Imagining Aberdeen – Page 3 – Imagining Aberdeen

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.

Learning treasures at Riverbank

For the last week at Riverbank we have been hunting for learning treasures. Each treasure describes a different aspect of learning and we had to figure out if we felt it was like us as a learner or if it was not like us as a learner. We plotted these on treasure maps so we could see clearly what we felt about each treasure.

Rhiannan found that she was very good at ‘keeping going and getting on well with others.’

Whereas Samantha enjoys ‘imagining and listening to others and understanding how the feel.’

We also challenged ourselves to think of one learning treasure we would like to use more in our learning and Franco felt that he would like to be able to ‘manage distractions better.’

Healthy Happy Safe

We at Children’s Parliament believe that every child has a right to an education in a setting where they are healthy, happy and safe and have an opportunity to do their best. In small groups we had a look at each of these factors individually and then discussed our answers as a class.

Some of the ideas we came up with to make our school a healthier place included: no litter, clean and safe spaces to play outdoors, healthy school meals and fruit from the tuck shop. We also felt that exercise was very important and realised that there were many different ways to do this.

Things which made us happy included: friends, sumdog, people giving respect, teachers and PSAs, our families, break time and when ‘Miss Murray gives P6 a good comment’.

Things which made us feel safe included: Teachers and PSAs, lollipop man/woman, our families, the new fence and the safe doors, learning about first aid and Miss Gray making sure no strangers come in.

Finally, we looked at how we could do our best in school. Some of the ideas we came up with included: to keep going and not give up, not allow ourselves to get distracted, having a nice environment to work in and using some of the things we’ve have learnt in Children’s Parliament.

Looking for a new year’s resolution for 2017?

These 30 ideas for adults come from the children who are Imagining Aberdeen…. Go on! Pick one!

My new year’s resolution is that I will:

Spend less time on my phone
Give up smoking
Drink less alcohol
Spend more time having fun with my kids
Be a good role model for children
Realise children make mistakes and so I won’t get angry with them
Give children more respect
Stop swearing in front of children
Take more interest in my children’s work
Always treat people the same
Not be sad, be happy
Always smile
Get on better with my family
Help my children to learn to stay safe
Shout less
Give help to people when they need it badly
Give more love to my kids
Do what I can to stop racism
Do what I can to stop bullying
Do what I can to stop killing and bombing
Not leave my children in the house
Get on better with my children’s grandparents
Won’t lie to my kids (surprises are okay)
Stop drinking in front of my children
Help my children with everything
Eat healthier
Do more exercise
Go to the gym
Stop taking drugs
Do stuff with my children that they want to do

Plotting learning treasures

The treasure chest is full of ideas about how children learn. The treasures are written on individual scrolls and put in a treasure box. Every child is given a treasure map and they have to plot the learning treasures depending on how much they are like them as a learner.

‘The learning treasure I would like to use more in my learning is I can manage distractions because I get distracted so easily from noise. I could manage distractions by wearing ear defenders. I would then stop going in tantrums as I would be able to get on with my work.’

Freya

‘The learning treasure I would like to use more in my learning is learning with others. I don’t use this because I don’t get on with other folk and shout at them. If we did work well together, we could help each other with the times tables, like if they are bad at the two times table and I am bad at the six times table, then we can help each other.

Brooke

‘I notice things – if I have made a mistake I go back and look at it and see it. The learning treasure I am going to use is watch and learn. I don’t do this a lot as I get worried people think I am copying them and they would tell the teacher. I don’t want to get into trouble.’

Katrina

‘I’d like to use the learning treasure listen and understand how people feel. This could be done by not shouting out anymore or speaking to them in a quiet place. Instead of shouting out you could go outside the class and calm down. I find it hard not to shout out – you want to have your answer out there and listened to.’

Brooklyn

Merry Christmas from the Imagineers

‘We had Christmas lunch with every Imagineer. We made a 2017 because it is the new year and we have been working with the Children’s Parliament for a year. One group covered the 2, one the 0 and so on. We covered it in paper and coloured it in with sharpies. We put the 2017 on the ground and took a photo for a card and the blog. We came up with ideas for new year resolutions for adults – things they should get rid of and do. I wrote ‘spend more time with your kids’. We have chicken, pizza and sausage rolls for Christmas lunch. It was great because it was with all my friends and good food.

I feel happy that I have changed Aberdeen a bit by getting more people to look at Children’s Rights.’

Aidan

‘We wrote how we felt and what we were doing on the back of photographs of some of the things we have done as Imagineers. Colin read out scrolls with poems about all the Imagineers – what we are like and how good we are.’

Katie

What gets in the way of learning

The learnometer are measurers of what helps children to learn and what gets in the way of learning. Children at Tullos have been making their own learnometers. Here are some of their thoughts:

‘Noise can get in the way of learning. People chatting over or interrupting the teacher.’ ‘I find writing gets in the way of learning because it is very hard.’ ‘Everyday when I try and do my homework in the house I can’t hear because people are screaming at each other.’ ‘I do like reading my book in golden time but other books at school are too easy and boring and this gets in the way of me learning.’

‘Music helps me learn because it helps me concentrate – it calms me down.’ ‘My mum helps me to learn – she helps me with homework.’ ‘The pictures on the wall are pretty helpful as I can use them and copy them.’ ‘Assembly helps me as people tell you about stuff and I learn.’ ‘The teacher, as she helps me to spell.’

Niamh, Chloe, Jay, Victoria, Dean and Kaitlyn

Learnometers at Riverbank

Today we created our learnometers at Riverbank. These are a simple tool to help us look at what helps us learn and what makes learning difficult.

We had a lot of discussion about how we can get distracted easily, and we identified a few different distractions such as having something to play with or other people.

‘I get easily distracted by my brother’

Jennifer

We also talked about the importance of listening to teachers, family and each other when we are trying to learn.

What helps us learn

Children think about what helps them to learn and what gets in the way of of their learning by creating learn-ometers.

‘PSAs help you learn because they are always kind and they understand you and will listen to you. I’m Polish so my sister helps me with my homework as my mum and dad don’t understand. Maths games like Unlucky 13 help me remember more and more things.’

Julia

‘Things that get in the way of me learning are chatting to people when you have to work, when the teachers is busy and my phone because I don’t go off it and then I am very tired.’

Sara

‘When my teacher says ‘good work’ it helps me learn. I also like the spelling and maths sheets on the wall in our classroom and using YouTube.’

John

‘Running out of time, writing being hard and being distracted by people talking and shouting gets in the way of me learning. My mum, dad and teacher give me tips to help me learn. It is good when you get to work outside the room at school.’

Conal

‘When people get bullied it gets in the way of learning because you are angry and you can’t concentrate on your work. Sometimes I get sad because my dad works offshore and I this gets in the way of me doing my best. Doing Reading Wise with my PSA and doing challenges with my brothers helps me learn. I also like when my friends help me with the answers.’

Matas

Learning: helps and hindrances

This week we we creating learnometers which allowed us to think about what helps us with our learning and what can get in the way. To do this we made a ‘learnometer’ which is an adjustable scale allowing us to think about these helps and hindrances and where we are on the scale.

Scott found specific tools helped him to learn: ‘When I am doing maths, rounding helps me do my work fast.’

One thing we felt was really unhelpful was bullying.

‘Bullying makes your work difficult in class if their nagging at you and it’s stuck in your head and you can’t concentrate.’

Ashleigh