Tag: writing

Read Write Count

Read, Write, Count is a new campaign to improve the literacy and numeracy skills of Scotland’s children by providing advice and support for the families of children in Primary 1, 2 and 3. It is a key part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to raise attainment for all and close the attainment gap.

Read, Write, Count aims to build on the success of the Play Talk Read and Bookbug programmes in the early years and encourage parents and families to include easy and fun reading, writing and counting activities in their everyday lives. For many years, Through the Read, Write, Count campaign, all P1 to P3 children will receive a free bag with books, counting games and writing materials in the autumn of this year.

Research tells us that parental involvement in children’s learning is one of the best ways to improve educational outcomes for all children. Read, Write, Count is about giving parents the confidence to get involved and provides resources to support learning at home.

http://scottishbooktrust.com/learning/read-write-count/

Contact Yvonne Manning, yvonne.manning@falkirk.gov.uk 01324 501990 for more information.

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.

Literacy Strategy Celebration of Success

Monday 12th January saw over 100 people attending a celebration of Falkirk Council’s Literacy Strategy event at Camelon Education Centre. Representatives from all of the 8 work streams including parents, pupils from Bonnybridge Primary and Grangemouth High School, teachers, Education Scotland, Library Resource Services,  businesses, partners, Falkirk Herald, Forth Valley College, the author Stuart Reid, librarians, development officers from neighbouring authorities, Scottish Book Trust, Employment and Training Unit, Moneywise Project, Entrepreneur Me and Renella.

Key note speakers Helen Fairlie, Literacy Development Officer, Education Scotland and Anne Pearson, Acting Director of Education started the celebration event off with positive news about how Falkirk Council are raising attainment in literacy.

After hearing the key note speakers, participants broke off into work stream groups to engage in professional dialogue and share their contributions to the literacy strategy to date. They then examined next steps and further ways forward to support ‘zero tolerance to illiteracy’.

Here are a few samples of photographs from the event:

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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!

Active Literacy Update Session 2013 – 2014

 

Each year, as part of Workstream 6 of the Literacy Strategy, a report is prepared relating to Workstream 1 – ‘Embed active literacy in every establishment’.  These reports can be viewed here:

Please click this link to access Active Literacy Strategy July 2013 for Session 2012 – 2013.

Please click this link Active Literacy Strategy July 2014 to access ‘Active Literacy Update’ for Session 2013 – 2014.

For further information, please contact literacy@falkirk.gov.uk

Literacy at Nethermains

Pupils from Nethermains Primary School have been discovering their inner poets by using autumn as their inspiration and developing their active literacy skills by creating some exciting new poetry.  They worked co-operatively to create a list of exciting vocabulary and ventured on a walk in their local wooded area as a stimulus for their writing.

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Citv Share a Story Winner! Falkirk Pupil wins National Competition

 

A local Falkirk pupil has recently been successful with her entry to Citv’s ‘Share a Story’ competition. The national competition asked pupils to produce a story board which would be made into a short animation aired on Citv in October 2014. Leah was successful and in August went down to Manchester to the ITV studios where she saw her storyboard come to life.

This is what Leah had to say about the experience:

“I like writing and reading so whenever there is a writing competition I give it a go. I like having a longer time to think about the best awesome things I can think of.

I like drawing as well so it was quite nice getting to draw out my story on a storyboard.

When I won my hands were actually shaking. I didn’t really take it in until we got to the TV studio 2 months later.

First we got to look round the studios, to see the set of one of the cartoons and do the weather report. then we got down to business and we got to see the start of our animation. We got to talk to the graphic designers about how we wanted our characters to look. My favourite thing was doing the VoiceOver to my story as the man from Scooby Doo taught us to do voices for our characters. 

If I could say one thing about writing to teachers it would be to give us some flexibility now and then so we can use our imagination. We might have a really good idea you never hear about because we never had the opportunity to write it. Lots of people have very good ideas but we don’t always get to use them if we have to stick to a certain topic.”

Well done Leah, we are all very proud of you and cannot wait for this to be aired in October!

