Category: Self Evaluation

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 21, 2017

Grangemouth HS Developing Practitioner Enquiry for Professional Learning

Yvonne McBlain attended the most recent meeting of secondary professional learning co-ordinators to hear how Falkirk secondary schools are using an enquiring approach to their self-evaluation and development of teaching and learning. Yvonne provided an update on the success and impact of the practitioner enquiry element of Falkirk Children’s Services’ probationer induction programme. Co-ordinators from each school then shared how they are exploring the extent to which this approach can impact on learning. Ash Wood, depute head at Grangemouth HS wrote up the following account of what this looks like in his school.

We have purchased resources to supply a “practitioner enquiry” section for teachers in our library. We also offer limited financial support to enable teachers to buy resources to support their enquiry. When they have completed their findings these resources are added to the library. We have created a one side of A4 template for teachers to complete to share their findings with their colleagues. Mrs Laura Gallagher (Teacher of Chemistry) has developed an interactive “toolkit” for teachers to use to help them understand, prepare for and complete a practitioner enquiry. She has also conducted a pilot of the tool with her faculty colleagues and received very positive feedback both about the toolkit and the benefits of the practitioner enquiry process. Laura has also shared and demonstrated her toolkit to CPD Co-ordinators in the authority.

Dr Alex Fraser (Teacher of Biology) will present his practitioner enquiry on pupil voice to our Extended Leadership Team later this session to promote the benefits of practitioner enquiry and demonstrate its relevance. His findings will support PTs who have pupil voice as part of the Faculty Improvement Plans.

Laura will promote her toolkit, and practitioner enquiry in general at our staff meeting in February. Leanne Welsh and Amy Nichol, two of our NQTs from last session who are now with us permanently, will also share their practitioner enquiries from last session to illustrate the process and how it has benefited their practice.

We are currently considering using our core School Improvement Groups as a way of taking practitioner enquiry forward, while conscious that the voluntary nature of the exercise is key to teacher “buy-in”.

April 26, 2016

Curriculum Development at Hallglen PS

On 19th April, Yvonne McBlain popped back to gather staff feedback on their curriculum development so far at Hallglen Primary School. 10 staff members were kind enough to give their time and views during this informal evaluation activity. You can read more about Hallglen’s curriculum development process here.

Staff described the following impact:

Increased knowledge of the curriculum – specifically their ability to interpret the skills, knowledge and understanding built into the experiences and outcomes. This has helped them to build their curriculum more effectively, and enabled better planning.
Although they didn’t realise it at the time, they were moderating their teaching and learning in various ways – through collegiate discussion, learning walks, and then joint planning with stage and level partners. This has helped integrate moderation and collegiality naturally, and contributed to a positive ethos and culture of sharing good practice and ongoing self-evaluation.
Have a powerful understanding of progression – know which E & Os needed to be consistently progressed, and which ones could be done less often.
Topics in school have changed radically and are much more relevant and responsive to pupil needs. Everyone in school has an overview of which contexts are being used – not just for their own stage or level. This has enabled more powerful and effective transition between stages, and teachers feel confident and clear about what they have to teach and why.There is greater consistency across the school – they have a shared language, u nderstanding and vision for their curriculum
Learning walks, peer moderation and observation visits are all more purposeful and help staff evaluate their progress together.
Next steps in curriculum development are therefore clearer to all, but staff are looking forward to their formal, whole school collegiate evaluation of the changes made this session.
There is the facility to offer pupils flexible and responsive progression pathways across the curriculum

One of the new developments staff have worked on this session, is pupil understanding of the curriculum. This was felt to be a valuable way to increase attainment and pupil participation, and teachers developed specific learning experiences for their classes. Staff can see ways in which these lessons can be made more meaningful and appropriate to age and stage, and further development of these lessons will be done, but already the following impact has been observed:

Children can have a genuine input into planning their learning.
They now quite naturally reflect upon and evaluate their learning in action during a project as well as at the end.
Pupils have the vocabulary and language to comment effectively on their learning.
The curriculum lessons have “made the penny drop” for a number of pupils – they can better understand the purpose and structure of the learning they need.
Pupils have a better appreciation of what learning is and what they need to do to help themselves learn.
They are now getting to know their curriculum and can see and comment on links across the curriculum. (Staff are therefore tackling the very challenging job of developing pupil understanding of interdisciplinary learning.)
Pupils have the confidence to make respectful suggestions about how the teaching they receive could better meet their needs.
They are better motivated and engaged by their learning.
They think more deeply about their learning and can talk about it fluently.

The need for a pupil curriculum understanding lesson was discussed at the last inset day and staff agreed to teach their lessons at the same time in the session. A general lesson was provided which each staff member adapted for their class if they wanted to. Stacey Walker, Kara-Anne Kelly and Louise McGlynn all talked enthusiastically about what they did, why they did it, and what the outcomes were. Stacey, Kara-Ann and Laura Hurren then gathered the photos of work and displays shared in this post. Click here to listen to their description of this work. Yvonne would like to thank everyone involved for their time, especially Stacey, Kara-Anne and Laura for taking the time to record these files.

March 18, 2015

Connecting the Learning at St Bernadette’s PS

Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer with Falkirk Council, enjoyed hearing how Cathy Quinn and staff colleagues at St Bernadette’s RC PS are developing pupil awareness of their learning across the curriculum. Over the last two school sessions, Yvonne has worked with staff to explore whether pupils understand what the curriculum actually is. Read more about the initial enquiry project by clicking here.

