Category: Shieldhill Primary School

October 4, 2019

Laurieston Primary School Develops Pupil Voice within School Improvement Processes

In May 2019, Beverley Keith, head teacher at Laurieston PS and Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, met to explore how to meaningfully involve staff, pupils, parents and the local community in the school’s review of its curriculum rationale and development. Beverley and Yvonne outlined a proposal which aimed to:

Develop pupil understanding of the curriculum (so that they have a more informed voice in its development)
Provide opportunities for pupil, staff, parent and other stakeholder reflection on what a Laurieston School curriculum should provide
Ensure that all voices in our school and community shape and inform our curriculum
Explore links and ways to connect or streamline our curriculum
Build on good practice in teaching and learning

This proposal was shared with staff alongside a suggested schedule for pupil and staff involvement. These were examined during an August inset afternoon where staff also explored the latest advice regarding the curriculum and self-evaluated what was working well and what they wanted to do to improve their curriculum. Yvonne set up a Microsoft Teams area within Glow so that staff could collate this evidence relating to HGIOS QI 2.2 Curriculum and make it easy for them to access (we noted that this would also cut down on workload and paperwork when preparing for VSE or HMIE).

Staff were enthusiastic about involving their other stakeholders in their curriculum rationale review process and used a collegiate session to explore how other schools were using HGIOURS (Education Scotland 2018) for this purpose. Yvonne shared developments at Avonbridge PS and Shieldhill PS and staff agreed that they wanted to adapt the HGIOURS toolkit Yvonne created for use in enabling pupils to shape their curriculum (click here to find out more about this toolkit). Laura Gavin, senior early years officer, and Claire Thompson, primary 6 class teacher volunteered to lead this process with the new pupil council appointed by their pupils. Sixteen pupils representing every class in the school and nursery met in early September to engage with the toolkit and begin their evaluation of their Laurieston curriculum.

Laura and Claire met regularly with pupils over the next month to support them in exploring how they could address the areas for development they had identified. They were very interested to hear how Shieldhill PS pupils were doing this in their school so invited them for a visit. On 23rd September four pupils from Shieldhill PS shared their process with Laurieston’s pupil council members (read more about this by clicking here). When asked how this helped pupils said:

“It’s been a great visit cos we get their ideas and maybe we can change them a wee bit.”

“We’ve been taught stuff we didn’t know… like about that Glow stuff.”

“I like how everything was unique to them.”

“I like having someone else’s input and opinion.”

Laura and Claire also valued the opportunity to hear what the pupils had done and were extremely impressed by how confident they were in answering questions (with no initial preparation) sharing their process and skills. The Laurieston PS pupils seemed particularly interested in the idea of hosting a school assembly and using the toolkit in some way to gather all pupil voices. Just before they left Shieldhill pupils said they had also benefited from the visit and would value “another catch up – maybe you could come to us?”

Laura, Claire and Yvonne discussed next steps when the children went back to class. Laura and Claire decided to work with their pupil council members the following week to support them in pulling together next steps and exploring whether and how the original schedule was still appropriate in the light of the progress and ideas put forward by their children. Yvonne is on standby if needed and is excited to see what happens next…

October 2, 2019

Developing Pupil Voice and Participation at Shieldhill Primary School

In May 2019, Robyn Wisbey, head teacher at Shieldhill PS & Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, met to discuss recent developments and ideas around How Good is Our School part 2 (2018). Robyn had been developing children’s involvement in her schools’ self-evaluation processes and was interested to hear how the HGIOURS toolkit Yvonne created had been adapted and used by colleagues at Avonbridge PS.

In order to develop pupil voice and participation, Yvonne, Robyn, and Belinda Tomasik, depute head teacher, agreed that primary 6 pupils at Shieldhill could be offered the opportunity to start and lead this new self-evaluation process in their school. If this worked well, in session 2019-20, these pupils would be ready and able primary 7 leaders for school self-evaluation alongside more traditional routine processes.

Yvonne, Belinda and colleagues in school used the HGIOURS toolkit with primary 6 pupils to gather their evaluation and displayed pupil analysis of the 5 themes. The adults explained the purpose of HGIOURS part 2 and how it was co-created with Scottish children and young people. Pupils were asked to consider how they could lead a process in their school which would enable every child to share what they thought their school was good at or needed to do better. Click here to view their initial ideas.

At that point, Jan Archibald took over as primary 6 class teacher and supported the children in developing and taking their ideas forward. She encouraged their creativity and problem solving as well as the digital and literacy skills they used to create pupil-friendly versions of their questions and video explanations for younger pupils. Pupils were encouraged to solve any problems which occurred with as little adult intervention as possible. At each stage in this process all adults took care to make explicit the skills being developed and applied by pupils. These included: working with others, time management, digital skills, drafting and paraphrasing. Pupils needed support with their organisation and planning skills , and Yvonne prompted their thinking by asking questions to help them identify and sequence the tasks required to bring their ideas to fruition. Yvonne, Jan and Belinda observed that not all pupils were equally engaged with or interested in leading the involvement of their fellow pupils or managing their self-evaluation process. In consultation with Robyn, it was agreed that pupils could decide whether they wanted to continue with their HGIOURS role. By the time pupils moved into primary 7 and Isla Dyer took over as their teacher, a team of 14 children had volunteered to drive this work forward.

