Great Arty Collaboration at Comely Park PS

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On 27th March, staff and pupils at Comely Park PS proudly presented their successful collaborative work  with The Park Gallery. This project was initiated by the gallery and was inspired by Ruth Nicol’s exhibition, Three Rivers Meet which combined landscape painting with poetry. The project links to Falkirk’s successful Creative Place Award and encouraged pupils to look at their place and select their favourite icons of the area.

Ruth Nicol is an award winning Scottish Contemporary landscape artist based in Edinburgh. In her exhibition Three Rivers Meet she is inspired by Alexander Moffat’s “Poets’ Pub”, and investigates the landscapes of the seven great Scottish poets. She worked directly with 8 P7 pupils from Comely Park School in her Edinburgh studio, where they produced their own landscape paintings of well-known Falkirk landmarks. The pupils had to go through a selection process to be one of the final 8 who learned new techniques and  created the stunning works included in this post.

Kelpies by Megan and Zara

Zara said it was “A really different experience from what we were used to.” Her partner Megan said “I was really glad I put my name down. I loved being in the real artist’s studio. It was great to work with Ruth.”

Reid and Amy chose to depict the Kelpies and said “It was really easy cos we’re best friends. I drew the background then we did a horse each.”

Heather and Lisa said “I just enjoyed a bit of everything about the paint – we sprayed, and painted and chucked everything, then it really started to come to life when we added parts in.”

Grangemouth by Molly and Tomi

Tomi said “I think my favourite bit was actually going to the artist’s studio. I’ve wanted to be an artist since I was 5”

Yvonne McBlain and other invited guests were highly impressed by the whole occasion and the work shared. The paintings took centre stage, but the poetry linked to their local area produced and read by the pupils was  well-written and moving. It was obvious that teachers Gillian Hepburn and Gillian Cain had maximised the value and impact of this interdisciplinary learning for their pupils in partnership with Ruth Nicol, and Barbara Murdoch, visual arts assistant with Falkirk Community Trust. Comely Park PS has a Makar named Ruby, who read her poem inspired by her local area and said “I like writing poems – it’s another way of expressing yourself.” Click here to see Barbara’s record of the second of the studio visits.

Ruth Nicol said:

“Working with the pupils and staff of Comely Park School was very exciting and has been a privilege. The creativity, commitment and expression of all the pupils was evident to see. I hope everyone enjoys the paintings and poems we have made together.”

The Kelpies by Reid and Amy             The steeple

S2 Design Unit Update at Braes HS

 

WP_20150323_007Alison Morton and colleagues in the art department at Braes HS continue to develop and improve their S2 design unit. Since  their initial development of Curriculum for Excellence  courses for S2 in art and design in session 2011-12, they have adapted their unit through collaborative working within their department, and with student teachers and a graphic designer. Yvonne McBlain initially worked with Alison to build in elements of Teaching for Understanding and link pupils’ learning to other parts of their S2 curriculum. WP_20150323_008

These course developments and collaborations succeeded in deepening pupil understanding of the ways product packaging persuades consumers. Alison,  Yvonne and Janine White from the English department, shared this work at the Scottish Learning Festival in 2012. Yvonne also shared how elements of the storyline approach contribute to this pupil understanding at the 6th International Storyline Conference on Saturday 28th March 2015. She was able to pass on the impact and images of current S2 pupil work following a recent chance meeting with Alison. Delegates attending Yvonne’s workshop at the conference were enthused by the idea of building small elements of storyline into their practice at secondary level. Some of them had not previously appreciated the impact the use of characters and setting could have in subjects across the curriculum. They were also struck by the idea of product packaging as a “text” which could be analysed and evaluated in the same way as a written text or digital image. They felt this approach could help them develop subject-specific skills while also addressing their responsibility for the development of transferable literacy skills.

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Braes HS is developing interdisciplinary connections across all departments, with teachers looking for opportunities to take full advantage of natural overlaps between subjects in order to deepen and enrich pupil learning. Read more about Falkirk’s contributions to the 2015 Storyline Conference by clicking here.

