Tag: good practice

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.

March 25, 2015

Falkirk Schools Do BBC 10 Pieces!

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 .

Primary 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.

February 9, 2015

Grand Space Library opening at Wallacestone PS!

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!”

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.

Take 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.

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.

January 12, 2015

Primary 5H Use Music to Improve their Writing

Emma Holmes (probationer teacher at Carron PS) and her primary 5 pupils have been using music to help them develop their reading and writing skills. They listened to Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain (click to listen) and used their reading strategies to explore the music like a text. First they discussed the title and what it could mean, then they created word banks to describe what they heard as they listened. The next steps were to storyboard their interpretation of the music and, finally, to create their own piece of writing.

Working in this way had a very positive effect on the writing the pupils produced. They found it easy to use their imagination when writing, and were able to write more than usual. The pupils created structured stories which were interesting and creative. By exploring what they felt was inferred by the music of Mussorgsky, they were able to produce longer, more detailed and stimulating stories.

Mrs Holmes was pleased that the pupils were able to transfer elements of their learning to another context. This happened when pupils attended a performance of The Wizard of Oz in school. By chance, part of Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain was used during the performance. Primary 5 pupils reacted immediately when they heard it and were able to say that it was used for dramatic effect and to explain its specific purpose at that point in the performance.

December 18, 2014

Interdisciplinary Learning at Falkirk High school

Yvonne McBlain was pleased to be able to meet with teachers from Falkirk HS to explore how they have been developing interdisciplinary learning across the school. James Thomson, Head of Language faculty and his colleagues Amanda Gouther and Melanie, shared two collaborations taken forward this session.

The first involved English, Social Studies, PSE and Pupil Support staff, and took place over 2 weeks for S2. Staff in all of these departments recognised a need to develop pupil ability to speak confidently and well in public. They had observed that many pupils lost confidence between S1 and S2 in their ability to apply their skills to structure and deliver a verbal presentation. Consequently, staff worked together to plan a series of tasks which used social studies content as a focus for the pupils’ final presentations, which were delivered in English. In this way, staff were able to co-ordinate their course content with minimal change or disruption to their unit plans and normal timetables. The experience built into a cross-year competition which raised the profile of these skills for learning, and allowed pupils to appreciate their own, and others’ progression.

The second IDL development also involved S2 and was a collaboration between Modern Languages and HE. Each subject planned activities which were delivered within their usual timetable. In the early stages, most took place discretely, but then culminated in more obviousl integration of subject learning when pupils opened and ran their French Cafe. Pupils developed their knowledge of French vocabulary by using this in Home economics. They tried samples of traditional French food and used role play to deal with currency conversion between Euros and Sterling. Teachers used co-operative learning strategies to ensure that pupil groups had specific responsibilities for setting up and running the cafe. The pupils had real customers and were able to apply their conversational use of the French language and money-handling skills as well as the obvious and valuable social interaction. Staff built assessment of agreed criteria into the learning experience via a pupil quiz, and this learning experience proved very motivating and engaging for the pupils involved.

James also shared a planned IDL activity for December 2014 linked to the famous football game truce which took place in No Man’s Land 100 years ago between British and German troops. This will be called Joyeux Noel and will involve S3 modern languages and history pupils. He hopes that pupils can attend a special film screening and use associated resources to develop their knowledge and understanding of the conflict, as well as offering an opportunity to develop and use language skills.

December 18, 2014

Deanburn Primary 6F learn about the Jacobites

On Friday 12^th December, Yvonne McBlain visited primary 6F at Deanburn PS to find out about their Jacobites interdisciplinary learning. Robyn, Findlay, Cara, and Aiden volunteered to write the rest of this blog post to show everyone how much they have learned.

We started learning about the British Royal family tree. We discovered that this went down and down to James II of England and VII of Scotland. He got exiled to France and was the grandad of Charles Edward Stewart – also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie (the young pretender). 6F made up a Jacobite character called Angus Ferguson (see our photo of Angus with the prince).

