Tag: active literacy

Early Years Conference

Karen Thomson –  Senior Early Years Officer, Curriculum Support Team, together with Daniel Barrie – Quality Improvement Officer, Heather Hush – Headteacher, Denny Nursery and Avril Robertson – Headteacher, Queen Street Nursery, organised the Early Years Conference on 13th February 2013.  This event was held at St. Bernadette’s Primary School in Larbert and participants were able to take part in 2 workshops throughout the day (from a choice of 13) as well as hear from Tam Bailie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People and Kerry Crichton, Health and Wellbeing Development Officer, Education Scotland.

Despite the snowy weather this event was a great success and the outdoor workshops still managed to take place due to the Yurts that were kindly loaned by Falkirk Community Trust.   

The workshops were:-

ENTER THE EXCITING WORLD OF BLOGGING (A BEGINNER’S GUIDE)

Mary Jalland and Siobhan Cunningham were kind enough to showcase the blogs they have developed at Westquarter Primary School and Nursery Class. 

Mary and Siobhan also gave delegates some introduction information in getting their own nursery/school blog started. 

Blogging links (information given out during workshop)

Here are some of the comments from the workshop:

“Thanks very much for the very useful handout and great presentation.”

“Can see the benefits to parents/carers and how they could be more involved in the life of the nursery.”

“very informative and a great presentation – will take ideas back to setting – thank you for all the information.”

THE GRUFFALO – OUTDOOR STORYTELLING

Many thanks to Yvonne Manning from Library Services for facilitating the storytelling workshop – fortunately we had managed to get a loan of a yurt from Falkirk Community Trust which was very useful due to the snow that morning!

Here is a selection of the comments:

“good to see storytelling to children without books, using visual props and the child’s imagination.”

“I am going to get the sewing machine out and make my own story cloak!  Wil love trying out my abilities at oral story telling!”

“few good ideas for oral stories – liked snowdrop and story stick.  Seen some new stories to read.”

REFLECTING ON LITERACY DEVELOPMENT FOR UNDER THREES

Many thanks to Avril Robertson, Headteacher – Queen Street Nursery for facilitating this workshop.

Here are some of the comments from the exit passes:

“A good tool for self-evaluation in line with Child at the Centre.  Good opportunity for idea sharing.”

“good ideas to support children with additional support needs and provide early literacy activities.”

“useful literacy development tools and being able to recognise different ways to help develop children’s literacy.”

TRANSFORMING PRIMARY 1 LEARNING SPACES

Ashley Johnston, Principal Teacher, St Margaret’s Primary School has been develoing the Primary 1 space and shared the journey with the delegates.

Here are some of the comments:

“Greater use of variety of tasks for maths including outdoors.  More play for deeper learning and consolidation.”

“I will look at classroom organisation and how to move away from whole class lessons and speak to stage partner about possibility of changing use of classrooms.”

Seeing how well two Primary 1 classes can work together and also hearing that the the work we do in nursery is appreciated and useful to P1 teachers.”

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT

Many thanks to Laura Jarvie, Depute Headteacher for facilitating the Parental Involvement Workshop.

Click here for Presentation

Here are the comments from delegates:

“I will always

make myself available for parents who just want someone to listen to and to make them understand they are not alone.  Will always try to give my best advice to make them feel valued.”

FIRE – A VALUABLE LESSON?

Jane Jackson, Outdoor Learning Development Officer, held the Fire Workshop at the Conference – this was not an easy task with the snow, however all participants managed to get the fire lit with a variety of materials/resources.

Some of the feedback from this seesion:-

“this has helped to develop my confidence to do this activity with pre-school children who will benefit from a valuable learning experience”

“Excellent workshop, covered all safety and fun aspects – brilliant!”

“Apart from the lovely smokey smell, the course was very well delivered,  The facilitator’s passion for outdoors and for re-introducing risk in a controlled way came across wel and is one I firmly agree with”

WHAT IS A NURTURE CLASS?

Many thanks to Belinda Tomasik and Carole Roberts for the Nurture Class Workshop.

Click here for The six principles of nurture groups

Click here for Nurture Class Presentation

Some of the feedback:-

“I now have a better understanding of what a nurture class is and the additional needs of some children.”