Falkirk Storylines Shared at International Conference

WP_20150329_002Teachers and senior managers from Kinnaird and Moray Primary Schools shared their use of the storyline approach at the 6th International Storyline Conference on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th March 2015. Gemma Douglas and Brenda Bennie presented their global storyline practice with teachers from Glasgow schools and the West of Scotland Development Education Centre (WOSDEC). Ashley Thomson, teacher at Limerigg PS prepared the Falkirk contribution with Gemma, but was unable to attend due to illness and Brenda thankfully stepped in. Everyone involved shared the powerful impact of the Global Storyline training on the 14 teachers involved and their pupils. Feedback from the workshop delivered on Saturday was very positive, and the delegates attending engaged fully with the practical elements built in to help them understand how powerful this interdisciplinary learning is. Click here and here to read previous blog posts with more information about these storylines.

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Lynda MacDonald, DHT, Gillian Brodie, PT, and class teachers Alison Feasby and Simran Multani also shared their development of storyline within Moray PS. In their  session entitled “One School Telling Many Stories”, this team described the storyline journey taken by their whole school community over the last 2 sessions. During this time a small group of teachers have worked with and championed the storyline approach. Session 2013-14 saw every class embarking on a Storyline at the same time; their classrooms and playrooms were filled with vivid representations of characters, settings, plots and an abundance of new learning. In April 2014, all stages from nursery to Primary 7 celebrated and shared “Telling Many Stories” with parents, grandparents and other special guests. The school journey continues this session 2014-15 with an aim to improve practice and achieve greater consistency across the whole school and a drive to build in progression of skills across learning. The pictures above and below come from the nursery storyline floorbook.  WP_20150328_004

At the conference, Lynda and colleagues made connections with 2 schools in the USA whom they plan to share practice with next year – there will be opportunities to link classes and storylines across the Atlantic which is very exciting for everyone involved.

Falkirk teachers are recognised for their use of the storyline approach to deliver powerful and engaging interdisciplinary learning. It was wonderful to see this practice being shared with an international audience – maybe we will have even more to share at the next International Storyline Conference in Istanbul in 2018!

 

Braes Anatomy going well for pupils at Braes HS

WP_20150323_003S2 pupils at Braes High School are coming close to the end of their Braes Anatomy interdisciplinary experience. This experience links science, social studies and RMPS through the context of vaccination – click here for more information about the whole project.  On Monday 23rd March  2015, Yvonne McBlain joined S2.5 for their RMPS lesson with Mrs Menzies to see how things were progressing. Mrs Menzies  gave a lesson entitled “Playing God or Doing Good?” where pupils developed their understanding of religious concerns regarding medical ethics.

During this lesson, the young people explored their thinking about a number of medical moral dilemmas such as: stem cell research, designer babies and “saviour siblings”. They began by considering their own views about these dilemmas, then created a table showing how these were viewed by major world religions.

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Mrs Menzies highlighted the links between the subjects involved for her pupils and outlined their final essay task and homework. Yvonne was able to collect feedback from the young people about how this interdisciplinary work has/is making a difference to their learning:

“It’s good. It helps me understand it so you don’t forget about it so easily and understand it more.” TJ

“It’s alright. It feels like it’s carrying on a bit towards the end – the science bit and history.” Hannah

“I think it’s quite good that instead of doing separate topics for each subject, they’re getting a bit linked up. The science bit was the best because it was more interesting” Ellie

“It’s alright. Simple really.” Omar

“I really like it because you can take what you learn from RMPS and use it in science.” Alix

“It’s quite interesting and helpful when all of the subjects tie in together. It gives you a different understanding on each subject.” Elly

“It’s quite good because it links them all together and helps us gather information and use it different ways. It could be useful even if we don’t take these subjects – like, we can use it in other subjects.” Alana

These comments suggest that the young people value being taught in a connected way and can clearly say how this benefits their learning. Some of them are able to recognise the value and necessity of transferring knowledge and skills across learning.

 

Falkirk Schools Do BBC 10 Pieces!

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Audrey Mackay, primary music teacher at Wallacestone PS and St Mary’s RC PS, has been working with pupils on the BBC 10 Pieces initiative. Click here to learn more about this project.

