Doing our Best – Page 2 – Imagining Aberdeen

Making learning selfies

‘We have drawn ourselves in the middle of our learning selfie. Around the sides we wrote who is important to us, what we like to do, we we have learned in our lives and what we would like to learn.’

‘My mum is important to me because she takes care of me and cares for me. My mum helps me to learn. If I really need help she is always there for me.’

Manisha

‘I like to watch Youtube, Starwars and play Monopoly. I play this with my mum and dad. On Youtube I watch gaming videos. Last time when I was watching Minecraft I learned about outer space.’

Vakaris

‘I have learned how to read already. Reading is fun and you need to be able to read to help you work and do everything in school.’

Teagan S

‘I’d like to learn French because I haven’t properly learned it yet. It would be good to have just incase I go to France. I’d also like to learn how to swim because it is fun. I feel happy in the water. I’d like to learn before I turn 10.’

Annie

Finishing off: Praise Poems and Myself as a Learner

As this was our last week with P5b we finished on a high by reading out our praise poems to each other and revisiting Myself as a Learner (MALs).

Tyler discovered he ‘was happy the class knew what he was kind of like’ and Charlotte went from being nervous to happy and thought that the poem was true about her.

Finally, we redid the MALs to see if we felt any different about ourselves as learners than we did before we started the project.

‘I really, really, really liked it because it was fun and we got to do art and learn what does help us learn and what doesn’t. I learnt that sometimes other things don’t help other people. Sometimes I distract other people.’

Eli, Riverbank P5b

‘Yes. I helped someone today because she was upset and let her play with us.’

Elisha, Riverbank P5b

Praise Poems and Myself as a Learner Take 2

In our final week at Bramble Brae we presented the children with the Praise Poems which they helped to create and revisited Myself as a Learner (MALs).

The Praise Poems were extremely popular amongst the kids with one pupil saying:

‘It was really good because it said everything about me as a learner and some things I have to improve in my learning.’

Adam, Bramble Brae P6

Some of the kids felt a bit nervous before their poem was read out but felt encouraged afterwards.

Because we have reached the end of our project, we redid the MALs to see if any of the children felt that their learning had changed since the start of the project.

‘I have learned you can be a very good imagining learner.’

Katie, Bramble Brae P6

‘I am more helpful now I know about Children’s Parliament so I can help people with their learning. Learning Selfies were good because you know what you achieved and what you are trying to do.’

Marcin, Bramble Brae P6

Praise Poems at Tullos

As we are nearing the end of the project we created Praise Poems for each of the children as a huge THANK YOU for all their effort and hard work and also to serve as a reminder of what they have learnt about themselves not only as a person, but as a learner too.

The poems were presented to each child and read out in front of the class before the children decorated their own poem. Here is Teu’s poem, beautifully decorated:

This was a great opportunity to celebrate everyone’s achievements and reflect back on how far we had come as individuals and as a class.

‘My friend came up with the ideas for my poem and I loved it as it was so positive. It described me as funny and that I am good at making people laugh.’

Jamie

Revisiting Myself as a Learner Scale

Bob Burden, who created Myself as a Learner Scale (MALS) said; ‘Ability alone is not enough: how we think about ourselves matters too.’ Children from Manor Park revisit MALS questionnaire to find out if their perception of themselves has changed.

‘I answered questions about me as a learner. It was more difficult than when we did it the first time [at the start of our doing our best work, investigating learning] because before when we did it I didn’t think about the questions but now I do. I know how I learn and what helps me learn.

One of the statements was ‘I know the meaning of lots words.’ I answered ‘No’ because I don’t but I usually check the dictionary. Like Ruby, I’m being resourceful.’

Freddie

‘I answered ‘yes’ to ‘when I get stuck with my work I can usually work it out’. Right now we are going our reading labs and I’m halfway through. Sometimes I don’t know the words but I try and figure it out. Other times I have to move one.’

Tyler

Healthy, Happy, Safe and Doing our Best

During this learning investigation children have been finding out what helps everyone do their best at school. This task emphasises the importance of environment and also relationships in creating confident learners.

