Edinburgh International Book Festival Outreach Programme

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Yvonne Manning, Principal Librarian, Curriculum Support Team, Falkirk Council Education Services has arranged for author Pippa Goodhart and James Carter to visit Falkirk Council in August 2013 as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival Outreach Programme. Pippa Goodhart has written many wonderful picture books, including ‘Just Imagine’ and ‘You Choose’. She is also the author of the very popular books ‘Winnie the Witch’, written under the name Laura Owen. James Carter is a poet and brings his poems alive with music at his appearances in nurseries and schools. His books include ‘Hey Little Bug, Poems for Little Creatures’. Yvonne is working in partnership with Community Learning and Development and Pippa will be leading a session with young families from adult learning groups, while James will be visiting Denny Nursery.

2 schools shortlisted for National Enterprise Educator Awards

Lynne Lauder, Enterprise Co-ordinator, Curriculum Support Team was delighted to hear that 2 Falkirk Schools had been shortlisted in this year’s National Enterprise Educations Awards.

Davina Gallacher, Graeme HS has been shortlisted in the ‘Enterprise Educator’ category for her partnership work with Cala Homes and Carrongrange School has been shortlisted under ‘Enterprise Society Champions’ for their work on the Social Enterprise Cafe.

Awards will be announce on 12th September but in the meantime we wish both schools the best of success and congratulate them on all the hard work and commitment to enterprise in education they have demonstrated.

As Director Andrew Sutherland said “Excellent news! Well done to all concerned”

Innovation in moderation in Falkirk Schools

Carol Paton, Curriculum Support Officer offered all establishments the opportunity to access some additional funding to support innovative practices in moderation. In January this year, 3 Primary Schools, 3 Secondary Schools, 2 Clusters and 1 Special School successfully bid for funding. This innovative work allowed teachers to think differently about moderation. Projects focussed on moderation through teacher discussion and collegiate approaches at the planning stage; the use of visualisers to develop consistent approaches to the teaching and application of numeracy skills across learning. The development of agreed success criteria at the planning stage also featured – most  interestingly in a PE – English collaborative project.

For more information on some of these projects use the links below.

Graeme High School – Numeracy across learning using visualisers Graeme High School – moderation report ( Numeracy)

Graeme High School – Presentation skillsGraeme High School – literacy ( Presentations)

Larbert High School – Numeracy PassportsLarbert High School Approaches to assessment and moderation 2012 Report master

St. Andrew’s Primary – a new approach to planning in  ScienceSt Andrew’s Primary – report

St. Mungo’s cluster – starting to think about mental agility across the clusterApproaches to assessment and moderation feedback June 2013

Offering a Gateway to CPD

CPD Manager PortalStuart Lennie, along with Lynne Lauder and Anne Hutchison of the Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support team have been working to commission and implement a new way for staff to search, request, and record CPD opportunities.

The new CPD Manager Portal, provided by Gateway, replaces the existing paper based CPD course catalogue and booking system, and will allow Education Services staff to browse and request CPD from anywhere with an Internet connection- either in or out of work. In addition, the system will support the Employee Review and Development process and automate Professional Update for GTCS registered staff.

The Administration Team, made up of Ann Peoples, Fiona Dyson, Elaine Hunter, Kate Hotchkiss, and Jamielee Dickson, are currently processing the courses for next session in time for the launch in August!

At the start of the new session, all Education Services staff will receive an email containing their login for the new portal.

Glenbervie Kindergarden Outdoor Learning

Glenbervie Kindergarden are the latest nursery to embark on Outdoor Learning for their children.  Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team held a training session for staff on 12th June at Larbert Woods NHS Site.

This session gave staff the opportunity to take part in practical activities as well as discuss any logistic issues they will face in getting the children out to access this exciting space. 

Watch this space for details of their first visit.

Bookbug

Carolyn Sharp, Early Years Librarian, Curriculum Support Team Falkirk Council Education Services, in the past year has gifted 1906 Baby Bookbug packs, 1954 Toddler Bookbug packs, 1934 Pirate Bookbug packs and 1947 Primary 1 family packs to children in the Falkirk area.

Bookbug provides free book packs for every child in Scotland from birth to primary 1 (5 year olds).  Each local authority area has a Bookbug co-ordinator who tries to ensure that all children in their area receive their packs. The Bookbug programme is operated by the Scottish Book Trust.  For more information about the Scottish Book Trust and the Bookbug programme please visit the Scottish Book Trust website.

 

Russian relations

Yvonne Manning, Principal Librarian, Curriculum Support Team, Falkirk Council Education Services gave a presentation via Skype to the annual gathering of 100 children’s librarians in Russia on 17/6/13.

In November 2012, Library Support for Schools hosted a visit from Directors of children and young people’s library services in Russia where they were particularly interested in Falkirk Council’s RED Book Award and storytelling initiatives. This visit prompted  Andrey V. Lisitsky, Head of the Training Centre “School of Librarian Leadership”, Pushkin Library Foundation, to arrange a Skype meeting with Yvonne. After Yvonne talked to the group about the RED Book Award and storytelling projects there was an opportunity for questions. They were particularly interested in ideas to engage young people in reading for enjoyment and oral storytelling.

Learning Journey Visits

Karen Thomson, Senior Early Years Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team has been visiting a number of establishments over the last few months to look at Learning Journeys.

The purpose of these visits have been to ascertain how each nursery establishment have implemented Learning Journeys into their practice.  Karen has also been looking at how the evidence in the Journeys link to the planned learning intentions and also how the children’s journeys are having an impact on the planning process. 

There are still some establishments that have not been visited and these will be arranged as soon after the summer holidays as possible.

There will be further training in session 2013/2014 as follows:

Learning Journeys: An introduction  – for newly qualified or appointed staff or teaching staff who have recently taken over the Nursery remit.

Monday 2nd September 2013 – 9am-11am, 1pm-3pm or 4pm-6pm

Learning Journeys: A Year On – Surgeries for all practitioners to discuss the implementation of Learning Journeys in their establishment.

Wednesday 11th September, Wednesday 18th September and Wednesday 9th October – 4pm-6pm

These session will be held at Camelon Education Centre – further details will be issued to CPD Co-ordinators shortly.

Questions of Quality

The Curriculum Support Team is based at Camelon Education Centre and is led by Anne Pearson.  The remit of the team encompasses Curriculum Development 3-18,  Workforce and Organisational Development, CPD, ERD, Probationer Support, ICT, Health and Wellbeing, Expressive arts, Gaelic, Creative Learning and central support for work experience.

 As part of our ongoing self evaluation this questionnaire has been set to evaluate the quality of support and effectiveness of the service provided by members of the Curriculum Support Team during the period August 2012 – June 2013. 

 Last year the data drawn from the survey response allowed us to focus our actions on identified needs.   Once again we plan to use your feedback to inform our professional review and development.

If you have not received a link to the survey and wish to provide feedback, please email lynne.lauder@falkirk.gov.uk