A number of her classes have been listening and responding to classical music during the “Ten Pieces” project.  This project is designed to introduce young people to the world of classical music in a fun and interesting way.  Primary 7 at St Mary’s RC PS have been particularly inspired to create their own response to the music by working together to compose a fusion between the opening bars of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, the familiar theme from Greig’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and Scottish Composer Anna Meredith’s body percussion piece “Connect”.  The class are now in the final stage of rehearsing and hope to complete the video of their composition in the next week.

At Wallacestone PS, primary 5 classes attended the launch of the project at Cineworld in October and have been studying the various pieces during their Music lessons. Primary 5D chose Anna Meredith’s “Connect it” as the piece they would like to create a response to – click here to watch a performance of this piece.  In co-operative learning groups they created their own body percussion compositions.  Their performances were videoed for evaluation in class .

BBC 2Primary 5E chose “A short ride in a fast machine” by John Adams.  Their response was completely different to the other class. A suggestion from one child about playing the music whilst running his remote control car round the classroom led to a filming project in and around the school.  Video clips were taken in various locations and then edited using Moviemaker. Whilst some children were filming others were experimenting with the mp3 track of the music and Audacity. The children were able to select how much or little of the original to use and then experiment with Audacity’s various features.   After consultation with the class, one track was chosen to be the sound track for their film and was further edited using Audacity.   The film is now in its final stages of editing and will hopefully be completed by 25 March 2015.

Audrey’s work is a good example of interdisciplinary learning, with pupils applying their musical literacy analysis skills while broadening their understanding of music in our society. The pupils have been able to use personalisation and choice and develop their creativity and ICT skills while creating their responses to their chosen pieces. Pupils will also develop understanding of how each subject within the expressive arts can be combined through a performance.

Developing Skills Progression at Hallglen Primary School

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The senior management team at Hallglen PS shared their development of skills progression across learning with Yvonne McBlain of Falkirk’s Service, Support and Improvement team on Tuesday 17th March 2015. Alison McCalley, head teacher, Val Campbell, depute head teacher and Linda Hastie, principal teacher, have been working on this development with staff colleagues this session and during session 2013-14. During the conversation, it became clear that this initial task has had much wider impact on staff and pupils, and on the ethos and life of Hallglen as a school. After hearing about the school’s journey, Yvonne recognised that the staff are building their curriculum together, and defining how their learners will progress through their broad, general education.  Many schools are currently on this journey and it is good to be able to share an example from a Falkirk school. Click here to view a video clip from Education Scotland which defines how another head teacher managed this process.

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Hallglen’s Process & Impact so far:

  1. Alison used active approaches to engage staff in deep discussions about their rationale for prioritising skills progression and assessment as improvement priorities.  (See photos of the displays) These meetings effectively build a shared, clear vision and coherence about the tasks.
  2. Staff  switch to collegiate planning focusing on the same Experiences and Outcomes, and using existing topics. Staff really valued these opportunities to plan together because they were better able to unpack the skills within the E & Os and could see how to progress these skills across each stage. (Alison facilitated using skills support materials from Education Scotland website)
  3. Whole staff decide to moderate their planning at the start of a topic, and again at the end. The quality of  professional dialogue at meetings continues to deepen staff understanding of why they teach what they teach. Staff tour their classrooms to share their learning walls – they enjoy and value the ideas and knowledge they gain from each other. Peer support and professional dialogue are further enriched by this. WP_20150317_031
  4. Elements of the task are defined and distributed across Raci groups. Shared vision, builds a culture of distributed leadership within the school. Teachers have a sense of agency about their work and are enjoying the systems of monitoring and tracking which they helped to co-create.
  5. Alison applied her reflections from the Curriculum Architecture session delivered by Education Scotland last session.  Staff switch to using the significant aspects of learning and realise that they need to be more flexible with their contexts for learning – IDL is not the same as “topic”.
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  7. Level groups of staff begin to look for “bundles” of E & Os  contained within the significant aspects of learning. The latest inset day was used to  identify discrete “stand alone” E & Os within each subject, and those which were naturally connected. (See photos) The evidence generated is shaping up as an overview of their curriculum where skills progression can be built into discrete and interdisciplinary learning.
  8. Staff continue to refine their progression of skills by defining what will be taught at each stage within a level. They are organically building a curriculum framework as defined by HMIE Advice Note 2014-15 (click here to see an example from the Ed Scot website)

