Key information about this Head of Muir PS practice at  a glance –

1. staff building their interdisciplinary learning framework together
2. creating related groups or “bundles” of E & Os
3. enabling pupils and teachers to be creative with contexts for learning
4. collaborating at the start of each school year to define their annual curriculum overview at each stage
5. trialling innovative pupil-led planning

More Detail…

Fiona Anderson, head teacher at Head of Muir Primary School continues to develop interdisciplinary learning with staff as part of school self-evaluation and improvement planning. Together they defined a framework of  related groups of experiences and outcomes which practitioners use to structure learning for pupils. These bundles ensure that there is breadth of coverage, and poster sized overviews of the E & Os are used as simple, visual tracking tools in each classroom to enable pupils to share their progress.

Staff can choose which contexts for learning they use to deliver these bundles, and are currently trialling a pupil-led planning format which enables pupils to be as proactive as possible in planning their own learning. Click here to see an example of one of these plans in progress and here for a blank copy. Fiona had A2 sized versions of these printed so that these could also be displayed in classrooms and continually updated with pupils.   

These plans therefore support high levels of responsiveness to pupil prior learning and enable the principles of personalisation and choice, relevance, challenge and enjoyment to be strongly addressed.

These trials are ongoing and have resulted in topics such as Dinosaurs, ” 1960, 70s, 80s”. Yvonne McBlain captured photos of wall displays (learning walls) in a selection of classrooms and these are shared throughout this post.

In August 2015 Fiona will lead staff through the following next steps in building their curriculum and their IDL framework:

1. Review bundles against the significant aspects of learning (click here to view Fiona’s trail pro forma for capturing the bundle and which HOTs it addresses)
2. Define skills being developed by each bundle
3. Define how each bundle progresses these significant aspects of learning
4. Explore how these significant aspects of learning can be assessed