“The value of the team approach and the significant effect on the children and the support for parents/carers.”

“I am beginning to think of children that could be potential for our nurture room”

“I am going to consider how to make my class more of a nurturing environment.”

“Highlights the importance of what is going on at home and of building good relationships with the parent.”

ACTIVE LITERACY

Many thanks for Sharon Wallace, Caroline Sweeney and Chelsey Johnson for facilitating the Active Literacy Workshop. 

The feedback received was very positive – here are some of the things that delegates took away from the workshop:-

“The idea of creating a ‘bear hunt’ within our toic of Toys.  Loved the innovative idea of fan to blow ‘snow’ – great! Thank you!”

“More use of pair work to encourage working together.”

“I will use more visual aids and use some of the suggested ideas to enhance active literacy in practice.”

“I will access the North Lanarkshire Pack and use it within the nursery.  I will liaise with P1 teachers.”

“We do some of the ideas already but I now feel more confident in going back and going loads more, especially shoulder partners.”

“I will encourage the nursery to use terminology and partner work for active literacy.”

EARLY YEARS – PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Morag Simpson and Morag Young, PE Specialists/PE Lead Officers showcased some activities that Early Years children can take part in during the nursery sessions.

Early Years Presentation

“Lots of good ideas that will be of use in our nursery gym time”

“The warm up acivities were excellent.  Great links to literacy and numeracy.”

“PE is great resources fro interdisciplinarly learning!  Fab presenters!”

“Great, practical, easy ideas.”

“A lot of good ideas for use with 0-5 and tips of how to adjust to level of child.  Lots of great ideas for topics and especially early literacy and numeracy.”

Here is the handout that was given to all participants.

 

LEARNING JOURNEYS

Many thanks to Jan Baxter and the Peripatetic Support Team for the Learning Journey input at the Conference.  This gave participants an opportunity to look at some learning journeys from other establishments and raise any issues they have had while implementing these into their setting.  Click here for Learning Journeys Presentation. 

Here are some of the comments:-

“I will now use the children’s quotes in their Learning Journeys and continue to look at the child’s next steps.”

“Some reassurance that what we are doing is OK”

“I am going to collect some significant photos that could be used in future learning journeys.”

“Hurrah, I think the penny has dropped and should be able to fill in journeys with more confidence.”

“This workshop has clarified Learning Journeys for me and I feel we are making progress and are heading in the right direction.  We will continue to develop our learning journeys.”

LOOSE MATERIALS – NATURAL PLAY

Many thanks to Julie Buchanan from Grounds for Learning for delivering the Loose Materials Workshop (in the snow!)  It was great to see Outdoor Learning at it’s best in the weather.  Julie has thanked us for inviting her and let us know that she had a lovely day and it was great to be part of our exciting event!

Here are some of the weblinks that Julie mentioned during the workshop:-

http://www.ltl.org.uk/pdf/March-11Playnotes1300101493.pdf

http://www.ltl.org.uk/pdf/PN-Storing-your-resources1354030007.pdf

http://www.ltl.org.uk/pdf/Risk-benefit-pro-forma1354026507.pdf  

http://www.muddyfaces.co.uk/

Here is some of the feedback:-

“really good ideas.  A lot of everyday resources you can use that you already have.”

“the use of tarpaulin to make dens – simple but easy to use with children.  Will try to resource equipment for den making – it looks like fun!”

“Really liked the small loose meterials that can be used to be creative eg picture making and can then lead onto using other curricular areas eg storywriting about picture.”

CREATIVE DANCE

Many thanks to Kirsty Wallace who demonstrated how Creative Dance Project can be included in the Early Years.

Some of the comments from the exit passes were:-

“Inspirational – good ideas – very good!”

“I feel more confident in using the pack and making dances up myself.”

“lots of good ideas to help the children have fun through movement and dance.”

LEARNING INTENTIONS AND SUCCESS CRITERIA

Yvonne McBlain also facilitated the workshop “Strong Learning Intentions, Good Success Criteria AND Interdisciplinary Learning – How do we put it all together?”

Click here for the Presentation

Some of the evaluations are:-

“I am going to share different style of planning with management team.”

“Everyone is finding the whole LI and SC challenging and good to know others feeling the same!”

