Category: Falkirk Council Educational Establishments

CPD TV

Stuart Lennie, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support team, has just launched the official Falkirk Council Education Services YouTube Channel.

The channel, available HERE, will be used to provide CPD opportunities, support, and guidance for education establishments across Falkirk Council. Within the page are links to the other official YouTube channels for Falkirk schools.

The channel also works on the YouTube app for Smartphones and Tablets, giving you access to content whenever you need it.

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Make sure you subscribe to the channel to get all of our latest updates!

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Exciting changes at Denny Town Centre

Lynne Lauder, Enterprise Co-ordinator, based at Camelon Education Centre attended an exciting meeting with Jacquie McArthur, Economic Development Officer within the Council’s Economic Development, Growth and Investment team today.

Plans are moving along for the new Denny Town Centre and Jacquie and Lynne will be meeting in early April to design a twilight CPD session aimed at staff in the Denny Cluster (but open to all) on utilising the town centre development as a context for learning. 

The session, which will be held in Camelon Education Centre on 22nd May, will include information on the plans, suggestions of how this can be tied into lessons and opportunities to consider skills development around the activities.   

The descriptor will be out to schools post Easter, so watch this space!  This could be just what you were looking for to make those crucial My Future’s in Falkirk links for your Enterprise Awards.

Active Literacy – Differentiation – Bowhouse Primary School

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team has been looking for how class teachers in Falkirk have been differentiating the Active Literacy resource to meet the needs of all pupils.

Sharon met with P4 Class Teacher, Nicola Lorenzetti and her pupils in action with Active Literacy activities. The pupils were working through an exciting range of differentiated Active Literacy activities and eloquently explained to Sharon what they were doing.

Nicola Lorenzetti has organised individual literacy trays which contain all the resources needed for Active Literacy teaching, consolidation and application across other areas. These trays provide breadth, challenge and allow pupils to apply their skills across a range of activities including working with non-fiction texts, use of ICT and talking and listening activities.

This good practice is going to be shared at a forthcoming Active Literacy CPD event.

Active Literacy – CPD tv

Sharon Wallace, Effective teaching and learning teacher, Curriculum Support team, has been working on GLOW CPD tv sessions relating to Active Literacy.

The short CPD tv clips provide an introduction to each stage/ aspect of Active Literacy for class teachers.

http://www.youtube.com/user/fcEducationServices

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RED Book Award

Yvonne Manning, Principal Librarian, Curriculum Support Team, Falkirk Council Education Services organised the Falkirk Council Book Award called Read Enjoy Debate. A shortlist of four books was read by students in each of the mainstream secondary schools between August and December 2102. Voting took place and book reviews were submitted in December. The award ceremony was held on 23rd January 2013 at Falkirk Town Hall, where the young people presented creative interpretations of each of the shortlisted books. The shortlisted authors attended and there was a lively question and answer session. The day culminated in the opening of the red envelope to reveal the winning book… and the winner: An Act of Love by Alan Gibbons.

The shortlist:

An Act of Love by Alan Gibbons

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

Gladiator by Simon Scarrow

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

“Best day out I have had in a long time. I was really impressed by the seamless efficiency of it all and the enthusiasm of all involved.”  Simon Scarrow, shortlisted author.

“It is a brilliant event and we are delighted to be associated with it. Congratulations to you all for putting on such a super day.” John MacPherson, Bright Red Publishing Ltd (sponsor).

“My class thoroughly enjoyed their day out. Thank you so much for inviting us along. I have had nothing but positive feedback from the pupils and staff. It’s such a wonderful event to attend and I hope to work with you again in the future.” Falkirk High School

Images of the RED Book Award ceremony can be viewed on Flickr: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjDSm27M

Putting it on Record

Stuart Lennie, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support Team of Falkirk Council Education Services, is supporting the introduction of YouTube access for pupils in Falkirk Council classrooms.

YouTube is an online video streaming website that can provide useful knowledge and education content for all stages in schools and nurseries. In addition, users can create content and upload it to the site in order to store it or share knowledge or learning with others.

YouTube has been open to staff in Falkirk Council for many years and has proven to be a vital tool in terms of classroom practice and staff development. It is regularly the top visited site in education establishments and staff now integrate the content into their lesson plans and activities.

Currently, all pupils are blocked from access to the YouTube site, plus any embedded YouTube content in other websites, in Falkirk schools. This decision was taken based on two main factors:

  • The limited bandwidth available to our schools and the demands upon it.
  • The proportion of content deemed unsuitable by staff.

Recent developments in bandwidth improvements and safety filters put us in a position where these two factors no longer apply.

To facilitate such change, a Technologies in the Classroom group has been formed, made up of classroom practitioners from all stages of education in Falkirk Council. This group will have the mandate to call upon advice from appropriate groups of additional individuals including pupils, parents, and partners.

The immediate tasks for this group will be to:

  • Create support materials for staff and pupils
  • Develop methods to educate staff, pupils, and parents on the safe filtering features in Social Media sites and to ensure acceptable use in line with the Acceptable Use Policy and schools’ positive behaviour policies
  • Pilot pupil access with schools
  • Work to gather and analyse evidence of how YouTube is enhancing learning through previously unavailable delivery methods such as Flipped Learning models which enables pupils to bring to the classroom project work and studies undertaken outwith the school.

Here is an example of one of the support videos for teachers, hosted on YouTube:

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In addition, education establishments will be set up with individual YouTube channels to act as an official public repository of content for their establishment.

Small Schools World of Work Day at Scottish Prison Service College

Lynne Lauder, Enterprise Co-ordinator, Curriculum Support team delivered the opening session at the latest Small School World of Work day which was hosted by the Scottish Prison Service College at Polmont Young Offenders Institute on 28th February.

The event which was  planned, resourced and  managed by a team of teachers from the Small School Cluster led by Shirley Garioch from Avonbridge PS, gathered 108 pupils  from Avonbridge, Bothkennar, Blackness, California, Drumbowie, Limerigg and Whitecross Primary Schools to undertake four work based sessions with employers. 

The focus of the day was ‘planning for choices and changes’ and the young people were looking at how the skills they are developing in school transfer to a work environment.

Workshops were provided by a Veterinary Nurse,  Childsmile Consultant,  Police Diver,  Mathieson’s Baker, Glisten Hairdresser, Scottish Prison Service  Officer, the Marketing Manager from the Helix and a farmer from RHET accompanied by Valerie, the Forth Valley model Cow!

The young people were a real credit to their schools and following the highly successful event, our partners at Scottish Prison Service said they would be delighted to welcome pupils back.

A coffee, a croissant and a controversy!

Carol Paton, Curriculum Support Officer Secondary, Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Team recently led a session on the Glasgow University Research Paper  ‘Assessment at Transition’.  Sixteen Headteachers and Deputes from across Falkirk explored together some of the key challenges from this research paper around the purposes and potential of assessement at transition. Together they examined their current transition programmes in respect of planning, pedagogy, progress and standards. They challenged each others’ thinking and took inspiration from some of the transformational practice described.

Participants said:

Outdoor Learning

Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Education Services, Curriculum Support Team provided support to nurseries prior to outdoor learning opportunities for early years children.

If you would like your nursery children to access a local woodland or greenspace here are some of the documents that could get you starting in your planning.  If you wish support in setting up this programme and supported visits from myself please contact me on 01324 503764.

Initial General Letter and Consent Form

Sample Outdoor Education flyer

Sample Powerpoint for Parents can be obtained by contacting Karen.