All posts by Ms Higgins
Cultural Village – SLF 2012 – #slf12
Invitation
To celebrate the Year of Creative Scotland, leading artists from all disciplines have been invited to deliver artistic engagement workshops with children at the Creative Scotland stall during the Scottish Learning Festival.
The Creative Scotland stall in hall 3 intends to engage, inspire and inform. The programme of activities demonstrates the many powerful and positive impacts of working creatively to deliver Curriculum for Excellence and offers an opportunity to discuss the work and partnerships with artists experienced in working in education.
The attached schedule details the times, dates and activities of the artists. Please drop in and see excellent artistic engagement in action.
The Scottish Learning Festival is open for visitors on Wednesday, September 19th from 9am-5pm and on Thursday, September 20th from 9am -4pm. For further details about the Scottish Learning Festival and to register, please visit http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/slf/index.asp
Early Years Network consultation – get involved
What creative activity for early years happens in your community?
Would you like more access to the arts and creativity for early years?
Would an Early Years Creative Network help?
Starcatchers is carrying out some research into the potential of an Early Years Creative Network for Scotland.
We want to hear the views of people across Scotland as part of this process – from parents, childcare professionals, artists, arts organisations, local authorities, and other local and national organisations working across different sectors with Early Years in Scotland
We would like to invite you to a consultation event to share your views. We are holding a series of events that you can attend:
- Tuesday 25th September at Eden Court, Inverness from 2pm – 4pm
- Wednesday 26th September at Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling from 3.30pm – 5.30pm
- Tuesday 2nd October at Rothes Halls, Glenrothes, Fife from 2pm – 4pm
- Wednesday 3rd October at Tron Theatre, Glasgow from 4pm – 6pm
- Monday 8th October at The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen from 10.30am – 12.30pm
- Tuesday 9th October at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from 4pm – 6pm
Places at these events are free but must be reserved by emailing info@starcatchers.org.uk
European animal life – competition for primary schools
The new European Parliament office in Scotland competition for primary pupils asks them to create images to illustrate a 2013 Calendar on the theme of ‘Europe’s rich Animal Kingdom’. The competition is now open for entries to be submitted until the deadline of 9th October.
The organisers are especially keen to see artwork of some of the rarer European animals, birds and insects. The diversity of species which live in Europe provides plenty of scope for creative young people.
The artwork will be judged by a panel of MEPs and European Parliament officials, with prizes and a presentation to the winner. The winner of the competition will feature in a calendar made up of children’s drawings from all over Europe, and will also illustrate one month, along with eleven runners up, in the official EP Office in Scotland 2013 calendar. All schools entering the competition will receive a copy of the finished calendar, and a selection of the illustrations will also be exhibited at the EP Office in Edinburgh.
Good luck to all the Scottish children who take part.
Dennis the Menace becomes a global citizen
Who’d have thought it? Dennis the Menace becoming a global citizen and the Bash Street Kids growing their own vegetables and getting their 5-a-day!
In the forthcoming special edition of the Beano, primary school pupils will get to see a very different side of their favourite characters. Scottish Business in the Community, a charity that actively encourages businesses from all sectors to improve their impacts on the economy, environment and society, has teamed up with one of its members, DC Thomson, to support the creation of a special edition Beano designed to engage young people in environmental and societal issues in a positive and fun way.
Sent to every primary school pupil in Scotland, the free special edition Beano will incorporate the key themes core to SBC and central to creating a sustainable future for Scotland including:
- Environment / visioning the future
- Health & wellbeing / growing your own veg
- Employability and soft skills
- Responsible citizenship and community
This special edition Beano is supported by a teachers information pack linking to Curriculum for Excellence.
Dr Alasdair Allan, Minister for Leaning, Science and Scotland’s Languages, is very supportive of the initiative saying, ‘I welcome the opportunity afforded to schools to use resources such as this to engage the children in positive and more importantly, fun learning experiences.’
Comics should start arriving in schools now.
Engage for Education
Parents and carers CfE campaign launched
Engage announces the launch of a national campaign which aims to help parents and carers develop a better understanding of Curriculum for Excellence and how they can become more involved in their child’s learning.
Social studies
National Records of Scotland (NRS) Schools Programme – bookings open for September 2012 – March 2013
The National Records of Scotland has launched its 2012-13 programme of free workshops and Glow Meet sessions for primary and secondary schools. New topics include ‘What is the Census?’ and ‘Newhaven Families’.
Full details of the Schools Programme and the booking form are available on the NRS education website.
Science, maths and geography
Twig on Glow – free resources for Scottish schools
Twig World is an award winning online resource that brings learning to life. Mapped to Curriculum for Excellence, Twig now offers over 800 short films and a vast library of support material for science, maths and geography.
Twig on Glow includes all content from Glow Science as well as new materials. Glow Science will continue to be available until January 2013.
Scottish Learning Festival 2012 – just over 2 weeks to go!
SLF 2012 takes place on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 September in the SECC, Glasgow.The theme for this year’s festival is Creative Learning…Creative Thinking.The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning will give the opening address to SLF. There will be the following keynote speakers:
- Professor Keith Grint, Professor of Public Leadership, Warwick University Business School
- Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA
- Paul Collard, Chief Executive of Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE).
The full programme of keynotes and seminars, along with details of the range of additional activities, is available on the SLF website.
We will be there Showcasing Fife’s Creative Learning Network on Wednesday 19th September…come along and support us!
Creativity at work films now on the Creativity Portal
Creativity at work films are now available on the Creativity Portal. So far these include eight interviews with scientists, designers, a space exploration engineer, an architect, a ballet dancer, a cameraman and a baker on how creativity is vital to their work and what that process feels like. The films demonstrate how professionals generate ideas, formulate questions, improvise, make connections and allow ideas to evolve. This is a useful cross-curricular resource, with a focus on careers and skills for life. It is perfect support for any design challenge, poster competition, or creative problem that you may be offering your learners, as well as supporting careers and pathways across all subjects.
