Category: Falkirk Council Educational Establishments

Arts & Culture

Falkirk Schools Orchestra
Falkirk Schools Orchestra

Gayle Martin has been newly appointed as the Arts & Culture Officer within the Curriculum Support Team based at Camelon Education Centre. Gayle’s remit is to manage the music service, support and develop Gaelic language and culture, develop and support Creative Learning 3-18 and the strategic and operational management of national priorities and developments relating to culture.
Within the first week Gayle programmed and managed Falkirk Schools Senior Concerts which were held on Monday 25th & Wednesday 27th March at Falkirk Town Hall. This was an excellent format to allow pupils from across schools to showcase their achievements in music. Pupils received support through music departments, the instrumental service and Youth Music Initiative. We had a range of performances from Falkirk Schools Orchestra, Falkirk Senior String Ensemble, New Found Sound, Falkirk Junior and Youth Trad Bands, St Mungo’s Wind Group plus many more. Pupils created a fantastic two nights of high quality music! Watch this space for more photos and some films taken from the concerts.

Comely Park Nursery Class

Comely Park Nursery Class chose Callendar Park for their venue for the Outdoor Learning Project.  Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Team, assisted staff in preparing for these visits and, following a parents information session (presentation for parents  ) supported all members of staff on the initial visits.  Comley Park staff were supported by a parent helper and this is continuing every week where a group (maximum of 10 children) will spend their nursery session in Callendar Park Woods.  The children come into nursery at the normal time and then walk to the Park – the staff felt this was very important to give children the opportunity to learn about safety issues as well as improving their fitness levels.

The children are encouraged to explore the woodland area and have the opportunity to risk assessment and challenge themselves through natural play.

Click here for videos of the sessions.

More videos

School College Opportunities To Succeed

Lynne Lauder, Enterprise Co-ordinator, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team attended the first Joint Team planning meeting for the implementation of the new  SCOTS (School College Opportunities to Succeed) programme which will be piloted as part of the Schools College Consortia in Falkirk during the 2013-14 session.

The event, planned and facilitated by Steve Dougan, Senior Phase/Opportunities for All Co-ordinator, Falkirk Council, Fiona Brown, Curriculum Manager Quality Assurance, Forth Valley College and Hazel Mackie, Principal Officer, Falkirk Council Employment and Training Unit brought together key staff from both Forth Valley College and the Schools.

Having shared an overview of the proposed pilot which detailed the importance of joint delivery and targets, staff from the varous college faculties presented their suggestions of what the college input would be.   Joint teams then worked to generate ideas of how work undertaken in the schools would complement the overall delivery.

Some time was spent on the practicalities of delivery i.e. the recruitment and interview processes and on identifying next steps.

There was a real buzz in the room as the group synergy brought forth some really exciting possibilities.  This is an exciting new addition to the curriculum in Falkirk which will bring rich benefits to the young people of the area.

The group meet again in early May so watch this space for updates.

Bo’ness Public Nursery Class

Bo’ness Public Nursery staff identified a small woodland area within Douglas Park which they identified as an ideal site within walking distance of the Nursery.

As part of the Outdoor Learning Project within Falkirk Council, Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Teamvisited the site and carried out a risk assessment with the staff.  Following information sessions for the parents (powerpoint for parents) the children began their sessions in the woods on 5th March.

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Nethermains Parent Sessions

Over the past few weeks  Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Team, has held Parent Information and ‘Come and Play’ Sessions to enable parents to become more informed of the outdoor learning initiative that Nethermains Nursery Class have taken forward.

See Powerpoint for Parents

These sessions have proved very successful with parents being able to explore the woodland with their child and becoming more aware of the benefits of outdoor play and learning.  Many of the parents discussed the shift in attitudes towards play since they were children and the importance of them knowing their child is safe while in this exciting environment. 

Here is some video footage of the children’s experiences in the woodland.

http://animoto.com/play/o3Zy34OiH5uJSHiN2BzDyw

St Patrick’s Nursery Class

Relaxing in the woods!

Over the past three weeks,  Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Team, has been supporting St Patrick’s Nursery Class to access the Stoneywood Woods in Denny as part of the nursery session. This initially involved meetings with Karen Downie, Principal Teacher, to identify and risk assess the site and address any issues that may arise. Information was then sent out to parents to inform them of the new inititiative that their children would have the opportunity to take part in (see parent presentation).  Karen then held information sessions for the parents to come along to and ask any questions they may have. Having gained consent from the parents, all nursery children have now had the opportunity to access these woods for the full nursery session, the children are dropped off and collected at a meeting point and then staff walk with the children into the woods. As with any normal nursery session, the children are given the opportunity to play freely, explore their own interests, the environment, build confidence and take risks.  The children also have a warm snack while outdoors. Some activities are set for the children (for example maths activities such as measuring and information handling).

It is now planned that staff will take this inititiave forward in the summer term and also look at other green spaces around the school to give the children the opportunity to explore a number of different environments. It is also planned to take this forward throughout the school.

Have a look at the videos taken throughout the sessions:-

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Supporting Assessment for Learning with Smart Response tools

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support team, provided a hands-on continuing professional development session for staff at St Bernadette’s Primary School on the use of Smart Response tools to support Assessment for Learning.

Smart Response tools work in tandem with Smart Board interactive whiteboard software and provide a means for teachers to get feedback from all of their pupils in their class. This can be before a class starts work on a new topic in any curricular area in order to guage the prior learning of pupils, or they can be used regularly during a teaching session to let the teacher keep ensuring pupils have understood each step before proceeding to the next step (or quickly pick up where different teaching strategies might be required), or as an assessment at the end of a teaching session.

Sometimes called classroom response systems, class voting tools or clickers, these Smart Response tools are just one type of the many tools now available specifically to help gather feedback from all pupils in a class. These let teachers get a quick response at the beginning, during or end of a teaching session. This way the teacher has a wider overview of the undertsanding at any time of the whole class and not just of a few individual pupils. Used as part of an Assessment for Learning strategy a teacher can change the pace or direction of teaching to take account of responses from pupils.

There are many free pre-created templates and question sets ready to be downloaded and adapted by teachers to suit the needs of their own pupils. Click here for the online Smart Exchange site where these can be downloaded.

Click here for more information about classroom response systems.

Using Active Approaches to Reading Using Moving Image as ‘Text’

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team, has been working with a number of schools on active approaches to reading.

Sharon has been working on the development of skills which address ENG 1/2-17a – ‘To show my understanding, I can respond to different kinds of questions and can create different kinds of questions of my own.’

Working with ‘Lost and Found’ moving image as a text, Sharon has been working alongside class teachers to use Blooms question fans to support generating, and indeed, answering their own higher order questions.

Using a ‘book detective’ approach, pupils have been given specific tasks to find evidence within the ‘text’ to support themes/ characterisation/ setting/ plot and structure.

Incorporating co-operative learning strategies such as ‘corners’ (literal, evaluative and inferential questions) and ‘two stay/ two stray’, pupils have generated their own questions and model answers for other pupils to solve.

In their co-operative learning roles of question master, clarifier, recorder and summariser, pupils initially answered prediction questions about the text, followed by generating their own questions to ask others.

Pupils were highly engaged and motivated during the whole of the sessions. These sessions culminated in pupils taking on the role of teacher (Reciprocal Teaching) where they devised their own lessons for younger pupils using the same moving image as ‘text’. Pupils incorporated Assessment is for Learning strategies into their own lessons and shared learning intentions and success criteria.