Tag: depth

October 23, 2015

Let’s Build Deep & Progressive Interdisciplinary Learning

44 practitioners from establishments all over Falkirk are developing their interdisciplinary learning during 5 twilight sessions as part of our authority development of Interdisciplinary Learning. Session 3 took place on 21st October, and involved practical and collaborative planning of IDL which progresses skills, knowledge and understanding from related Experiences and Outcomes across the curriculum. Staff in schools all over Scotland are going through similar processes to create the interdisciplinary part of their curriculum framework. This process is often referred to as “bundling”, and involves finding the strong and natural connections/overlap between curricular areas & E & Os, then planning how these could be taught in an integrated way. Many schools have, or are giving a huge amount of their professional learning time to this process, so Falkirk Children’s Services are supporting a whole authority experience to help accelerate progress and improve practitioner confidence, understanding and skill.

Cathy Quinn, curriculum support manager, Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer, Marianne Savage, acting head teacher at St Bernadette’s RC PS, and Andrew Watson, DHT at Bonnybridge worked together to plan the first 3 of these IDL sessions. Click on the documents below to get an insight into how this highly complex process is evolving. Click here to view one of the example plans created to model the planning process for participants. Watch this space for the results of practitioner planning coming soon!

1. Extracts from 2015-16 Inspection Briefing Paper relating to IDL

2. Education Scotland definitions of what good IDL looks like – and common misconceptions

3. The blank pro forma practitioners are using to capture their “bundles”

Practitioner evaluation of the IDL project so far is very positive, with most people saying their confidence is growing, and they feel as though they now understand what “true” IDL actually is. Most people taking part are sharing their experience and the materials used with colleagues in their schools – usually as part of a Raci school improvement task. Consequently, our service is finding sustainable ways to build our capacity to design deep, progressive and engaging learning for our pupils.

June 24, 2015

Developing Interdisciplinary Learning at Head of Muir PS

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

staff building their interdisciplinary learning framework together
creating related groups or “bundles” of E & Os
enabling pupils and teachers to be creative with contexts for learning
collaborating at the start of each school year to define their annual curriculum overview at each stage
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:

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)
Define skills being developed by each bundle
Define how each bundle progresses these significant aspects of learning
Explore how these significant aspects of learning can be assessed

May 11, 2015

Integrating skills progression into learning at Hallglen PS

Following a meeting at Hallglen PS about staff development of skills within their curriculum, Alison McCalley and Linda Hastie gave Yvonne McBlain a tour of the learning walls around the school.

Click here to read more about this development process. Staff had made very effective use of walls around the school to share and celebrate learning. In every classroom the “learning walls” were used to help pupils understand what they were learning. Pupil self-evaluation and next steps were also displayed.

Themes like Houses and Homes linked learning and skill development in social studies, numeracy and technology. Teachers used their themes to integrate literacy skill development in reading, writing, talking and listening. There was evidence of pupils developing their vocabulary and their higher order reading skills by being “Thinking Readers”. Writing tasks were carefully planned by teachers to progress literacy and numeracy across learning within the social subjects or science topics. This included homework tasks at all stages.

From the meeting, and the tour, it was clear that staff are collaborating very effectively to build their curriculum. Their joint exploration of the skills built into the experiences and outcomes means they can make progression explicit to pupils so that everyone can track and profile learning in a meaningful way. It was a pleasure to experience the depth of reflection going on at Hallglen PS. The following pictures give a flavour of the development of the curriculum and how staff are addressing the 4 aspects of the curriculum. Next steps for staff is to pull their bundles of connected E & Os together with the significant aspects of learning and contexts and build their curriculum framework. Staff worked on this during the May inset day and will combine it with subject specific and discrete skills progression to build and review their curriculum.

March 25, 2015

Braes Anatomy going well for pupils at Braes HS

S2 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.

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.

February 3, 2015

Deanburn Celebrates Global Citizenship Learning

Pupils, parents and staff from primary 2, 3, 4 and 6 at Deanburn Primary School celebrated more successful learning on Thursday 29th January.

Liz Stephens, class teacher, and Laura Beattie, principal teacher have been part of Global Storyline training delivered by partners from WOSDEC in collaboration with Falkirk Education Services. Last session they developed their use of the storyline approach and drama to deepen pupil understanding of global citizenship issues. This session they have continued this process and supported primary colleagues in delivering their own global storyline – The Farming Community. As these photos show, each class created their own crop and farming community then experienced the ups and downs of market fluctiations and the impact these have on rural economies.

Yvonne McBlain, support officer with Falkirk Education Services enjoyed listening to pupils from each class sharing their learning. In primary 4B “The Scott Family” looked forward to sharing their market stalls and video jingles with the guests. Claire and Holly liked pretending to be part of the Johnstone family. “I really liked doing Josh. I got angry because the buyer said she wouldn’t pay all the money.” “I got confused, like I didn’t know what to do.” Other primary 4 pupils enjoyed making their characters and learning about Fair trade – “Because it helps farmers all over the world and I didn’t know that” said Rebecca Smith.

In primary 3M, a character called James Bond! made a stall to show that their crop “Magic Tree” could be made into perfume.