‘In our healthy, happy and safe school friends would be the most important thing because without them you wouldn’t want to learn as school would be boring, like a prison. We want to change our school so there are no arguments or bullying. People would all want to play with one another. We would also have way more P.E. – including climbing and Parkour. It is fun but also healthy’.

Sara, Barty and Kaitlyn

Creating Praise Poems at Riverbank

Today at Riverbank we were gathering important information about each member of the class so that at the end of the project we can present each child with their very own Praise Poem! Praise Poems were used by ancient cultures to celebrate great and important people. The idea behind these is to say a big ‘THANK YOU’ to all the children for all their input, ideas and hard work over the last few months and to act as a reminder to them of what they have learnt about themselves, especially as a learner.

pp4

We had to think about how nature can reflect our personality. Leon felt he was like a rainbow of jelly beans, happy, colourful and sweet! Sean decided that he was like a monkey because he liked climbing and could be a bit mischievous at times. Quite a few of us felt like we were like the sea but Bartek added more description by saying he was like the waves.

tm-rb4

We also had to think back to when we did our treasure maps and remind ourselves of some of the learning treasures we felt we were good at. Encouragingly, many of the class said that they would keep going even if it was hard, therefore showing that they were more resilient than they may have been at the start. Imagination was another key one, as was listening to and understanding others showing that as a class they are sensitive to others and good at showing empathy.

Now that I have collected all the information I will make them into poems which we can read out to each other as a class.

The beginnings of our Praise Poems

As we are nearing the end of the project we, as facilitators, wanted to give something back to the children for all their input and hard work over the last few months. So we are using the concept of ‘Praise Poems’ which are used in many different cultures to express each learners positive characteristics and learning attributes.

Phase 1 of creating our Praise Poems meant we had to do a bit of investigating to find out what our strengths were and what we were like as a learner.

This was a lot of fun as we had to think of different ways to describe ourselves. Kate felt she was ‘as positive as Miss Mitchell’ and Kyleena discovered she was ‘very good at the Treasure maps we did and felt she was particularly good at keeping going and getting on well with others’.

Cameron found out that he is really good at giving advice and people often come to him for help, and Broghan likened herself to snowflakes as they danced around making pretty patterns and colours!

For Phase 2 we will create poems out of the information gathered as a group and create individual Praise Poems for each child which will then be gifted to them at the end of the project.

Exploring our learning environment

This week at Children’s Parliament we have been looking at how our environment effects our learning. We focused on four main areas which were: what makes a healthy school, what makes a happy school, what makes a safe school, and how we can do our best.

Together, in small groups we made mind maps of all the different factors we could could think of and the discussed it as part of a wider group. Here are some of our findings:

One thing we thought of for healthy was the importance of exercise. We had an opportunity to participate in the mile run challenge today and some of us even managed to score some house points! We also thought that having a healthy breakfast and snack could help by giving us energy and get our brains working.

Some things which made us happy included: Fridays, using the computers, play time, spending time with friends and helping each other.

Thinking of things which kept us safe was a bit harder but we decided that the school was secure with the self locking doors, the receptionists who didn’t allow strangers in and having PSAs in the playgroup during break. We also thought about the importance of safety outside of school such as looking both ways before crossing the road.

Finally, we looked at how we could do our best in school. Things such as working hard, listening to the teacher and helping each other were all key points. Other important ideas included: respecting others, not being violent towards anyone and following the rules.

Why don’t you have a think and see if you can come up with some more as we would love to have your input!

What helps us get a good education?

Today at P5b in Riverbank we were exploring what factors can help our learning. The four key themes were: healthy, happy, safe, and doing our best. In small groups we collected ideas for each theme and then discussed what we’d come up with in a larger group setting.

Jennifer felt fruit and vegetables were important to keep us healthy and school helped us by giving us healthy lunches. Exercise, such as P.E helped to keep us fit and healthy as did fresh air.

Story time, playing the piano and Rainbow time all featured highly in things which made us happy in school. Rhiannan particularly enjoyed: ‘making new friends and learning new stuff.’

Deniss felt that the walls around the school keep us safe to stop strangers coming in and fire alarms were good to help us if there was a fire.

Finally, when we were looking at doing our best we thought that listening to our teachers helped us to learn and sometimes it could be helpful to look at thing on the walls or ask someone else for help.