Category: Curriculum Level

Gymnastics – Using Apparatus

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 and specifically focussed on using apparatus. 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 follow on course from the first session with Anne in February, focussing on  developing practical content with literacy and numeracy links.

Examples of the very positive feedback are shown below.

“This was a wonderful course to support teachers, such as myself, when working to build confidence in our own practice.”

“The opportunity to learn more about the various techniques and how to carry them out properly was excellent and very enjoyable.”

“Demonstrations of the equipment has allowed me to be more confident using the equipment in my teaching.”

 
 

 

Avonbridge Dancers

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.

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

Subject Development Groups

Gillian Campbell (Curriculum Support Officer for Secondary) has been working, since taking up post in September, on the creation of ‘Subject Development Groups’ (SDGs) for Falkirk schools. At present we now have 25 groups representing the subject areas which our secondary schools present to SQA for new National Qualifications.

Each secondary school can appoint a subject specialist to join this group and the majority of the 25 SDGs have represenatation from each of the schools.

In their most recent meetings these groups have created action plans detailing the development work they feel is needed for the coming year in their specific subject area. Individuals and groups have opted to take on pieces of development work which will then be shared across the authority.

In additon to planning upcoming developments these groups discuss their experiences in implementating the NQs and as a platform for quality assurance of materials and for completing authority level moderation. In a time of massive curricular change in Scotland there has been recognition of the importance of secondary teachers working across schools to share workload and these groups are an excellent example of such collaboration.

For more information on SDGs and their work email: gillian.campbell@falkirk.gov.uk

Bookbug

Carolyn Sharp, Learning Resource Service, Service & School Improvement Team, Falkirk Council Education Services.  Bookbug provides free book packs to children aged 0-5 years.  During 2013-14 we gifted the following packs to children in the Falkirk Council area;

  •  1576 Bookbug baby packs
  •  1720 Bookbug toddler packs
  •  1767 Bookbug pirate packs
  • 1953 P1 family packs

For more information on the Bookbug programme, please visit the Scottish Book Trust website.

Bookbug logo

Safe and Responsible Use of Social Networking Peer Education Tour

Well done to the Larbert HS Pupils who planned and delivered  a fantastic Theatre in Education  social networking education tour for Larbert cluster primary schools. The primary pupils loved the experience and were very clear what they had learned from it.

“I won’t give out my personal details”

“I will think carefully before I post a picture of myself”

“I will consider others feelings when posting comments”

 This tour was part of an accredited Theatre in Education Project  for Creative Industries.  The pupils  took responsibility for planning the entire project which included liaising with each primary school, creating questionnaires for primary 7 pupils  on their social networking use that was used to inform what they included in the drama.  The pupils had to plan and create the drama and have regular team meetings to evaluate their progress and set targets to meet deadlines for the completed  script and devised workshop activities. At the end of the tour the pupils have to evaluate their own contribution to the process and identify improvements that they could make to the planning of the project that could be carried forward to the planning of another project.

Commonwealth in rhyme – creating and editing audio recordings to share online

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support team of Service and School Improvement, Falkirk Council Education Services, supported pupils from the Grangemouth High School cluster to create and edit audio recordings which they shared online as part of a national Digital Commonwealth project. Creating, editing and using an online tool to share recordings provided one set of skills learned across a series of themes in this project.

Working with Dugald MacGilp (of Young Reporters for the Environment, part of the Keep Scotland Beautiful Charity) and Steve Duffy of Grangemouth High School the pupils were set the task of creating an audio recording of a piece of writing in rhyme which represented a Commonwealth country of their choice. Some groups of pupils chose to find a representative poem from a Commonwealth country of their choice, while some did some research about their chosen Commonwealth country and their Commonwealth athletes (in the lead up to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow) before creating a piece of writing, poem or rap.

Click here for Jamaica Rap which one group of pupils pupils created, edited in Audacity (including adding backing sounds) and uploaded to AudioBoo, free online podcasting host.

Click here for Swaziland Rap which another group of pupils created, edited in Audacity (including adding backing sounds) and uploaded to AudioBoo.

Audacity is free downloadable software which works like a word-processor except it is used to edit  audio recordings. With a simple click on a record button in the screen, and with a connected headset/microphone a redording can quickly be made of any audio. Once recorded there are simple cut/copy and paste icons just as in a word-processor to remove unwanted noise or move elements and reuse in a different sequence. It can also be used to have multiple tracks so that once the spoken word (for example) is recorded you can play it back and also record a new track at the same time (such as to add a beat sound). Once you are finished editing the audio you can go to File – export – and save as an mp3 file which is then ready to be shared with others for playing back. Click here for more information about where to download the Audacity software and how to use it.

AudioBoo is one of a number of free online tools which can be used to either upload previously recorded mp3 files or to record straight from microphone. The resulting AudioBoo recording can then be shared with others and played straight from the page where it is stored.

Bo’ness Primary Schools work on Kinneil Museum Project

Yvonne McBlain, Curriculum Support teacher with Falkirk Council Education Services has helped to co-ordinate partnership work between Bo’ness primary schools and Falkirk Community Trust. The Trust has appointed Hanneke Scott van Wel and Lindsay Lennie to take forward their Kinneil Museum Engagement for the Future Project. On March 25th, Lindsay and Hanneke began working with primary 5, 6 and 7 pupils from each Bo’ness primary school to explore their links with their local heritage. The learning experience involved studying a range of old maps of Bo’ness and opened pupils’ eyes to the many changes which have taken place in their landscape over the last 400 years!

Observations from Kinneil PS p6/5 pupils included:

 “We’ve found out that Bo’ness was called something different long ago.”

“We can find Kinneil School in this one (map) and can’t in the other one.”

“They(person who made the map)  haven’t got the two potteries and they don’t have the gas works…we found a football ground but they didn’t have it.”

The pupils had brought in a picture or object from home and were asked to consider whether it connected to the places they had identified on the maps. One group said: “We found the town hall ‘cos that’s where the Fair takes place.”

Hanneke and Lindsay will ensure that each class taking part in the project has these learning experiences to prepare them for a whole cluster working day on 20th May in Bo’ness Town Hall. On that day each class from each school, will contribute/pool their expertise on their specialist aspect of Bo’ness history, and use this to co-create a historical timeline of their town. This process and its end product will form the pupils’ contribution to the wider community consultation taking place in order to ensure that the new museum displays reflect a true picture of the interests and experiences of the community they are designed for.