Category Archives: Secondary schools

Creative Apprenticeships: LIVE with Angela Constance MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Training, Youth and Women’s Employment

On Wednesday 21st May from 2pm – 2.30pm, Young Scot will be hosting Creative Apprenticeships: LIVE – a live broadcast for young people to promote and showcase Creative and Digital Apprenticeships during Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2014.  We know that young people in S1 – S3 are starting to think about potential career paths and subject choices, so we are providing this event to make them aware of all options open to them. We’re also delighted to be joined by Cabinet Secretary for Training, Youth and Women’s Employment, Angela Constance MSP.

This will be a 30 minutes informal panel discussion live, with experts and former and current MAs answering questions directly from young people about Creative and Digital Apprenticeships and careers. The questions can be sent to us in advance by tweeting us @youngscot and include the hashtag #ScotMAWeek14 or questions can be tweeted during the event itself.  As well as answering questions, our panel will be talking about their experience and journeys as Modern Apprentices.

Taking part couldn’t be any easier. Please just let us know if your organisation or school is planning to take part in this event by responding to this email and at 2pm on Wednesday 21st May, you simply have to go to www.youngscot.org and follow the information provided.

To join in the creative apprenticeship conversation, tweet us @youngscot and include the hashtag #ScotMAWeek14. Young people can ask their questions now on Twitter and we’ll make sure all questions are answered.

For more information or if you’re having trouble accessing the stream, please contact us: info@youngscot.org

To find out more about the event, read our FAQ’s here: http://www.youngscot.org/mag/3063-scottish-apprenticeship-week-2014

Commonwealth Games inspire Woodland Workout

Forestry Commission Scotland is encouraging young people to feel the benefit of the Commonwealth Games with a new Woodland Workout pack.

Targeted at 3-14 year olds the pack promotes opportunities for quality, fun and safe physical activity in the outdoors and includes ideas for games, physical activities and staging ‘adapted’ Commonwealth sports in the woodlands.

The pack, complete with teachers’ guide, encourages young people to have fun but to also be responsible for their well-being and consider risk. As well as considering potential hazards in their activity space and taking risks with solving problems, it also allows children the chance to learn how to manage ‘failure’ through reflecting on performance to set new challenges.

The Woodland Workout, with Commonwealth Games supplement has been issued to schools across Scotland and is available to download.

New CPD sessions at DCA

Click on the link below to download the booklet from DCA detailing new creative CPD sessions for the next academic year.
DCA aim to combine their classroom experience with exciting programme content and ‘really useful’ resources so that teachers take away something that can be used in class the next day.  There is  a charge but within that they provide tea/coffee and cake/nibbles to keep folk going.

RSNO Engage for Schools

RSNO Engage for Schools most ambitious Scotland-wide orchestral music initiative to date: Brochures making their way to schools over the next month.

From May, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) will provide the most comprehensive orchestra-led music access programme to primary and secondary schools across Scotland. In terms of scale and choice, RSNO Engage for Schools is the first of its kind in the UK, as education establishments can pick and choose the level of music education provision they require from over thirty options.

Headlining the new initiative, the RSNO launches a national composition competition, in partnership with the National Trust for Scotland, open to 12 to 18 year olds across the country. Notes From Scotland invites young composers to write a two-minute work for an instrumental trio, quartet or quintet. The theme for the first year’s Notes From Scotland is inspired by five National Trust locations around the country.

BAFTA, GRAMMY and Ivor Novello award-winning composer Craig Armstrong OBE, famed for his soundtracks to blockbusters such as Moulin Rouge!,Love Actually and The Great Gatsby, welcomed the move:

This is a fantastic idea to engage young people in composition and to bring them together with existing composers and musicians to pass on their knowledge and skills. I’m sure it will be an invaluable experience for all concerned.

RSNO Engage for Schools comprises four distinct sections; RSNO PLAY – performance-based workshops, RSNO CREATE – composition workshops, RSNO LISTEN – exploring musical concepts and appreciation, and RSNO WATCH – educational performances. Among the many available activities and workshops are conducting lessons, improvisation for beginners, samba workshops, instrumental coaching, digital composition sessions, an Instrument Petting Zoo (where children can play with orchestral instruments for the first time), and, from January 2015, a cross-Atlantic collaboration with US orchestras examining the music of American composers.

Last June the RSNO published the first ever careers booklet created by an orchestra, providing information on available courses and further education opportunities as well as case studies and insights into the workings of a modern professional symphony orchestra. The booklet is available from rsno.org.uk/engage.

