Category: Staff development

Airth Primary Staff use Teaching for Deep Learning Session 5

Yvonne McBlain, Support Teacher effective learning and teaching, facilitated a collegiate session with teachers at Airth Primary School using session 5 from the Falkirk Teaching for Deep Learning Programme. This session uses an interdisciplinary learning quiz to help evaluate existing practice. Staff involved said it was useful to “discuss how we effectively plan and deliver interdisciplinary learning, as well as highlighting our next steps.” In addition, the session “defined the different types of interdisciplinary learning and the need to make it obvious what skills were being used in type 1 and type 2”. Yvonne was able to adjust the content and format of this session so that staff could consider how to track the knowledge, understanding and skills being developed in the interdisciplinary work done at Airth PS. The session resulted in identification of some initial specific tasks for the staff as a whole, as well as individual next steps for teachers which included:

Think more about type 1 interdisciplinary learning and its place in my class

Look for type 1 IDL in the experiences and outcomes

Continue to encourage children to make connections between curricular areas.

 Click to take a look at the power point notes for Session 5 , and here  to take a look at the whole Falkirk Teaching for Deep Learning Programme in Glow.

Primary Probationers Go Outdoors!

Jane Jackson, Outdoor Learning Development Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team, has been working with the primary probationer teachers exploring how outdoor learning can become an integral part of their planning and teaching.   

There is no better way to demonstrate the range of ways that outdoor learning can contribute to CfE than by getting out there and doing it yourself.  The probationers took part in a wide range of activities, after having got the fire going and set up our base for the day.

They all agreed that we have covered many curricular areas with some very simple, fun, exciting activities  that could readily be used for further learning back at school.

The main purpose of the session was to challenge participants thinking about outdoor learning and to raise awareness of the benefits of learnng outside the classroom.

         

  

Global Storylines Roadshow in Falkirk

 Yvonne McBlain and Anne Hutchison from Falkirk Curriculum Support team have worked with Diana Ellis and Marie-Jeanne McNaughton to organise a Global Storylines Roadshow event in Camelon Education Centre between 3.30pm and 5.15pm on 30th May 2013. This event is for primary and nursery practitioners who may be interested in joining a potential Falkirk cohort of teachers accessing this high quality professional learning next session. Diana  and Marie-Jeanne will share the content and format of this valuable global citizenship training, as well as the impact it has had on teachers and pupils. A number of teachers in our schools have already expressed a firm interest in being part of this Falkirk cohort. This event is designed to ensure that everyone has a chance to find out more about what is involved. Click here to read the descriptor for this course – applications should be made through your CPD co-ordinator in the usual way. You may also want to visit the Global Storylines website . Here are the thoughts of a teacher and a pupil who have taken part in tha Global Storyline project:

 “My confidence in teaching these current issues has really increased and I can now use what I’ve learned to develop Global Citizenship right across different curriculuar areas and incorporate the drama techniques in all the different activities we use.” Principal Teacher

“It makes you think about it, because unless you look at something, it’s quite hard to imagine how people feel in real life, you can’t just step out of drama and go back into real life.  When they’re in that position iit puts things into perspective.” 11-year-old pupil.

These testimonials express some of the benefits of applying storyline teaching strategies to progress pupil knowledge and understanding of global citizenship issues.

Falkirk Teaching for Deep Learning Programme

Falkirk’s Teaching for Deep Learning programme is now available to support school-based professional learning. This programme consists of 19 sessions focused on aspects of effective teaching which are essential to the promotion of deep learning in our pupils. The sessions are active, intellectually stimulating and designed to be experienced by collaborative groups of practitioners such as Teacher Learning Communities.

 “Teaching Scotland’s Future” said that the “foundation of successful education lie in the quality of teachers and their leadership. High quality people achieve high quality outcomes for children.” Without a doubt what it means to be a teacher is being re-conceptualised.  Enabling our teachers to operate as enquiring practitioners and encouraging their self efficacy is at the heart of this programme.

 Trialling in a range of establishments this session has demonstrated how flexible the content of the programme is, and that there are varied ways in which it can be used.  View these variations in the document at the end of this post and consider if any are useful to you as you self-evaluate and create your school improvement plans. 