Primary One Literacy Assessment and Action Resource

 

Primary One Literacy Assessment & Action Resource (POLAAR)

The Primary One Literacy Assessment & Action Resource, aimed at helping P1 teachers and support staff to identify learners at risk of developing later difficulties with their reading and writing, is now published on the Education Scotland website.  The resource was developed collaboratively by educational psychology professional bodies, the Scottish Government and Education Scotland and is based on research commissioned by the Scottish Government and undertaken by Professor Keith Topping on the key factors which underpin successful literacy development in learners.  POLAAR meets a commitment made in the SG’s Literacy Action Plan to encourage all local authorities to introduce personalised (literacy) assessments and diagnosis at P1, and to encourage practitioners to be aware of and act on this assessment information.

Click here to access Literacy Appraisal and Action in the Early Years summary document.

Teacher Champions – Maddiston Primary School

Over the past few months Lesley Haston, class teacher at Maddiston Primary School in Falkirk, has been working closely with her colleague Laura Fowlie on a Mairi Hedderwick-inspired project as part of the Scottish Book Trust Authors Live Teacher Champions Programme.

Lesley and Laura’s P2 pupils were inspired by the Katie Morag series.

The children started this project by watching the Author’s Live event with Katie Morag author, Mairi Hedderwick.

They discussed if any of the children had read these books before or seen the new TV programme. They read a different Katie Morag story every week.

In groups the children wrote about the characters from Katie Morag using adjectives and we displayed these on the wall. They came up with words such as toerag, mischievous, cheeky, old, hardworking, etc

Exploring Scottish culture through play

The children had a Scottish themed play afternoon where they had opportunities to choose a variety of different activities. They could build the New Pier out of construction, they curled paper to make Alecina’s sheep’s coat, they wrote down the ingredients for haggis, played in the water with boats and ferries, listened to Scottish music, decorated thistles and created Plasticine Nessies.

Learning about picture book construction

They wanted the children to learn more about the production of picture books in preparation for them producing their own. They had a visit from illustrator and print maker Cate James; she explained the picture book making process and took the children through the storyboarding process. The children had a fantastic time and we have been using this idea in our language lessons, they are eager to create their own characters and story books.

Inspired by the island-living theme in the Katie Morag series, the main focus for the project was to produce a piece of extended writing in the form of a travel brochure. The children were split into seven co-operative groups named after a Commonwealth country. They worked together and found out lots of facts and information about their country from the national dress and food to famous landmarks and people. Once they had collated all this information, they used it to write their travel brochure. They had to come up with their own company name, prices and accommodation options on their island. The children worked extremely hard on their brochures and the results were brilliant. Everyone was asked to present their brochure to our Headteacher. Every pupil was awarded a Katie Morag book of their very own for their hard work.

To round off the project we held a ceilidh and invited along their grandparents. It was a massive success and the turnout for it was overwhelming. The children had practiced Scottish songs, poems and highland dances to entertain and involve their special guests. They had fantastic feedback and the children were so pleased at who came to see and hear them. The children also shared their extended writing project with their visitors and it was lovely to hear all the amazing comments.

Alongside all of this, the children were rehearsing for their forthcoming class assembly. They performed to parents and the whole school to tell them what we had been learning. Each child was given a part to play in our assembly such as sportsman, flag bearer, Scottish dancer, Katie Morag characters and narrators. They learned songs and poems to accompany the assembly and supplied costumes to enhance the performance.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed all of the activities and opportunities that they have been given throughout the project. They have been so enthusiastic and produced some of their best work. The project has also been included in their Enterprise Award accreditation where we are hoping to achieve our Platinum award.

Fun with Writing

The 50 Word Writing Competition.

Each month, the Scottish Book Trust runs a fantastic writing competition. This competition is open to all young learners up to the age of 18.

Young writers are asked to write 50 words inspired by a photograph or a theme or a title.

Further information can be found at the Scottish Book Trust’s website:

http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/writing/love-to-write/the-50-word-fiction-competition