Tag: culture

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.

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 !

Falkirk Music Show Reel

Gayle Martin, Arts & Culture Officer, Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team has created a show reel of some of our senior music ensembles and projects that performed at the School Senior Concerts in March.  The clips were filmed during rehearsals prior o the concerts at Falkirk Town Hall on 25th & 27th March.  The film shows both the talent and achievement by pupils and staff, with new compositions and arrangements by three senior pupils – Christopher Paully of Falkirk High, Andrew Brown of Graeme High and Danielle McKenna from St Mungo’s High.  Their composition was part of New Found Sound Project, where they worked alongside composer Tom Butler from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to create a new piano composition to accompany silent film.  Percussion Tutor Stuart Blackwood composed a new piece of music The Americas and Guitar Tutor Keith Jenner arranged The Beatles Eleanor Rigby, which was conducted by Strings Tutor Gisela Hans and performed by Senior String Ensemble.  Also performing in the clip is Falkirk Traditional Music Project band Up Beat, supported by senior YMI Trad Tutor John Somerville and YMI Trad Tutors Marc Duff and Steven Holland.  The final clip is an excerpt from Falkirk Schools Senior Orchestra rehearsal which is conducted by Brass Tutor Ian Boutler, with pupils from across all secondary schools.

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Arts & Culture

Falkirk Schools Orchestra
Falkirk Schools Orchestra

Gayle Martin has been newly appointed as the Arts & Culture Officer within the Curriculum Support Team based at Camelon Education Centre. Gayle’s remit is to manage the music service, support and develop Gaelic language and culture, develop and support Creative Learning 3-18 and the strategic and operational management of national priorities and developments relating to culture.
Within the first week Gayle programmed and managed Falkirk Schools Senior Concerts which were held on Monday 25th & Wednesday 27th March at Falkirk Town Hall. This was an excellent format to allow pupils from across schools to showcase their achievements in music. Pupils received support through music departments, the instrumental service and Youth Music Initiative. We had a range of performances from Falkirk Schools Orchestra, Falkirk Senior String Ensemble, New Found Sound, Falkirk Junior and Youth Trad Bands, St Mungo’s Wind Group plus many more. Pupils created a fantastic two nights of high quality music! Watch this space for more photos and some films taken from the concerts.