Tag: Literacy

RED Book Award

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The RED Book Award is run by the Learning Resource Service 

The shortlist for this year’s RED Book Award was:

Beneath by Gill Arbuthnot

Salvage by Keren David

Mind Blind by Lari Don

Inflicted by Ria Frances

All great books which had that important wow factor.

The RED award ceremony took place on 29/1/16 at the Falkirk Town Hall. 250 young people attended from every secondary school in Falkirk Council. Each school provides a creative interpretation of one of the shortlisted books. The authors enjoy watching their readers deliver their opinion of the books through powerpoint and drama. There was an opportunity for the young people to meet and talk to the authors at the signing table and during the question & answer session. During the ceremony groups of pupils acted as journalists, photographers and a media group interviewed authors and participants for their school radio broadcast and filmed the event. Everyone is encouraged to wear a red accessory which contributes to the fun and energy of the day. It was a wonderful event – a celebration of books and reading culminating in the opening of the red envelope to reveal he winner of the RED Book Award. The winner is Mind Blind by Lari Don.

This year we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the RED Book Award and to acknowledge this milestone, 10 schools across the world were invited to participate in the Book Award. Copies of the shortlisted books were sent to them and some Falkirk Council pupils were able to skype the young people in other countries to discuss the books. The countries taking part were Australia, China (2 schools), Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia, South Africa, Switzerland and Turkey.

A quilt, featuring all previous RED winners and material from the countries who took part, was made by Anne Ngabia, school librarian at Grangemouth High School, and will act as a fabulous legacy for the RED Book Award.

 

 

 

Book Week Scotland 2015

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Book Week Scotland runs from 23rd – 29th November. This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate books and reading. Visit Scottish Book Trust’s website to find out what is happening during this week, to find out how you can contribute and to get ideas to make reading irresistible for your children. The Learning Resource Service will be leading events throughout the week in a variety of places including nurseries, schools and Polmont Young Offenders Institute. Let the Learning Resource Service, lrs@falkirk.gov.uk know what you are doing to celebrate Book Week Scotland.

Enjoy!

School Librarians support literacy

Education Scotland gave a presentation at the CILIPS Autumn Gathering (an annual conference for librarians and information professionals across Scotland). They discussed the key messages from the Education Scotland 3-18 Literacy Review and Literacy Across Learning. School librarians considered the following reflective questions:
– How are you using a wide variety of texts to promote reading?
– What activities are you involved with to help promote a reading culture?
The responses from the school libraries can be found here.

Happy National Poetry Day – 8th October 2015!

 

Did you say it’s made of waves? Light by Margaret Tait

The theme for National Poetry Day 2015 is ‘Light’. There are resources for schools on the Scottish Poetry Library website. They have produced poem cards, posters and learning resources to support use of the poems in schools. There is also biographical information about the poets.

Children and young people love poems and poetry helps to improve literacy. Don’t forget to have a look at the excellent Scotshoose website which includes poems in Scots.

 The Scottish Poetry Library are keen to hear how schools across Scotland celebrate National Poetry Day and use the resources. They’re also very happy to feature schools’ plans and photos on their website to help promote schools’ projects. If you have something to share, please email Learning Manager Georgi Gill (georgi.gill@spl.org.uk).

 The Learning Resource Service has a broad range of resources to support poetry in your classroom.

Read, Write, Count Coming Soon

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Improving literacy and numeracy has an important role to play in improving attainment.

Improving school attainment for all and closing the attainment gap have long been priorities for the Scottish Government, with programmes such as Raising Attainment for All already working well across Scotland since launching in June this year.

In the year ahead, the Scottish Government will go further by bringing a sharper focus to the need for improvement in educational attainment.

This will include the introduction of a Read, Write, Count literacy and numeracy campaign aimed at Primary 1 to 3 children, to build on the success of the Play, Talk, Read campaign already in place.

 

 

For further information, please visit:

http://www.gov.scot/About/Performance/programme-for-government/Programme-for-Government-2014-15/Education-Attainment

Raising Attainment – Sharing Good Practice Nationally

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Falkirk Council recently shared their approach to raising attainment in literacy at the National Literacy Network. Our Literacy Strategy was shared, with examples of good practice from each work stream. Colleagues from across sectors and from all over Scotland attended the session and feedback was extremely positive.

St. Bernadette’s pupils stunning rap demonstrating the 6 reading comprehension strategies was shared and was really well received. Colleagues really liked the way the pupils demonstrated their understanding in a very creative way.

Active Literacy work from Bonnybridge Primary School was also shared and colleagues were impressed with the range of active literacy strategies which were shared.

Colleagues were impressed with the work Falkirk is carrying out to support parents and carers. We shared some of our you tube animations for parents/ carers and parental leaflets. We also shared the you tube training videos which are available 24/7 for teachers to access to support the delivery of active literacy in the classroom and outwith.

Our key successes for this year so far have been populating the work streams of our Literacy Strategy, a consistent approach to teaching higher order reading skills and consistency of approach. Our next steps are to take the strategy forward even further to continue to raise attainment and close the gap.

It was a really enjoyable morning sharing good practice and engaging in professional dialogue with colleagues.

We are really excited to take this forward in the future.

Closing the Gap

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Falkirk Council: Closing the Gap

A number of Falkirk Council schools are in the first phase of a Partnership Project that is funded by Education Scotland’s School Improvement Partnership Programmes (SIPP).

The SIPP is a collaborative school improvement strategy that promotes new ways of working across classroom, school and local authorities. Data and collaborative enquiry are used to innovate, test and refine new approaches to tackle the attainment gap.