At an early stage in the process Belinda and Yvonne set up and populated a Microsoft Teams area for our HGIOURS group to ease communication and to store files so that everyone could see and work on these. The pupils used this platform very effectively, and Yvonne and Belinda found it really valuable for collaborative working. Yvonne in particular was able to stay in touch with developments remotely from her base in Camelon Education Centre – offering feedback and praise for the preparations pupils were making.

High praise was due to the pupils when they scripted, prepared and led a school assembly to share their self-evaluation task/purpose and alert fellow pupils to their upcoming visits. (Pupil presentation slides provided above & right) They have interpreted HGIOURS Features of Effective Practice for younger pupils and adapted and prepared a Microsoft Forms survey version for use across certain school stages.

Pupils have consulted with nursery staff to explore how best to involve the youngest children in their school. In addition, on 23rd September, a team of 4 pupils were invited by pupil council members at Laurieston PS to share their progress so far. Nathan, Eilidh, Ella and Hannah seriously impressed Laurieston pupils and staff with their confidence, their knowledge and their ability to share and explain their process with such clarity. Watch this space for further developments…

October 2, 2019

Supporting pupil voice & participation using How Good is OUR School

Pupils in Falkirk Children’s Services schools are beginning to use How Good is OUR School (Education Scotland 2018) to contribute to the self-evaluation and improvement of their schools. Senior leaders and practitioners are using the Features of Effective Practice (see example below) to support children and young people in their consideration of what their school does well, or needs to do better.

In February 2019, Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, worked with colleagues in Avonbridge PS to create a pupil toolkit using elements of HGIOURS. They designed tools and a process which would enable every child in their school to add their voice to a collective self-evaluation/review process. The picture below shows the pro forma developed, and readers can click here to see the Features of Effective practice for theme 1 – Our Relationships. These are parts of a toolkit created to enable pupils to engage meaningfully in school self-evaluation, so that they can play a genuine role in identifying and shaping the school improvement agenda alongside staff, parents and partners. Click here to view the Power Point presentation used to help pupils at Avonbridge PS understand and take part in this opportunity to make their voices heard.

Jacqueline McLaughlin, head teacher at Antonine PS then used the HGIOURS toolkit with pupils in her school to inform and shape school improvement. In September 2019 her pupil council used the kit to help them prepare for and involve their parent council too. Jonathan Crawford, acting depute headteacher is also making use of the kit with pupil council members at Wallacestone PS. In each case, the kit is acting as a mediation tool to make the process accessible and meaningful to the pupils involved.

In May 2019 Robyn Wisbey, head teacher at Shieldhill PS and her depute Belinda Tomasik asked Yvonne to work with their primary 6 pupils and their teacher to explore how the toolkit could develop genuine and sustainable pupil-led self-evaluation and improvement processes across their school and community. Read about how this work is developing by clicking here.

In August 2019, Beverley Keith, head teacher at Laurieston PS and her staff began their refresh and review of their curriculum with Yvonne during their August inset day. Click here to read how Claire Thompson, class teacher and Laura Gavin, senior early years officer are supporting their pupil council in using HGIOURS to ensure that pupil voice also informs their curriculum.

All of these developments naturally support schools and pupils with HGIOS 4 Leadership and Management – particularly QI 1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement and QI 1.2 Leadership of Learning – children and young people leading learning. As a result of the leadership opportunities provided through their engagement with HGIOURS school at these schools, pupil participation has very obviously impacted on pupil skills for learning life and work, and on their confidence, leadership and self-esteem. They have an increased sense of their own capacity to make a difference in their school and are totally committed to ensuring other pupils in their school have their voices heard too.

In addition, this work helps these schools address Aspects for improvement from the Thematic Inspection of Empowerment for Parent and Pupil Participation (Education Scotland 2019) :

Continue to increase children’s and young people’s opportunities to lead their own learning and contribute to school improvement.
Involve pupils, parents and partners more in curriculum design and evaluating the impact of curriculum change.

December 23, 2014

Pupils as Digital Leaders at Shieldhill Primary School

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer within the Curriculum Support team of Service and School Improvement, Falkirk Council Education Services, supported a session with the Digital Leaders group of pupils in Shieldhill Primary School.

These pupils are being supported for them to then support classes around the school in the use of technologies in their classrooms. They are led by teacher Chiara Sportelli. This session let the pupils explore different apps within a specially created SharePoint site for them in Microsoft Office 365 (which is accessed via their Glow username).

This included the use of a picture gallery, a discussion app (which provides the facility for pupils sharing work with the teacher who has set the work, and for asking questions in a controlled class environment – that’s the point of the discussion page in Glow for each class, where the teacher can set the task, the pupils can attach their work, ask questions, and peers or the teacher respond in the confines of a private class area), weblink sharing, and a document store (where documents were created using Microsoft Word Online as part of Office 365, meaning that the document can be created online without need for the software to be installed on the PC or mobile device).