 The programme was created by Susan Dyer, Head teacher at Bankier Primary School, Gillian Campbell, PE teacher from Braes High School and Sharon Wallace and Yvonne McBlain from our Curriculum Support Team. Colleagues across our service have helped the team revise and improve the programme and we have a team of 16 facilitators currently training to deliver it.

 I am confident that the programme aligns with the recommendations of the Donaldson Review, the new suite of GTCS standards & Professional Update and our own Employee Review and Development process. I recommend it to you.

 To discuss how this programme might support your School Improvement Planning in more detail, contact yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk . Click here  to view a summary of programme sessions.

Working collaboratively to spot talent!

Anne Pearson, Curriculum Support Manager, led a staff development session with Early Years and Primary leaders looking at  how talent is managed in Falkirk Education Services.  This work relates to how we are managing change, which in turn is  influenced by context and culture.

Context and  culture is influenced by many things and the groups made use of the following key influencers: 

  • Learning to Achieve (Falkirk Council, Education Services, 2009) Section 4,
  • the revised General Teaching Council for Scotland standards that come in to play in August 2013 

 Falkirk’s goal is to ensure that teaching and learning will be delivered by highly skilled practitioners with increased levels of professional autonomy and accountability. Class teachers through to Headteachers have a role to play in delivering this goal; the focus of the session was how leadersgo about selecting and recruiting new staff.

The learning intentions for the session were

• to have  a clear understanding of revised strategy- know the big picture

•acquire new learning re behavioural event interviewing

In turn, the participants noted it was ‘changed days’ and that it was important to ‘know the processes’  and also ‘to start to think of a long term strategy for talent management’. Another big question was ‘how do we grow and retain our own talent?’ and that in times of fiscal constraint ”how do we make sure we get a return on our investment?’

Here is what some leaders are going to do in light of what they learned: 

  • I need to look at staff development , thinking more about PTs moving on to becoming DHTs
  • I am going to find out how to get involved in our assessment centres
  • I can now apply further understanding  to the planning and running of my future assessment centres
  • I will attend the upcoming Selection and Recruitment training event
  • I am speaking to others so I can  clarify how to take forward recruiting a PT
  • Go talent spotting!

Let’s end on this comment- it sums up where our leaders want to go:

I got such a buzz out of this session- working as a collaborative is powerful !

Creative Conversation with Paul Collard

Gayle Martin, Arts & Culture Offiicer, Curriculum Support Falkirk Council Education has been working in partnership with Clare Hoare at Stirling Council to develop Creative Conversations.  The lastest event was led by Paul Collard.  Paul has over 25 years experience of working in the arts and is an expert in delivering programmes that use creativity and culture as drivers of social and economic change. He joined the U.K government’s flagship creative learning programme, Creative Partnerships in January 2005 and played a crucial role in clarifying the purpose of Creative Partnerships and streamlining the delivery of the programme in schools.  Paul delivered our latest Creative Conversation ‘How do we Capture & Measure Creativity’ on Wed 17th April at the Tollbooth. 

Throughout the session Paul discussed how to identify and recognise creativity in order to measure.  As part of the Creative Partnerships work in England Cambridge University carried out research examining the pedagogy of creative practice, as part of this they outlined the following:

Pupils need risk for motivation – this gives learners incentive to work. Schools can be too low risk – pupils need high visibility outcomes.  High functioning pupils will be physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually engaged equalling high performance pupils.  

 Other Creative indicators are:

Essential Psychological Needs

Key Ingredients

Defining Creativity

Taking Science Outdoors

A group of primary teachers spent a very wet morning with Jane Jackson,  Outdoor Learning Development Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team, exploring how to deliver Science in the outdoors.

Practical ideas from several of the CfE science organisers were demonstrated, and included exploring how small mammals keep warm during the cold, wet winter months.  The participants insulated their own ‘home made’ mammals in a range of ways and there was a lot of competition when we re-tested their core temperatures after 20 mins!

As well as giving teachers some practical ideas, the course encouraged participants to think about their planning, and consider where taking their learning outdoors would enhance the teaching and learnng experience for pupils.

Links to some of the supporting material used on the day can be found below:

minibeast ID key

nature detective resources

Science E’s and O’s handout

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

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)