Safe and Responsible Use of Social Networking Peer Education Tour

Well done to the Larbert HS Pupils who planned and delivered a fantastic Theatre in Education social networking education tour for Larbert cluster primary schools. The primary pupils loved the experience and were very clear what they had learned from it.

“I won’t give out my personal details”

“I will think carefully before I post a picture of myself”

“I will consider others feelings when posting comments”

This tour was part of an accredited Theatre in Education Project for Creative Industries. The pupils took responsibility for planning the entire project which included liaising with each primary school, creating questionnaires for primary 7 pupils on their social networking use that was used to inform what they included in the drama. The pupils had to plan and create the drama and have regular team meetings to evaluate their progress and set targets to meet deadlines for the completed script and devised workshop activities. At the end of the tour the pupils have to evaluate their own contribution to the process and identify improvements that they could make to the planning of the project that could be carried forward to the planning of another project.

April 2, 2014

Implementation of Employee Review and Development for all staff.

Lynne Lauder, Enterprise Co-ordinator with the Curriculum Support Team, Falkirk Education Service has been working with Anne Hutchison, Stuart Lennie and Claudia Flynn from the team on the implementation of Employee Review and Development (ERD) for all staff. ERD is ready to go live on CPD Manager (the datab management system for professional development) on 22nd April and every member of Falkirk Council Education Services staff is expected to have untertaken an ERD meeting by October 2015.
In preparation for the launch, a series of information sessions have been delivered. The sessions are aimed at ensuring every member of staff is fully aware of the rationale behind implementing ERD and the benefits it offers.
We have a number of CPD sessions planned for Validators of the ERD prociess. The sessions, Effectively Managing the ERD process, can be booked through CPD Manager.

March 31, 2014

Commonwealth in rhyme – creating and editing audio recordings to share online

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support team of Service and School Improvement, Falkirk Council Education Services, supported pupils from the Grangemouth High School cluster to create and edit audio recordings which they shared online as part of a national Digital Commonwealth project. Creating, editing and using an online tool to share recordings provided one set of skills learned across a series of themes in this project.

Working with Dugald MacGilp (of Young Reporters for the Environment, part of the Keep Scotland Beautiful Charity) and Steve Duffy of Grangemouth High School the pupils were set the task of creating an audio recording of a piece of writing in rhyme which represented a Commonwealth country of their choice. Some groups of pupils chose to find a representative poem from a Commonwealth country of their choice, while some did some research about their chosen Commonwealth country and their Commonwealth athletes (in the lead up to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow) before creating a piece of writing, poem or rap.

Click here for Jamaica Rap which one group of pupils pupils created, edited in Audacity (including adding backing sounds) and uploaded to AudioBoo, free online podcasting host.

Click here for Swaziland Rap which another group of pupils created, edited in Audacity (including adding backing sounds) and uploaded to AudioBoo.

Audacity is free downloadable software which works like a word-processor except it is used to edit audio recordings. With a simple click on a record button in the screen, and with a connected headset/microphone a redording can quickly be made of any audio. Once recorded there are simple cut/copy and paste icons just as in a word-processor to remove unwanted noise or move elements and reuse in a different sequence. It can also be used to have multiple tracks so that once the spoken word (for example) is recorded you can play it back and also record a new track at the same time (such as to add a beat sound). Once you are finished editing the audio you can go to File – export – and save as an mp3 file which is then ready to be shared with others for playing back. Click here for more information about where to download the Audacity software and how to use it.

AudioBoo is one of a number of free online tools which can be used to either upload previously recorded mp3 files or to record straight from microphone. The resulting AudioBoo recording can then be shared with others and played straight from the page where it is stored.

March 27, 2014

Sharing Classroom Chick Egg Hatching

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support team of Service and School Improvement, Falkirk Council Education Services, has provided advice on request to various schools when they are taking part in a chick egg hatching project as part of science, and health & wellbeing elements of the curriculum.

So that pupils can enjoy watching the activities of the egg hatching and of the chicks, and share that with their parents and carers, at times outwith normal classroom times, often schools want to find ways to share live video of the eggs and chicks.

At its simplest a school could use a class blog, or the school website or the class, school (or specially set up project) Twitter account to share periodic photographs with short descriptive text of the activity happening. Recorded video could also be similarly shared.

However schools most frequently want to be sharing what’s happening at times outwith the normal school day.

So this is where live streaming of video via a webcam connected to a PC can provide the answer.

St Patrick’s Primary school in Denny is one recent example of a Falkirk primary school which set up live video streaming of the chick egg hatching process. Click here to see recorded excerpts from the live stream of the chick egg hatching project at St Patrick’s Primary School.

Do you want to set up live video streaming for a chick egg hatching project in your school?