Now the Orchestra will be providing work experience opportunities to fifty young people each year, where pupils will assume control of Scotland’s national orchestra over a two-day period, with a view to planning, producing and performing their own concert at the end of the placement.

RSNO Engage for Schools is devised to be fully integrated into the goals of the national Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), offering increased music education and learning provisions through new concerts for every level of CfE from age 3 to 18 years. It is intended that, in its first year, over fifty thousand young people in Scotland will benefit from engaging with some form of RSNO Engageactivity.

The RSNO Engage for Schools is part of the RSNO Engageinitiative, announced last year, which has led to a five-fold increase in the number of people enjoying music with Scotland’s national orchestra outside of its Season performances. A notable success story is the RSNO’s Young Ambassadors scheme, which invites young people aged 16 to 18 to help promote the live orchestral experience in their area. There is now at least one RSNO Young Ambassador for every local authority in Scotland, and the attendance of audience members under 26 years old has risen to 15% across Scotland and nearly 20% in Glasgow as a result.

RSNO Director of Learning and Engagement Jenn Minchin:

We’re very excited to be unveiling our new programme, RSNO Engage for Schools. Its development is geared towards providing the most valuable experience in terms of musical enjoyment and understanding, and provides a seamless integration with schools curriculum requirements at all levels. What’s more, it is available to every school across the country, and those who choose to engage with Scotland’s national orchestra can do so at the level of their choice. It promises to be the most ambitious learning and engagement drive of any performing arts organisation in the UK, and we are very much looking forward to sharing our love of music with many new enthusiasts.

For more information on RSNO Engage for Schools, contact the RSNO Engage Team on 0141 225 3574, email: engage@rsno.org.uk, or visit rsno.org.uk/engage.

Battle of Bannockburn Short film competition- Vote Now!

The shortlist has now been announced for the Battle of Bannockburn short film competition. Schools entered from across the country and there was such a variety of styles, plots, characters, scripts and costume that the team really struggled to decide between the entries however the final five are: Craigour Park Primary,  Knightsridge Primary,  Letham Primary,  Sanquhar Primary and Ullapool High.

One member of the judging panel ,who will choose the overall winner, is you, the public. Follow this link to watch all five films and then vote for your favourite. All five films are great examples of storytelling and drama and staff have been really impressed by the depth of knowledge all our film-makers have on the battle. Your pupils will love the films that have been created, why not watch them together and then cast your vote.

Homecoming Scotland

Click on the image for more info

Scotland is welcoming the world in 2014. Homecoming Scotland 2014 now includes over 700 events, happening the length and breadth of the country, extending the benefits of the Ryder Cup and the Commonwealth Games and positioning Scotland on the international stage as a dynamic and creative country with a rich history and culture.

We would like to hear what Homecoming activity your school is undertaking and would be grateful if you could complete a short survey by 9 May 2014. There are five questions so completion should only take a few minutes. This will help the Scottish Government and Education Scotland to build a picture of what is taking place in schools across the country.

Young people invited to join Creative Generation project

Perth Museum & Art Gallery is looking for young people aged 16 to 25 to join a new project where they can discover more about the art world and life as a practising artist or budding curator.

Creative Generation is part of GENERATION, a national celebration of 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland, and young people taking part in the project will be focussing in particular on the work of Scottish painter Alison Watt, whose art will be showcased in an exhibition at Perth Museum and Art Gallery during the summer of 2014.

Participants will have the chance to gain experience of being an artist or curator and share their newly-gained knowledge with visitors to the Museum and Art Gallery.

Anyone aged 16 to 25 who is interested in studying art or in continuing art as a career is invited to apply. The closing date for applications is Monday 28th April 2014.

For further information and to obtain an application form, please visit Perth Museum and Art Gallery, George Street, Perth, email artsdev@pkc.gov.uk or call 01738 632488 and ask for Anna Murray, Project Coordinator for Creative Generation.

CPD Training – Dance for Core PE

YDance are delivering CPD Training Days for secondary school teachers this June at a venue in Glasgow covering Dance for Core PE, National 4 PE (Dance) and National 5 PE (Dance).

DATES & COSTS

Dance for Core PE (S1 to S3)
2 June 2014
9.30am to 4pm
£70 per person

National 4 PE (Dance)
3 June 2014
9.30am to 12.30pm
£45

National 5 PE (Dance)
3 June 2014
1.30am to 4.30pm
£45 per person

DISCOUNTS

Discounts are available for those who book more than one CPD Training Day with YDance. For the full range of sessions please visit www.ydance.org.

BOOKINGS

All enquiries and bookings can be emailed to cpd@ydance.org or call the office on 0141 552 7712