Category Archives: Subjects and Themes

Music

Musicians to meet up for Highland Music Day

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It’s a year since the inaugural Highland Music Day and this year’s event on Thursday 6 October will see 570 young people from all over Highland arrive in Inverness to participate in a day of workshops and group playing for musicians of all levels of ability who attend Highland primary or secondary schools.
Seven different venues throughout the city will be used to host activities for young musicians of strings, brass, woodwind, bagpipes and pipe band drumming, traditional music and percussion.

http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourcouncil/news/newsreleases/2011/October/2011-10-03-04.htm

Additional Support for Learning, Dance, Developing the Young Workforce, Health and Wellbeing, Languages and Literacy, Mathematics and Numeracy, Music, Religious and Moral Education, Sciences, Social Studies, Technologies

Education Scotland Learning Blog

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Education Scotland’s development officers share good practice and current events as they work with practitioners across Scotland. This blog includes the latest news from all the teams, with links to our website, Glow Groups and good practice.

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/eslb/

Sciences

STEMNET and Dundee Science Centre

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Dundee Science Centre has been awarded a contract to enhance science education in secondary schools throughout the North East of Scotland.

As part of its commitment to 60 local authority schools in Dundee, Perth and Kinross, Angus and Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, the Science Centre will help teachers improve the way they teach science subjects and steer pupils towards science-related careers.  Dundee is the only Scottish Science Centre to secure one of the four STEMNET (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) contracts in Scotland.

As part of the four-year contract, Dundee Science Centre will recruit and manage voluntary Ambassadors to provide expertise and support to teachers, thereby enhancing lessons and adding a new dimension to projects, showing how STEM relates to the world of work and the many careers it can potentially open up.  With 470 already recruited, from scientists and engineers to gamers and environmentalists, these Ambassadors are then matched up to schools.  Ultimately, all schools will have access to free of charge, vetted, trained role models who can support teachers, assist with STEM activities and help promote positive images of STEM to young people.



Louise Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Dundee Science Centre said, “We are delighted to secure the STEMNET contract for North East Scotland which fits with our objectives to deliver to the whole community, as well as the thousands of visitors who flock to Dundee Science Centre each year. It’s essential that we widen the perception of science and its relevance in our schools and that’s where these Ambassadors, who are truly passionate about their cause, play a crucial role. Science is not defined by a lab coat and, indeed, pupils are often intrigued when a STEMNET Ambassador visits their school dressed in jeans and a t-shirt but is, in fact, a computer games expert educated to PhD level.”

As part of their induction, the new Ambassadors undertake a science communication module entitled ‘Create and Inspire’. Led by Dundee Science Centre’s Science Learning Institute, the module helps Ambassadors understand and communicate to varying age groups, and explain their particular field in a fun, informative and relevant way.

Ambassadors can contribute both to regular lessons or participate in extra-curricular activities such as STEM Clubs, Careers Days and visits. STEM Ambassadors open the door to a whole new world for young people, helping them to see STEM subjects and careers with a fresh perspective and engage their interest and imagination in new ways.

The Science Centre will also run the STEM Advisory Service which helps teachers inspire students in science technology, engineering and mathematics by helping to identify and access enhancement and enrichment activities which can benefit the school curriculum, providing Ambassadors, links with local businesses and supporting STEM Clubs.
STEMNET works to ensure that future generations are able to appreciate and understand the role of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects and careers in the world around them and that more young people in the UK make a choice to enter careers from, as well as in, STEM.



For more information, visit www.stemnet.org.uk <http://www.stemnet.org.uk/>  or contact ambassadors@dundeesciencecentre.org.uk <mailto:ambassadors@dundeesciencecentre.org.uk> .

Dance

Big Dance Schools Pledge 2012

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Big Dance 2012 will happen across the UK with a series of mass participation events led by our Regional Partners through Get Scotland Dancing (more information to be posted soon on www.creativescotland.com). The next Big Dance will take place across the UK from May – July 2012.

Big Dance Schools Pledge 2012

Login to sign up for Schools Pledge 2012 here

To sign up for the pledge you first need to login into your Profile or create an account.

The Pledge will be back in 2012! which coincides with the start of the Olympic Torch Relay in the UK. Renowned choreographer, Wayne McGregor, will be creating the choreography.

Big Dance School pledge

The School Pledge mass participation event for schools across the UK and around the world will take place with a world record attempt at 1pm on 18 May 2012 the day that the Olympic torch arrives in the UK.  Big Dance is about showing lots of different types of Dance in unusual places. In 2011 260 schools worldwide signed-up to take part in the Schools Pledge 2011.