Click here for a description of the process for setting up live video streaming for a chick egg hatching project.

March 26, 2014

Bo’ness Primary Schools work on Kinneil Museum Project

Yvonne McBlain, Curriculum Support teacher with Falkirk Council Education Services has helped to co-ordinate partnership work between Bo’ness primary schools and Falkirk Community Trust. The Trust has appointed Hanneke Scott van Wel and Lindsay Lennie to take forward their Kinneil Museum Engagement for the Future Project. On March 25th, Lindsay and Hanneke began working with primary 5, 6 and 7 pupils from each Bo’ness primary school to explore their links with their local heritage. The learning experience involved studying a range of old maps of Bo’ness and opened pupils’ eyes to the many changes which have taken place in their landscape over the last 400 years!

Observations from Kinneil PS p6/5 pupils included:

“We’ve found out that Bo’ness was called something different long ago.”

“We can find Kinneil School in this one (map) and can’t in the other one.”

“They(person who made the map) haven’t got the two potteries and they don’t have the gas works…we found a football ground but they didn’t have it.”

The pupils had brought in a picture or object from home and were asked to consider whether it connected to the places they had identified on the maps. One group said: “We found the town hall ‘cos that’s where the Fair takes place.”

Hanneke and Lindsay will ensure that each class taking part in the project has these learning experiences to prepare them for a whole cluster working day on 20th May in Bo’ness Town Hall. On that day each class from each school, will contribute/pool their expertise on their specialist aspect of Bo’ness history, and use this to co-create a historical timeline of their town. This process and its end product will form the pupils’ contribution to the wider community consultation taking place in order to ensure that the new museum displays reflect a true picture of the interests and experiences of the community they are designed for.

March 25, 2014

Filming for Pupil Learning to Achieve Policy

Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support teacher with Falkirk Education Service, is continuing the filming process for Falkirk’s pupil version of their education policy Learning to Achieve. For the past two years, pupils from as many Falkirk schools as possible have been contributing to the creation of the policy in collaboration with Yvonne, staff in their schools and at the centre. Click here to see the paper version. Pupil council members have played a leading role in the organisation of the tasks at every stage. They suggested that the policy should be digital, and as dynamic and visual as possible.

Yvonne offered all schools the opportunity to be involved in this creation process and currently, secondary pupils are sharing their thoughts on their role in getting the most from their education. Many pupils are taking the opportunity to share and celebrate the educational experiences they have had so far.

On Friday 21st March, St Mungo’s RC HS S5/6 sociology students were filmed in conversation about their role in their own education. These students spoke eloquently about what they would like their lives to be like in 10 years time, and how their education has equipped them for this life. Paul and Martin from Baby Grand Productions are the media partners providing technical support for the creation of the policy.

Carrongrange High School pupils were filmed during their Enterprising Fridays and Life-Long Learning experiences. Each Friday pupils develop their skills for learning, life and work within a range of elective groups.

At Braes HS in the afternoon, a small group of S3 drama pupils were also filmed in conversation. They had prepared some thoughts on how best to conclude the policy video and “acted” out a conversation which they felt would do that well. Their vital task was to persuade and communicate a summary of the policy message to their target audience – every Falkirk pupil!

Mariner Support Service pupils will be filmed on 31st March sharing some of their diverse learning experiences and then all of these parts will be edited with the content already created by S4 Denny HS Creative Industries pupils in conjunction with Baby Grand Productions.

March 17, 2014

Spelling Bee

Yvonne Manning , Principal Librarian, Service and School Improvement Team of Falkirk Council Education Service attended Larbert High School’s first Spelling Bee. It was an excellent event with pupils from S2 who overcame their nerves to stand on the stage in front of their peers and pupils from Kinnaird PS and Stenhousemuir PS to show their excellence in spelling. Award winning author Nicola Morgan, Larbert High School’s Patron of Reading, was there and her main message to us was that reading for enjoyment helps the brain to perform better! Nicola also presented prizes to the pupils.

March 14, 2014

Raising the Bar in Physical Education

Morag Simpson and Morag Young PE Lead Officers for Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team organised a hugely successful Raising the Bar Event for Physical Education on the inservice day on Thursday 13th February.

The day provided the opportunity for delegates to expereince a combination of practical workshops and presentations from both Education Scotland and HMIE. Feedback from all sessions has been extremely positive with the opportunity for Q & A sessions being greatly appreciated by all.

Morag Simpson and Morag Young are hoping to provide the same opportunity at the next inservice day on the 2nd May 2014.

Here are some examples of feedback given:

“Excellent day, informative and very useful”

” A very interesting day with lots of fun ideas and activities”

” Great having notes and resource links”

“Excellent resources to support teaching”

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.