“I am going to share different style of planning with management team.”

“Everyone is finding the whole LI and SC challenging and good to know others feeling the same!”

“The difference between learning intentions and success criteria is now a bit clearer!”

“writing shorter, sharper learning intentions and success criteria.”

As a result of this workshop Yvonne has been invited to deliver this again to all Denny Cluster Schools on 16th April at Denny Primary School.  For further details contact Lee Campbell on 50 8810.

HIGHER ORDER SKILLS IN EARLY YEARS – HOW USEFUL IS BLOOM’S TAXONOMY?

Yvonne McBlain also facilitated the Higher Order Skills Workshop.

Click here for the Higher Order Skills Presenation

Here are some of the comments from the participants

“I now have a better understanding of blooms triangle.  I will think of this in my future work.”

“I know have a better understanding of how this could be implemented when planning for each child.”

“This wil help with planning and organising new topics for the children.”

“I will start to identify the specific higher order skills at planning.”

“I will obtain examples of skills and apply this to questioning and activities within the classroom.”

SHARING GOOD PRACTICE

Here are just some of the excellent displays from Early Years Settings in Falkirk Council – more photos will be uploaded shortly.
 
 Bainsford Nursery
Wallacestone Nursery Class

 

Bankier Nursery Class

 

Bantaskin Primary School

 

Bo’ness Public Nursery Class

 

Exploring elements of planning with Denny Early Years Cluster

On Tuesday 16th April Yvonne McBlain from the Curriculum Support Team worked with 27 early years practitioners from the Denny cluster. She facilitated a workshop which explored how practitioners were integrating essential elements of assessment into their planning of interdisciplinary learning. The workshop gave these practitoners an opportunity to work with their establishment colleagues on 2 “challenges”. These challenges were designed to enable collaborative and individual self-evaluation of planning effective connected learning. They also supported identification of the most relevant next steps for partricipants. The session was designed to generate questions as well as providing access and guidance on next steps. Participants said that the session was “useful” “informative” “made you think” and was “well-designed and enjoyable”. Here is a selection of next steps identified by participants:

Further conversations with colleagues around planning

Think more about what our success criteria will be while planning – which should make evidence and assessment more relevant

Develop team’s ability to identify appropriate learning intentions and success criteria

Review approach to planning

Share with other staff (higher classes in school)

Informed Scotland

Informed Scotland – Issue 9 March 2013 is the first issue of this digest to be circulated within Falkirk Council Education Services. We have taken a subscription for a year and will review towards the end of year 1. The digest is designed for professionals who need to keep abreast of what is happening in the world of learning and skills.

Carol Paton, Curriculum Support Officer Secondary, Falkirk Council Education  Services Curriculum Support Team will review this from responses.

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.