“The difference between learning intentions and success criteria is now a bit clearer!”

“writing shorter, sharper learning intentions and success criteria.”

As a result of this workshop Yvonne has been invited to deliver this again to all Denny Cluster Schools on 16th April at Denny Primary School.  For further details contact Lee Campbell on 50 8810.

HIGHER ORDER SKILLS IN EARLY YEARS – HOW USEFUL IS BLOOM’S TAXONOMY?

Yvonne McBlain also facilitated the Higher Order Skills Workshop.

Click here for the Higher Order Skills Presenation

Here are some of the comments from the participants

“I now have a better understanding of blooms triangle.  I will think of this in my future work.”

“I know have a better understanding of how this could be implemented when planning for each child.”

“This wil help with planning and organising new topics for the children.”

“I will start to identify the specific higher order skills at planning.”

“I will obtain examples of skills and apply this to questioning and activities within the classroom.”

SHARING GOOD PRACTICE

Here are just some of the excellent displays from Early Years Settings in Falkirk Council – more photos will be uploaded shortly.
 
 Bainsford Nursery
Wallacestone Nursery Class

 

Bankier Nursery Class

 

Bantaskin Primary School

 

Bo’ness Public Nursery Class

 

Active Literacy – Stirling University Initial Teacher Education

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team has been busy sharing the active literacy message with initial teacher education students at Stirling University. Third year students were provided with a brief overview of the Active Literacy strategies and methodologies before embarking on a practical workshop of activities. The third year students participated in a traditional spelling test followed by an active learning spelling test. They commented on the difference between the two and how much more effective the learning was using the Active approach. They also attempted to split words into Elkonin boxes learned about single phonemes, joined phonemes and split phonemes. They examined a range of ‘texts’ including recipes, stories, picture books and film looking at how the six key comprehension reading strategies can be applied at early level. Students were enthused by this creative approach to active literacy and ‘on a mission’ to try out some of the methodologies on their next teaching placement. It was a really enjoyable morning and Dr. Lynsey Burke commented on how important it is to have had a valuable input and insight into current active literacy approaches within Falkirk Council.

Using Active Approaches to Reading Using Moving Image as ‘Text’

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team, has been working with a number of schools on active approaches to reading.

Sharon has been working on the development of skills which address ENG 1/2-17a – ‘To show my understanding, I can respond to different kinds of questions and can create different kinds of questions of my own.’

Working with ‘Lost and Found’ moving image as a text, Sharon has been working alongside class teachers to use Blooms question fans to support generating, and indeed, answering their own higher order questions.

Using a ‘book detective’ approach, pupils have been given specific tasks to find evidence within the ‘text’ to support themes/ characterisation/ setting/ plot and structure.

Incorporating co-operative learning strategies such as ‘corners’ (literal, evaluative and inferential questions) and ‘two stay/ two stray’, pupils have generated their own questions and model answers for other pupils to solve.

In their co-operative learning roles of question master, clarifier, recorder and summariser, pupils initially answered prediction questions about the text, followed by generating their own questions to ask others.

Pupils were highly engaged and motivated during the whole of the sessions. These sessions culminated in pupils taking on the role of teacher (Reciprocal Teaching) where they devised their own lessons for younger pupils using the same moving image as ‘text’. Pupils incorporated Assessment is for Learning strategies into their own lessons and shared learning intentions and success criteria.

Active Literacy – Differentiation – Bowhouse Primary School

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team has been looking for how class teachers in Falkirk have been differentiating the Active Literacy resource to meet the needs of all pupils.

Sharon met with P4 Class Teacher, Nicola Lorenzetti and her pupils in action with Active Literacy activities. The pupils were working through an exciting range of differentiated Active Literacy activities and eloquently explained to Sharon what they were doing.

Nicola Lorenzetti has organised individual literacy trays which contain all the resources needed for Active Literacy teaching, consolidation and application across other areas. These trays provide breadth, challenge and allow pupils to apply their skills across a range of activities including working with non-fiction texts, use of ICT and talking and listening activities.

This good practice is going to be shared at a forthcoming Active Literacy CPD event.

Active Literacy – CPD tv

Sharon Wallace, Effective teaching and learning teacher, Curriculum Support team, has been working on GLOW CPD tv sessions relating to Active Literacy.