Angus, our made up character was good friends with the Macdonalds, and went to the massacre of Glencoe.

Findlay and Aiden got to become Angus – they got asked questions by the rest of the class and had to think on their feet to answer the questions. Robyn really liked it when Aiden was pretending to be Angus and described how he fought back. We all liked it when we got to pretend to be talking in Gaelic as Angus. He had 3 children and a wife. Cara learned “Angus was in danger because he kept some Jacobites in his house with his wife and his kids so he might have got caught.

We have also learned the Robert Burns song “Ye Jacobites by Name” which we think is an anti-war song. We think Robert Burns sympathised with the Jacobites but thought that they should stop fighting.

We learned that the final battle on British soil was the battle of Culloden and after this Bonnie Prince Charlie left Scotland forever. We made targes, Highland sheep and pictures of Highland cows.” The Jacobites was a great topic because we got to learn about wars in history and we got to make targes, highland sheep and Highland cows pictures in art.”

Findlay “I feel I learned that the Jacobites were intelligent at some points – not all points.”

Aiden “The Earl of Mar wasn’t very bright – he tried to get inside a castle but the ropes he brought were too short!”

Robyn liked when we learned about the old and young pretender trying to come back to Scotland – the old pretender got no support but the young pretender’s army grew from 7 men to thousands. And I really liked how it was the last battle and he was like we can do it again but he didn’t. I liked making the targes too.”

Yvonne McBlain was impressed by the pupils’ knowledge of these important Scottish historical events, and was bowled over by their enthusiasm for their learning. It is clear that their teacher made powerful use of Angus the storyline character to deepen the children’s understanding of the impact of these events on real people at the time. By using drama conventions and building in skill development in technology and expressive arts, learning has obviously been very engaging for these primary 6 pupils.

December 18, 2014

Titanic Disaster at Deanburn PS

On Friday 12^th December, Yvonne McBlain visited Deanburn PS to hear all about the Titanic storyline topic which primary 6/5C have been working on. Hollie, Miah and Iona were kind enough to give her a tour of their classroom and wrote the rest of this blog post.

We received secret missions with information about what we had to do for our topic. One Monday morning, we were told we had to wear old clothes – it was the 16^th of October. On that morning, we were told we were going to be doing arts and crafts and that we had to build a 2D model of the Titanic. We didn’t know much about the ship, but worked in four groups and there was a funnel group, a deck and promenade group, a hull and under-hull group, and a sea group. Our teacher Mrs Crawford showed us lots of pictures and we searched Google images for more. It took us two days, but in the end we managed to finish our ginormous picture of the Titanic.

Hollie took a photo of the first class cabin, Iona took one of the second class cabin and Miah took the ones of the crew cabin.

The girls felt that this topic helped them to understand how things have changed since those days and nowadays. It also helped them respect other people more because “when we were reading the novel about the Titanic, the book says “life’s too short for arguing”. So now we think it’s a good thing to teach people that, and you should make sure you make the most of life.” Iona said “When we worked in the groups there was a lot of arguing and I think this topic helped us with problem-solving and we HAD TO solve the problem together.”

Miah looked through the evaluations written by others in the class and picked out Sophie’s which said “I really enjoyed my character and completing the missions. It was a very interesting topic.” Jamie’s said “I liked building the Titanic because it was super fun and we got to work together in teams.”

Hollie picked out some comments from the parents of people in our class. One parent said “Thought it was excellent and was really impressed with the effort they had all made, dressing up, etc.” another parent said “I was most impressed by the amount of research that was carried out. The children obviously worked very hard and it showed.”

It is very clear that these pupils have gained a great deal of knowledge and understanding from Mrs Crawford’s use of the storyline approach with this topic. Yvonne McBlain also noticed the real changes in attitude pupils had developed through taking on roles as characters on the ship, and really enjoyed sharing in the girls’ obvious enthusiasm for their learning.

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.