In primary 2G the village was called Treetop and the crop was called the Spectacular Seeing and Healing tree. Reece and Robbie gave Yvonne a great tour of their storyline diary. Their drawings clearly show how they felt about the price the buyer’s origninally offered for their crop, AND the new price when the market “fell”. The boys enjoyed painting the scarecrow “to scare the birds away cos they might eat our crops.” They also liked making the harvesting machine with their bodies “we got to make a big machine what harvested our crops.

In each class it was clear that the pupils understood how unfair global trading could be to small, rural communities. They used a variety of activities to help their parents and guests understand this too. Some children manned the Fair Trade activity, and told the story of how crops like tea and bananas get from the field to our shops.

At second level in primary 6, pupils took their exploration of global trading a step further when their storyline community was subjected to a “land grab” by a multi-national company. Pupils shared their understanding of the complex issues which enable this to happen, but staging their own land grab and protest during the afternoon.

There was a great turn out of guests sharing in the learning of their children. Laura, Liz and colleagues gave their pupils’ another opportunity to present and share their learning by inviting other classes in the school to come and visit the global storyline classes the following day.

Staff at Deanburn PS are effectively using collaborative planning and professional dialogue to develop their interdisciplinary learning through the cross-cutting theme of Learning for Sustainability. They are making excellent use of their training to improve the learning experiences for their pupils.

January 21, 2015

Graeme High School S2 Holocaust Project

S 2 pupils at Graeme HS in Falkirk took part in an emotive interdiscplinary experience which deepened their understanding of the Holocaust in a very real and relevant way. Teachers in History, English, Art & Design, Music and Drama collaborated to plan this connected learning which broadened pupil understanding and developed new and existing skills. Click on the image above to watch the full story via YouTube.

This is an excellent example of type 2 interdisciplinary learning where subject skills, knowledge and understanding are integrated into a meaningful context. It is clear that the teachers involved collaborated effectively to synchronise how and when the learning would happen. Each member of staff was able to build in relevant course content which progressed learning via the engaging context and active approaches. In addition, the pupils would have been able to see how the work they did in each subject connected and enriched their understanding of the Holocaust and its continuing impact on modern society. Teachers encouraged their pupils to make effective use of their mobile phones and tablets to further enrich the experience and their engagement in their learning. This project exemplifies how effective integration and connection of teaching which would be done anyway within subject courses, becomes much greater than the sum of its parts when delivered in an interdisciplinary way.

November 27, 2014

More Interdisciplinary Maths at Falkirk HS

Martin Opgaard and Stuart Pearson, maths teachers at Falkirk HS are developing maths and numeracy across learning in various ways with colleagues in their school.

Most recently, teachers throughout the school used the Commonwealth Games as a rich context for their pupils to develop and apply skills, knowledge and understanding across the curriculum (type 2 interdisciplinary learning). Pupils in S1 and S2 took part in these linked learning experiences and gave very positive evaluations. For maths, these opportunities consolidated pupil skills in rounding numbers and graph work. They also calculated how foreign exchange rates might impact on visitors coming to the games. Click here to see a maths lesson presentation.

The project ended with a sharing of learning and celebration of pupil achievement at a “market-place” event in the school hall. The team of teachers delivering this project are now building pupils’ ideas and thoughts into their planning of a bi-annual version which will continue to happen during Commonwealth Games, and Olympic Games years.

Previously, FHS S1 pupils have enjoyed connecting their learning between maths, art and design and business education. Claire Jack, maths teacher developed an educational partnership with a local kilt hire business. The owner of this business worked with school staff to plan a tartan competition (click to view). This may be developed into a school tartan and a range of suitable products.

The photos show S 1 pupils learning how to measure properly for full Highland dress. Pupils enjoyed learning through this real-life context and developed their ability to interpret a range of number texts. In addition, they broadened their team working skills and explored their creativity within the constraints of a plaid pattern.

In the past, FHS teachers have also used the school’s annual Litter Pick as a context for pupils to consolidate and apply numeracy, literacy and computing skills. Click here to view a lesson presentation created by Maths staff for this IDL context.

Martin, and Stuart are now exploring topical science contexts and NASA resources (click here)with a view to creating some new and creative interdisciplinary learning for their pupils.

November 21, 2014

Global Storyline develops at Carron PS

Heather Nicol and her primary 6 class at Carron PS in Falkirk, are working on the Global Storyline project “Our Crop, Our Land” created by WOSDEC. Click here to learn more about this excellent global citizenship resource.

Heather’s pupils created the community of Springfield where most of the villagers rely on farming the crop Berryblush to earn their living. Each pupil has a Springfield persona which they pop in and out of during the storyline to help them understand complex global citizenship and sustainability issues. Click here to see how pupils shared their existing knowledge of farming, and here to see the daily diary of Olivia Spriengeer, one of the Springfield farmers.

Within the drama, it is harvest time and the people of Springfield are preparing to sell this year’s crop of berryblush to the highest bidder at market. (See their marvellous harvesting machines on the right). Outside the drama they have been learning about farming and global commerce and how the cost of real life crops is appropriated to each party who helps to get it to our shops. Click here and here to see how pupil thinking has been affected by a learning experience called Banana Split, and explore pupil thoughts on why people are hungry by clicking here.