5.1d ” The curriculum is based on the design principles of challenge and enjoyment, breadth,depth, progression, relevance, coherence and personalisation and choice for all learners.Staff and partners are further developing the curriculum to ensure coherence andprogression in learning using the experiences and outcomes (Es and Os) to providewell-planned and joined up learning across curriculum areas and subjects, interdisciplinarylearning, personal achievement and the life and ethos of the school.

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Other impact:

  • better teaching of skills across learning – these are made explicit to children
  • assessment is built more effectively  into planning, tracking and monitoring systems
  • children are better able to recognise and reflect on their skills progression
  • staff have a much deeper understanding of the whole curriculum,
  • shared understanding of the links between  classroom practice and school improvement priorities
  • greater awareness of the strengths of each member of the staff team and how to harness these
  • teachers and pupils more involved in choosing contexts for learning – greater flexibility
  • better transitions across all stages

Next steps include:

  1. Define contexts for learning around the connected bundles which are loose enough for an annual overview of learning – have these ready for use by August 2015
  2. Explore how teacher and pupil choice about what, how and when to learn impacts on whole school curriculum each session
  3. Extend annual framework to a 3 year cycle to accommodate composite classes
  4. Explore how the cross-cutting themes are integrated into the developing framework
  5. Look at how the emerging framework articulates with whole school initiative like community groups, dedicated events like World of Work, etc.
  6. Explore how to develop pupil understanding of the curriculum and how their learning is connected through subject-specific and transferable skills.

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Deep Understanding of Global Citizenship at Kinnaird PS

 

Gemma Douglas, principal teacher, and Brenda Bennie class teacher from Kinnaird PS have been using WOSDEC global storyline Our Crop, our Land with their primary 5 and 6 classes. As can be seen from their wonderful animation, this work has had a huge impact on the children’s’ understanding of sustainable farming, fair trading practices and the ethics of land grabbing.

Gemma will present this work and animation with Diana Ellis, Global Education Advisor,  of WOSDEC and teachers from Glasgow Council schools at the International Storyline Conference on Saturday 28th March. The pupils of primary 6 were thrilled when their animation received 300 hits on the first night they uploaded it to YouTube.

It is clear that pupils have gained deep understanding of these global issues within the cross-cutting theme of Learning for sustainability and taken part in really valuable interdisciplinary learning. Brenda noted that

“The children are so proud and excited! It’s just amazing to see them so empowered. We’ve written letters to MSPs as well asking them to watch the video and tweet.”

Click here to see how Gemma integrated her storyline with the rest of her curriculum, and here to see how Brenda did this.

Mysterious Medieval Death Investigated at Moray PS!

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Primary 5S at Moray PS have been investigating the historic and mysterious death of King Alexander III of Scotland with their teacher Rebecca Spalding.

They are using Falkirk’s Scottish Wars of Independence storyline to help them develop an understanding of the history and culture of Scotland, and an appreciation of their local and national heritage within the world. Click here to view this storyline, which builds effective interdisciplinary learning linking social studies, literacy and expressive arts.

Rebecca’s pupils are extremely engaged in the lessons and is pleased that the storyline plan allows her pupils to lead the learning and contribute fantastic ideas. On the left is a photo showing how Rebecca presented her class with the storyline “initiating event” to kick start their learning through storyline by recreating the discovery of King Alexander’s body at the foot of cliffs near Kinghorn. Her pupils have created applications to be the new king, and decided that they needed a class Queen. They have developed their research and debating skills while exploring what really happened following the death of the king.

Falkirk schools can access a range of storylines linked to popular interdisciplinary contexts here in Glow (you will need your Glow log in to access). Each storyline plan is available there with the resources needed to deliver the whole unit. The Scottish Wars of Independence storyline uses letters  – click here and here to view two examples showing how these direct the learning. Primary 5 at Moray PS are very engaged with the story so far, and are thoroughly enjoying learning all about the Scottish Wars of Independence.