The choreographer for Big Dance 2012 is Wayne McGregor the multi award-winning British choreographer, renowned for his physically testing choreography and ground-breaking collaborations across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science. He will create a piece of dance which will be available on the website and supported by resources.

The choreography for the schools pledge will be available online from January 2012 here Big Dance 2012 – Official Site – Big Dance 2012 but you can register there from September for news.

Katy McKeown | Dance Officer
Creative Scotland

T +44 330 333 2000  D +44 131 523 0076
F +44 131 523 0001
Waverley Gate  2-4 Waterloo Place  Edinburgh  EH1 3EG
katy.mckeown@creativescotland.com
www.creativescotland.com

Health and Wellbeing

Design a football strip for Forest Pitch!

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Education Scotland and Forest Pitch are working in partnership to offer all primary age children in Scotland an opportunity to design the football strips for an exciting project connected with London 2012.

Forest Pitch is the only Scottish project in Artists Taking The Lead, a major part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, and is also part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.  The Cultural Olympiad uses art and culture to welcome the world, to inspire young people and to create a lasting legacy.

Scottish artist Craig Coulthard, supported by funding from Creative Scotland will be creating a full size football pitch hidden deep within woodland in the Scottish Borders. In July 2012, two games will take place on this pitch, one between men and one between women. The players will all be amateurs, resident in Scotland, over the age of 18.  In addition they will all be people who have become British citizens since the year 2000. After these games, the pitch will be left to grow back, and become a living relic of the events that took place in the woods.

The project explores a range of themes: national identity and belonging, what it means to be a citizen, how personal and shared memories and myths are created, the power of sport, diversity in nature and society, and sustainability.

Forest Pitch is looking for your creative designs for the football strips which the players will wear.  As there are 4 teams (2 men’s and 2 women’s) Craig is looking for 4 winners.

The competition is for primary-age pupils and is designed to enable children to express themselves openly and freely and to encourage critical thinking and creativity.  They will be able to express their own ideas, thoughts and feelings by exploring the themes of Forest Pitch and then creating a football strip design.

To find out more and enter the competition click here.

For further information contact michael.farrell@educationscotland.org.uk

… and don’t forget to register with Get Set and use Forest Pitch as part of your application to the Get Set Network.  This will provide even more opportunities and resources for learning linked to London 2012 – and free tickets through the ticketshare scheme.  Over 1100 Scottish schools are registered for Get Set and over 170 are now on the network.

Dance, Music, Technologies

What’s happening at this year’s #slf11 Cultural Village?

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An artist installation featuring artist collective Molecules in Motion undertaking a multi arts production process with a group of 24 children.

MIM have been working in a West Dunbartonshire primary to create four ‘how to films’ for teachers which will feature on our website and that of education Scotland as a teacher’s resources. These will include the activities that teacher can see demonstrated on the day; how to make print t-shirts, how to make a soundscape, how to create film and how to choreograph. The children will operate as a very visible ‘production’ team and will collect image and sound from around the venue as well as the stall. They have been working with the artists over a number of weeks within school.

In addition 3 flat screens will feature Creative Scotland resources including the joint Education Scotland Creativity Portal.

There may even be a surprise or two…

Drama, Religious and Moral Education

Midlothian young people win Best Film Award – ‘Anti-social behaviour: what’s the big deal?’

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Film award for Midlothian youth http://www.midlothian.gov.uk/news/article/199/film_award_for_midlothian_youth

Midlothian Youth Platform are celebrating their success after their documentary on anti-social behaviour won the prestigious ‘best film’ award at the Scottish Parliament’s Young People’s Day. Their documentary, entitled ‘Anti-social behaviour: what’s the big deal?’, was released earlier this year.

Dance, Languages and Literacy, Music, Social Studies

Kenyan Maasai Warriors visit a Highland primary school

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Blas schools programme creates Kenyan and Highland exchange of culture http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourcouncil/news/newsreleases/2011/September/2011-09-06-01.htm

Pupils at a Highland primary school will take part in a cultural exchange of music and dance this week (Friday 9 September) when a troupe of Kenyan Maasai Warriors visit Bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Inbhir Nis. Organised as part of the Blas schools 2011 programme, the visiting troupe called the Osiligi Maasai Warriors regularly visit the UK in an effort to raise funds for their families and for improvements to their home village.

The Blas education programme assists schools and teachers in achieving the experiences and outcomes required for the expressive arts and Gaelic areas of the Curriculum for Excellence by providing opportunities for pupils to deepen their understanding of culture in Scotland and the wider world.