These are some of the learning activities integrated within the storyline to develop real and deep understanding of global commerce, rights, fair trade and social responsiblity and help pupils to become responsible citizens and effective contributors.

Heather’s class are really enjoying this connected learning experience which links experiences & outcomes in social studies, expressive arts and health and well-being. The storyline approach develops empathy and genuine understanding of global issues, as well as making the learning coherent and relevant to the pupils. Heather has applied her global storyline training and context building so well, that pupils asked to take some of their learning experiences home to work on them with their parents. They feel outraged that most farmers get so little payment compared to the other parties involved in getting food to us, and want to make sure others get to know about this too. Heather and her pupils will soon discover just how volatile this market can be, and how that volatility impacts on food producers around the world.

This is an excellent example of type 2 interdisciplinary learning where pupil skills and understanding are broadened and challenged through the cross-cutting themes of global citizenship and sustainability. The storyline approach and integration of drama and art and design ensure that pupils are consistently engaging in higher order thinking and reflection, which results in real progression.

November 20, 2014

Inference the Interdisciplinary Way!

Ewan Shanks, P7 class teacher at Carron PS has been developing his pupils’ understanding of inference by linking literacy and art.

Ewan explored and built on existing pupil understanding by asking them to analyse images of Scottish inventors (their class topic as context).

Ewan found that his pupils could say and write their thoughts. (see one group’s example on the right.) However, they found it difficult to say how they were able to make these statements. Ewan used questioning to increase pupil awareness of how they were picking up on the clues around the people in their picture, its composition, the objects which were visible, etc.

Pupils were then asked to create a self-portrait using a simple interior composition (see left). At first, the children were too obvious with the clues they added to their pictures. Through careful questioning and discussion though, they were soon able to be infer information about their likes/dislikes, character traits, etc in a more subtle way.

To broaden and challenge pupil understanding even more, Ewan then played his primary 7 pupils various pieces of music to explore the ideas and images this suggested to them. He used various listening exercises and a staged process (see storyboard on the left) to build up to a creative writing text which demonstrated that pupils could use inference themselves. Click here to read one of the children’s stories. (You will also see the success criteria rubric Ewan and his class use as part of their assessment of and for learning)

As you might imagine, the children were very engaged by this whole process, and were able to demonstrate their understanding in a range of ways, as can be seen above. This is a great example of deep and creative learning in literacy of course, but it is also a very clever use of type 1 interdisciplinary learning. By showing pupils the natural overlaps and common features in written, drawn/photographed and musical texts, Ewan helped develop deep understanding of inference, AND higher order skills transferable across literacy and the expressive arts.

October 8, 2014

S1 Curriculum Enhancement Course

Fiona Malcolm, Faculty Head of Social Subjects and RMPS at Braes HS worked with colleagues to create a new course for S1 pupils which is currently being delivered. Click here to see the presentation shown to all Braes cluster primary 7 pupils as an introduction to the course. The rationale for the course states:

Curriculum for Excellence is seen as a continuous process of learning during and beyond the school years. The purpose of this course is to provide the pupils with time in S1 to build on skills and values learnt in primary school and develop them for further use across the secondary curriculum and into adult life.

In her message to S1 pupils inside the cover of their enhancement course booklet (click to view), Helen McCulloch, head teacher writes:

Our Enhancement Course is designed to improve and increase the quality of your education at Braes High School by helping you to pull together all the skills you gain across the different subjects you study in the junior school so that you can link them together and put them to good use in every classroom and in this way, have real success in your learning at Braes High School. …

One obvious problem with our Enhancement Course is the title. Enhancement Course sounds pretty boring so as the year goes on we are hoping that one of our pupils can come up with a good catchy name for our course. There will be a prize for the winning entry – so get your thinking caps on, pay attention to what is in the course and see if you can come up with an innovative and catchy title.

I look forward to receiving your ideas!

Staff used collegiate time in session 2013-14 to design the course, ensure that it meets the needs of all learners, and uses a wide variety of activities and different methodologies. This course is interdisciplinary – click here to see the skills poster for pupils. In addition, the course connects the four contexts for learning in Braes HS: pupils have opportunities for personal achievement; they contribute to the life and ethos of the school as a community; and specific knowledge and understanding is developed within curriculum areas, and through interdisciplinary experiences. (Click here for more information about these) http://glo.li/1rRhBYp

The course is being delivered over 2 periods per week – click on each term below to see the overview of learning for each term.

Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 4

As part of the course, pupils are encouraged to explore, develop and share their personal achievements through Braes HS own award system called BRAW. Staff also intended that the course would enable pupils to achieve a Dynamic Youth Award, but are now in discussion with primary colleagues to explore how this element could be taken forward in primary 7 leading up to S1. This holistic approach to curricular planning for S1 helps build a coherent learning experience for pupils and alerts them to the transferability of the skills they will be developing. In addition, in contributes to a positive transition for pupils and encourages them to apply their skills, knowledge and understanding within a range of contexts.