Staff have devised learning experiences which develop pupil understanding of the subjects within the curriculum, and piloted these during “Focus Weeks” so that children could :

consider how the knowledge and skill in one curricular area links with knowledge and skills in other curricular areas; make connections in their learning
identify their strengths and development needs and know what they should do to improve.
connect their learning in school to the skills they will need for learning, life and work

All school staff are therefore beginning to build a toolkit and simple processes which should help pupils and staff to track progression of learning across the four capacities and the four contexts for learning. Yvonne and Cathy agreed that other schools will be working towards this also, and would be glad to hear from anyone wishing to collaborate and explore further – yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk or catherine.quinn@falkirk.gov.uk

The photo above shows the characters which John Cloherty, principal teacher, primary 6/7 pupils created. They are: Robbie the responsible citizen, Elizabeth the effective contributor, Sam the successful learner, and Carly the confident individual. John and his class felt that using a storyline approach and having characters would help even the youngest children in their school understand what the 4 capacities actually mean.

Teachers in St Bernadette’s PS are following up on Yvonne’s initial work to build pupil understanding of the curriculum by designing new learning experiences suitable for their pupils in every stage. The photo on the left shows John’s simple but effective method. His pupils have made a simple curriculum subject display on their class room window. They have subdivided each curriculum area into its subjects and its organisers. At relevant points during their learning, they can then look at the display to help them discuss and understand how their learning is connected.

May 19, 2014

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

April 4, 2014

Teaching for Deep Learning Facilitators Review Their Impact So Far

On Thursday 3rd April 2014 Falkirk Teaching for Deep Learning programme facilitators reviewed the impact of the programme with Yvonne McBlain, Curriculum Support Teacher. Falkirk’s team of facilitators noted that the sessions they have delivered in their schools so far have had the following impact:

Learners are more aware of intended learning and children are now becoming more skilled in generating SC.

We are more aware of the HOTS vocabulary and using them in our LI & SC.

The children are more familiar with the terminology.

Staff are more creative with embedding HOTS in the learning.

More opportunities for sharing good practice.

More opportunities for doing peer visits.

Teachers have been made aware of the importance of professional dialogue.

Staff are valuing the opportunities for professional dialogue.

We now have solution-focused meetings.

Teachers decide on an action from the session to focus on.

Teachers are learning from each other – practice/dialogue

Programme has developed devolved leadership in schools and has developed facilitators’ presentation skills/confidence/professional knowledge of own craft.

General practice of dedicated professional – skilled in delivery of sessions & building capacity.

Distributive leadership opportunity through delivery of sessions.

While making these assertions about the impact of the programme, the group identified the following sources of evidence:

Gateway feedback/evaluations

Teachers created their own action plan linked to the session.

5 teachers will have observed other teachers by the end of the session. This has never happened before!

Start of session staff feedback on previous actions & impacts – share in pairs/lollipop sticks/graffiti board – “post its” kept by facilitators as evidence.

Limited – barriers of school culture/workload

Lack of understanding of the possible impact but hopefully will develop through ERD process.

Traffic lighting – daily plans, QA feedback for LI & SC

Feedback, monitoring visits, evaluations, child’s learning, child’s awareness of HOTS.

In addition, facilitators are also beginning to compile specific evidence of impact on their colleagues and pupils within their establishments. Mary Jalland facilitated Session 6 – Using Higher Order Skills Taxonomies as part of Teaching for Deep Learning (Click to view), and Session 14 – Creating a Positive Learning Environment which Supports Teaching for Deep Learning (Click to view). Click here to read how Mary and her colleagues at Westquarter PS noted their impact.

Iain Farrington facilitated Session 6 and Session 3 – Effective Questioning as part of Teaching for Deep Learning (3 Questioning click to view). As a result of these, Iain and his colleagues are trialling the use of a higher orders skills planning sheet as part of their planning processes (Click to view). Together they have integrated a range of changes to their practice in order to deepen pupil understanding of the skills they are developing. In the longer term, this will support pupils in recognising and recording their own progression and achievement, and help them maintain a strong learning log and/or profile.

January 10, 2014

The new Standards for Full Registration

Hazel Cunningham, Primary Probationer Supporter, Service and School Improvement Team is currently undertaking a To Lead or Not to Lead project on effective transition between the old and new Standards for Full Registration.

The aims of the project are:

* to raise awareness across Falkirk teaching staff of the main changes in the new Standards for Full Registration

* to support colleagues in analysing the differences between the old and new Standards for Full Registration in order for them to adapt their practice

* to provide an overview for managers of the main changes to enable more effective Quality Assurance and focused CPD

The focus so far has been gathering evidence of what people already know about the changes in the new Standards and looking at the best way to provide information to a wide audience of people. Twilight sessions have been run on ‘Working with the Revised Standards’ (August 2013) and input given at the PT Network meeting (Sept 2013), Curriculum Support Team meeting (Nov 2013), Early Careers Network (Jan 2014) and DHT Network (Jan 2014). Feedback from courses provided so far has been positive – “a very worthwhile course in developing my knowledge and understanding of the GTCS Standards. I feel I have gained knowledge which I can pass onto my colleagues through ERD and CAT sessions” (PT Network Meeting).

PTs analyse the new Standards

By the end of the project Hazel aims to have a package which can be used by schools to support delivery of CAT sessions on the New Standards eg. presentation or poster.

To influence the outcome of this project, post your responses to the following questions:

* How much do you already know about the New Standards ?

* What other support or information would benefit you in your present role ?

* How might this information best be conveyed to Falkirk’s teachers ?

For any further information on the project please contact Hazel Cunningham at hazel.cunningham@falkirk.gov.uk