Doing our Best – Page 4 – Imagining Aberdeen

Bramble Brae meets our learning team!

Today in Bramble Brae we met 4 new learning characters. Each character has different learning attributes which we may already possess or might like to work on.

‘I’ve learnt that different people have different characters and you can see which one you got and maybe take the advice written.’

Kate

Cameron felt he was most like Robert ‘because I love a challenge and am quite resilient.’

As well as identifying attributes we already have we highlighted some which we would like to work on.

‘I need to work on being independent so people don’t distract me.’

Marcin

Distraction was a key theme which came up in the majority of groups and the need to learn how to manage such distractions. Our groups came up with a number of suggestions of how we could best tackle this issue.

‘Ignore them or go and sit somewhere else [and] it’s good not to listen [to them].’

Rhiannon and Scott

Learning Selfies at Tullos

Children need learning to be fun and have important people around them to help them be good learners.

‘My mum, my nana, my friends and my community are important to me. I like to play with my friends. I like to go swimming. I like art. I learned to talk when I was a baby. I learned how to run when I was two. I want to learn more art, to cook and to bake cookies. I’d like to learn how to be a model or artist.’

Laura-Jane

‘In my life I have learned my when my cousin’s birthday is, how to sing and how to take care of a baby. I love playing football, going to after-school club, going on holiday and to my mum’s, reading and look after my brothers. I’d like to go outside to learn about nature and drawing. I’d like to learn how to do gymnastics.’

Skye

Learning Selfies at Manor Park

Children need people in their lives to help them learn. They need to be able to reflect on what they have learned and learn things that they like to do.

‘These people are important to me: my mum and my brothers, my teacher. Miss Lindi who is my basketball coach. My friends including Daniel, Matas, John, Caitlin L and Zoe. I’d like to learn different languages, art, parkour, backflips, to do a 360 on my bike and sing.’

Kristers

‘I have learned to draw, dance and do maths. I like to dance, play, watch TV, do gymnastics, draw, sing, go on my phone and annoy my brothers. My mum, dad, brothers and grandma are important to me. I would like to learn how to speak, how to skate and how to do crabs.’

Nicole

‘My mum, dad, John, Pat, two cousins, uncle, myself, auntie, teachers and PSAs are important to me. I have learned all the timetables. I like to play Xbox, got to the skatepark, go out with my friends, do art, break at school and to watch youtube. I would like to learn how to fly and how to do the spine at the skate park.’

Barty

Learning selfies at Riverbank

At Riverbank today we were finishing off our second week of learning selfies. We thought about why learning can be important and that it doesn’t always take place in school.

Charlotte said: ‘I have learnt to think forward to what your job will be in the future.’

We also looked at how learning starts from a very young age, as babies and children learn new skills such as crawling and talking. This made us think about the people who helped us learn these skills.

‘I have learnt to respect your family.’ Leona.

‘Treat others how you would want to be treated.’ Shelley.

Learning selfies at Bramble Brae

For the last two weeks we have been creating our learning selfies. We’ve been looking at who is important to our learning and how we can learn well.

‘My sister is important that to me because she helps me with my homework.’ Jamie

Nicole said: ‘It helped me to do stuff I’ve never done before and to think of stuff I’ve never thought of before.’

We also thought about what we would like to learn and Connon told us about how he would like to learn free running.

Introducing the Doing Our Best classes to Children’s Parliament

Children have rights throughout their life – they should be healthy, happy, safe and have human dignity.

Here are some ideas from the children:

‘Things that can give human dignity are: being yourself, getting hugs and kisses, getting presents, being included, sticking up for yourself, being unique, being happy, helping others, sharing, having a family, having friends, following your dreams, being a jokester, bravery.

Things that can take away human dignity are: someone dying, getting injured, having cancer, being arrested, being left out, getting bullied, fighting, feeling lonely, getting grounded, having your rights disrespected, being shouted at and not being listened to.

Myself as a Learner

We have done the ‘Myself as a Learner’ (MALs) questionnaire with each child we are working with so we can see how they view themselves as learners with the aim to build on this in the following weeks. It was also a great opportunity to get to know each child individually.

Here are some of the thoughts expressed while we were doing the questionnaires.

‘We have just done a questionnaire which will show me how we feel about ourselves and being in school. Surprisingly we have never done anything like this. Children’s Parliament wanted to know about us. We had to answer a big yes, a normal yes, not sure, no or a NO WAY!’ Some of the questions were easy to answer and some were really difficult, like ‘I’m not good at problem solving.’

Introducing Doing our Best!

Children’s Parliament is continuing to work with the four partner schools on a new programme called ‘Doing Our Best’. In Scotland it is every child’s right to an education, however there are many barriers, particular those associated with poverty, that get in the way of a child achieving their full potential. Doing Our Best is about developing learning self-perception and nurturing teacher/ pupil relationships.

Introducing P6 in Bramble Brae: Our teacher is Miss Mitchell. Our topic is ‘The Rainforest’ and this week we have been writing letters as if we were James on the Giant Peach!

Introducing P6 in Manor Park: Our teacher is Mr Murray. We like to ERIC – Everyone Reads In Class for 15minutes everyday. We have been learning about respect!

Introducing P5 in Riverbank: Our teacher is Miss Gardner. Our topic is space and today we wrote a diary entry as if we were astronauts up in space!

Introducing P5 in Tullos: Our teacher is Miss Charles. We like to learn art, maths and science. Today we had First Aid and learned the recovery position!