 

 

Bonnybridge PS Primary 3 Global Storyline Assembly

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On Friday 27th February Yvonne McBlain was delighted to be invited along to see primary 3 at Bonnybridge PS celebrate their global storyline interdisciplinary learning. With the support of their teacher, Holly Keenan, the pupils had carefully planned how they could share all of the stages of their global storyline with their audience of parents, grandparents, and other guests.                    IMG_4656

We discovered that they became characters in the farming community of Rocky Road and worked really hard to grow their crop. The community used “boingos” as their money and worked out how much they needed to sell their crop for in order to live a good, healthy life.

IMG_4651The children performed their raps, jingles and dances to show us how they persuaded the buyers to purchase their crops on market day. It sounded as though they grew a truly wonderful crop which could be made into honey cakes, perfume, medicine and anti-wrinkle cream!

The community was devastated when they received a letter from the buyer offering them a lot less for their crop. They had to make a democratic decision on whether to accept this offer. The audience saw that almost 3/4 of the villagers voted to accept.

After the assembly Yvonne told primary 3 how impressed she was with the way they had organised their assembly. She admired their costumes and the way they managed to tell all of the important facts in an entertaining way for their audience. Yvonne asked primary 3 two important questions, take a look below to see the answers some of the pupils gave:

What is the most important thing that you’ve learned during your storyline?

Rory – That when we buy Fair Trade, people all over the world would get more money

Dylan – Buy Fair Trade because people get more money – sometimes they get hardly any money and they can’t live.

Adam – I learned to speak about all the different fruit and foods that are Fair Trade

Jessica – about the fruits that are Fair Trade

Zaak – if more children go to school, it’s fair. If farmers don’t get paid more, it’s not fair.

Ellie – if you choose Fair Trade, more children can get to school (because their families have enough money to pay for school.)

What part of your learning did you enjoy the most?

Finlay – Learning about Fair Trade things – especially our tasting day!

Lucy – Learning about the Fair Trade oranges – I didn’t know you got Fair Trade oranges.

(we had a chat about which shops you could and couldn’t buy Fair Trade oranges in)

IMG_4654    Some of the villagers singing their Fair Trade song at the end of the assembly. P3 were looking forward to the rest of their storyline celebration back in their classroom.

 


Grand Space Library opening at Wallacestone PS!

IMG_4655[1]Primary 5E and Primary 5D at Wallacestone PS have been working together to develop their enterprising learning. On Friday 6th February the children and their teachers Mrs Davidson and Miss Eaglestone were delighted to welcome a great turn out of guests. Click on the photo on the left to watch the eagerly awaited moment when guest of honour, Yvonne Manning, officially cut the ribbon and declared the primary 5 Space themed library open.

This event celebrated interdisciplinary learning which the pupils and teachers of both classes have developed since last October. Cameron, 5E said “We wanted to learn new stories and have a greater imagination of books to read…We wanted to turn the room between our classrooms into a library. We all came up with ideas then voted for a space theme – it was a tie between a jungle and space but space won by a point!”  IMG_4658[1]

Cameron liked making the bookmarks for the books – he enjoyed being able to “design it however you liked”. Megan, Zoe and Leoni from 5D enjoyed doing the drawings for the library – they liked choosing whether “to do a space man or a rocket”

The children began their project by considering how they could use their quiet room – thinking about how to create the right atmosphere to encourage good reading and use of imagination. Click here to see all of the stages involved in creating the library.

IMG_4668Take a tour of the project display by browsing the photos below and watch the impromptu video of their library made by the children during the event.

 

 

 

Mrs Davidson and Miss Eaglestone carefully structured this learning so that pupils led as much of the learning as possible during this project. The  enterprising skills across learning pupils progressed include: working with others, problem-solving, managing self and others, literacy – talking, listening, reading and writing, numeracy. Pupils also developed their creativity in a whole range of ways – most noticeably through their art, design and technology work in the library itself.

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