The short CPD tv clips provide an introduction to each stage/ aspect of Active Literacy for class teachers.

http://www.youtube.com/user/fcEducationServices

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Active Literacy – What do the Pupils Think About It?

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team, has been carrying out some research with pupils in Falkirk establishments to see what they really think about Active Literacy and how they think it helps them to learn.

We first asked the pupils:

“How would you describe active literacy”?

It is fun and really exciting! It is also very helpful with spelling words, I really like it (P6/7)

Active literacy is a language task that is used to help children improve their spelling and sounds (P7)

It helps you see the phonemes in words (P6/7)

Fun if you are working with a partner (P4/5)

I would describe it as a fun lesson to learn different phonemes and spelling rules to help us spell accurately although I enjoy the tasks (P7)

Fun, great way of learning and very helpful for spelling and understanding of spelling (P6)

A better way than spelling tests (P4/5)

I do like active literacy, but sometimes it can be difficult (P5)

We then asked the pupils how they think Active Literacy has helped them in class and this is what they said:

The spelling rules and syllabification.

I understand my literacy work more using active literacy.

I have got better at spelling and I learn lots of new words.
It helps me get better at my literacy work because we learn different language rules that we remember to help us spell so our work is correct.

It has helped me get better because I really understand it now.

I have learned more about the sounds of words.

It helps you see phonemes in words.

I have learned loads using active literacy.

Here are a few pupil quotes:

“I like active literacy because it helps me improve on my story writing and phonemes. I really like the active literacy homework. I like the spellings”. (P4)

“I like active literacy because I am a better reader and speller and I like all the fun tasks for homework. My favourite task is bubble spelling”. (P4)

“I like active literacy, my favourite part is Elkonin boxes. I prefer Elkonin boxes to diacritical marking, but at least it is helping with my vocabulary and spelling. For homework I like the jingles. My spelling has improved since I started Active Literacy. (P7)

Active Literacy and the Specialist Subject in Primary

Sharon Wallace, Effective teaching and learning teacher, Curriculum Support Team delivered an Active Literacy workshop to the Primary Specialists team. Specialists in P.E., Music, Modern Foreign Languages, Art and Drama examined the connections between their subject area and active literacy. We examined the literacy skills needed for each area which included: subject specific vocabulary, visual literacy, sharing ideas, following instructions, interpretation of texts and presenting.

Feedback from colleagues included:
“Will work with class teachers to enable pupils to create a piece of writing linked to work carried out in a drama session”
“This builds confidence and encourages me to do more. Will use Victoria Libraries and GLOW links as suggested”
“Makes me more aware that a lot of what I am doing already links well to active literacy. Makes me more confident”
“I will get my pupils to work more in pairs (Reciprocal teaching) to improve their communication skills”
“Some practical ideas of how to include Active Literacy in a specialist lesson”
“To work co-operatively with the class teacher to enhance active literacy in music class”

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Active Literacy Network Meeting – Reading

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning Teacher, Curriculum Support Team was delighted to host the second Active Literacy Network meeting of this year at Camelon Education Centre. As usual, attendance was fantastic and colleagues were keen and enthusiastic to hear the latest Literacy developments, share good practice and network with colleagues. News was shared about the forthcoming P6/7/S1 packs, as well as links to useful websites relating to reading and updates relating to the Early Years conference. Colleagues from Stenhousemuir Primary and Bonnybridge Primary shared good practice from their schools. Colleagues considered using ‘film’ as a text, as well as using resources such as the Comprehension triangles for each stage.

Comments from colleagues included:

‘As usual, inspiring!’

‘Great getting input from teachers sharing good practice!’

‘These courses are fab and really support us!’

‘Enjoyed professional dialogue with other teachers’

‘As always, taking away some new ideas and an ‘enthusiasm’ boost!’

Active Literacy – Effective Transition at the Early Level

Sharon Wallace, Effective Teaching and Learning teacher, Curriculum Support Team led an active literacy workshop at the Early Years Conference. The workshop explored ways Nursery and P1 are working together to ensure a smooth transition for literacy development. Good practice was shared by Camelon Nursery and Carmuirs Primary School and this was well received by colleagues.