Falkirk Council is currently one of 7 local authorities funded to work with the Robert Owen Centre, University of Glasgow. Projects across authorities are wide ranging and are very different but the main focus of each is to use collaboration and enquiry to tackle educational inequity and ‘Close the Gap’ for pupils.

Falkirk Council’s identified task is to pilot a staged intervention approach to low attainment in literacy in the upper primary, involving the building of family capacity in areas of relative deprivation.

This is an exciting joint initiative between Schools and Community Learning and Development. Seven primary schools within Falkirk and Grangemouth clusters have signed up for the project. These schools are using a systematic literacy intervention programme called High Five (Family Fischer trust) with small groups of pupils in P7 who have attained lower literacy scores. Alongside this, the Community Learning and Development team are providing additional opportunities for the pupils and their families to encourage motivation and ambition. Opportunities for enhanced transition to High School are also being explored.

The literacy intervention programme will run for a minimum of 20 weeks. Some parents have engaged with the process and have signed up for additional CLD activities.

Robust quantitative and qualitative data is being gathered and will be presented to SIPP, and pupil progress will be tracked from P7-S2.

So far, pupils are enjoying their experiences using age appropriate strategies and structured reading materials.

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Young Writers Competition 2014

Thursday 27th November saw the first ever Falkirk Herald Young Writers Competition Awards ceremony. Colin Hume, Editor, Falkirk Herald said “In an age when there are so many competing pressures on youngsters’ time, it is gratifying to see so many prepared to put pen to paper to engage in that most traditional of pasttimes – telling a story”.

Over 2,000 entries were submitted to this competition where pupils were asked to write a Kelpies inspired piece of fiction or non-fiction.

The winners were as follows:

P1 – Joint 1st prize – Ava Green, St. Andrew’s RCPS and Isla Deane, St. Andrew’s RCPS, 3rd prize winner –  Andrew Gregory, St. Andrew’s RCPS

P2 – 1st – Ruaridh Smith, St. Andrew’s RCPS. 2nd prize – John Oscar Walker, Comely Park. 3rd prize – Hazel Barlow, St. Andrew’s RCPS
P3 – 1st Emily Graham, St. Francis Xavier’s RCPS. 2nd prize – Katy Walsh, St. Andrew’s RCPS. 3rd prize – Michael Rogan, St. Andrew’s RCPS

P4 – 1st prize – Amelie Purdon, Airth PS. 2nd prize  – Edwin Walker, Comely Park. 3rd prize – Shannon Neville, St. Patricks RCPS

P5 – 1st prize – Samantha Graham, St. Joseph’s RCPS. 2nd prize – Daniel McCue, St. Joseph’s RCPS. 3rd prize – Roisin Diamond, St. Patrick’s RCPS

P6 – 1st prize – Marnie Izatt, Carron PS. 2nd prize – Chloe Ashe, St. Margaret’s PS. 3rd prize -Lucy King, Antonine PS

P7 – 1st prize – Meredith Rae, Ladeside PS. 2nd prize – Sophie Golding, Beancross PS. 3rd prize – Comely Park PS

High Schools – 1st prize – Darcie Izatt, Larbert HS. 2nd prize Rowan Ferguson, Grangemouth HS. 3rd prize Thomas Rintoul, Denny HS.

It was a super evening. The overall winner was Emily Graham P3 from St. Francis Xavier’s RCPS. Well done to all pupils who entered.

We all look forward to hearing about next year’s competition!

STUDENTS CAN COUNT ON ADULT LITERACY CLASSES

An Adult Literacy support service available across Forth Valley College’s three campuses can support students with everything from arithmetic and numeracy to reading, writing and how to formulate essays.
The valuable service – run by the Core and Essential Skills Department – is open to anyone who thinks they need a little bit more help and confidence boosting encouragement with the core skills needed to complete further education courses at the college.
Forth Valley College Core Skills Lecturer Anne Reid said: “My colleagues and I are positive that these classes can make a huge difference to the lives of students who need some help in their core skills.
“We hope to raise the profile of the regular support sessions in order to make people more aware of when and where they are being held. Some students will only come along just the once to get some support with something specific like structuring an essay or others will attend for a few weeks to brush up on their computing or number skills.
“There should be no embarrassment or stigma attached to seeking help for basic literacy or numeracy. However if anyone feels they need to contact us in confidence about any issues they can.”
Alyson Milne (27) from Camelon, a former Forth Valley College HNC Working With Communities student benefited from the classes and is now beginning a BA degree course at the University of the West of Scotland.
Alyson said: “The Adult Literacy classes were brilliant in helping me to brush up on things I needed to in order to catch up in my course. They are great because the lecturers help you as you go at your own pace and level, and there are no deadlines or homework to worry about.
“No one should feel embarrassed about going along to these courses as they are just another class to help you learn something else or enhance what you already have. They make you feel so much better about your ability to push on with your course and the lecturers are excellent in the way they break things down into understandable sections.
“I would thoroughly recommend you give the classes a try – what have you got to lose?”
For more information on Forth Valley College’s Adult Literacy Classes contact Anne Reid by emailing anne.reid@forthvalley.ac.uk
Alternatively just drop in to any of the classes, the timetables for which can be found below:

FORTH VALLEY COLLEGE – EXCELLENCE IN LEARNING
Forth Valley College is made up of over 14,500 students and 500 staff and offers more than 750 courses at its campuses in Alloa, Falkirk and Stirling. Approximately 97% of students successfully progress on to employment or University upon completion of their course at Forth Valley College.

Contact:
Stuart Hall or Laura Riley on 01324 403125 or by e-mail on stuart.hall@forthvalley.ac.uk or laura.riley@forthvalley.ac.uk