The pupils then shared their documents with each other, inviting their peers to comment and add comments to the documents online. Then they all collaborated on the same document online all at the same time from their own PCs – and there were squeals of surprise when they could all see the same document being edited in front of their eyes with different coloured flags appearing on screen to show who was editing the different parts of the document!

The pupils then used a collaborative OneNote file which had been created in their online space – each pupil created their own page within this online ring-binder tool and added their thoughts on what they felt their contribution could be in taking the group forward in supporting the use of technologies in Shieldhill Primary School. OneNote works online or via a deskop PC or a mobile device (and is also part of the suite of tools included for all users of Glow). For more information about OneNote click here.

More information about Digital Leaders can be found here: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/ICTFalkirkPrimaries/2014/04/23/pupils-as-digital-leaders/

March 14, 2014

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.

January 24, 2014

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

November 25, 2013

The Thinking Reader – Active Literacy

Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer, Curriculum Support Team has delivered a CPD session to 22 teachers entitled ‘Active Literacy Reading – The Thinking Reader Approach’.

The aims of the session were:

To provide an overview of the thinking reader approach

To provide an overview of the six comprehension strategies in reading

To examine ways forward for the teaching of reading using active approaches.

After examining the benefits of reading, Sharon explained that the thinking reader approach is used to teach children reading strategies to improve their ability to understand what they read. It is an approach which can be applied to a range of ‘texts’.

Sharon demonstrated the thinking reader approach using the text ‘Chinese Cinderella’. Colleagues gained a deeper understanding of this text through the following activities:

Using prior knowledge – what do you already know about Cinderella?
Metalinguistics – colleagues were asked to include the word ‘unwanted’ in a sentence and highlight words/ phrases they like/ don’t understand in an identified paragraph
Visualisers – colleagues were asked to produce a visualiser of the character Naing using the information in the extract
Inference – two questions were posed about the text relating to inference e.g. What is the relationship between Naing and Jun-Ling
Main Ideas – What are the main themes from the text you can gather using the information you have already been given
Summarising – summarise the character of Naing in a tweet

Sharon then explored how the thinking reader approach relates to the key reading skills which are assessed in the context of the Scottish Survey for Literacy and Numeracy.

Sharon then shared how she had previously used the thinking reader approach with the following texts:

P2 – The Daily What article/ Beware of the Bears

P3 – The Wish Cat

P4 – Michael Rosen’s poetry

P5 – Moving Image Education film

P6 – Poetry from the Active Literacy Pack

P7 – Poetry from the Active Literacy Pack

S1 – Chinese Cinderella

The course also looked at the comprehension triangles from the Active Literacy programme:

Sharon then examined ways to use effective questioning in reading lessons, examining the role of Blooms fans and how these can be used at different ages and stages.

The course was well received and feedback included:

“I wanted to thank you for the CPD last night. It’s really helped me work out a plan of action for all of my reading groups and not just the group that weren’t ‘getting’ the Bloom’s Fans work. It was good to have input on the key comprehension strategies and I’m going to start as of Monday”.

“I really enjoyed the course last night and I think (or hope!) that I am starting to understand the type of questions and activities that the pupils should be completing”.

This course will be re-run on Tuesday 11th March from 4 til 5.30pm for any colleagues who didn’t get an opportunity to attend this one.

September 12, 2013

Active Literacy Workshop for Parents and Carers

Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer of the Curriculum Support Team has developed some helpful materials to support Falkirk establishments in sharing the learning at home. This active literacy workshop provides parents, carers and extended families with an overview of the active literacy strategies and methodologies from P1 to P7. It looks at the areas of spelling and phonics, reading and writing and how children can be supported with these at home.

Parents and carers are also invited to be ‘reciprocally taught’ by their children in a series of different workshop activities which include:

phoneme stories
Elkonin boxes
rainbow writing
spell-er-cise
diacritical marking
fun spelling tasks

So far this session, the following schools have already hosted workshops:

Maddiston Primary
Shieldhill Primary
Kinneil Primary

These workshops are accompanied by parental leaflets aimed at P1-3, P4-5 and P6-7 parents.

For more information, please contact Sharon Wallace.

September 3, 2013

Sharing the Learning with Parents and Carers at Shieldhill Primary School

Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer of the Curriculum Support Team has recently been working with a group of children from P2 to P4 in Shieldhill Primary School. The children were very enthusiastic and keen to be helping out at an upcoming session for parents and carers. Pupils demonstrated their knowledge of active literacy strategies and methodologies with confidence. They are very much looking forward to being ‘reciprocal teachers’ to their visitors at the active literacy workshop.

The children were able to eloquently explain about a range of strategies including: the five finger strategy, Elkonin boxes and diacritical marking.

Other activities on the agenda for the workshop are spell-er-cize, fun spelling tasks for their common/ tricky words and looking at their favourite ‘texts’.