Riverbank Primary – Page 2 – Imagining Aberdeen

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.’

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

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.

Learning characters at Riverbank

We were looking at different types of learning today at Riverbank and learned 4 new ways of learning. Each learning style is attached to a character. We have Robert who is resilient. Rebecca who is reflective. Ryan who likes relationships and Ruby who is resourceful. We asked each of the children to choose a character who they could relate to and spoke about what we had in common with each of the characters as well as looking at our differences. We also had a think about which characteristics we would like to work on.

Sean identified with Ryan because: ‘he’s good at encouraging people!’

Keela felt she was most like Ryan because: ‘I like having relationships with my friends. I think it helps me learn because Tyler showed me something I was good at and I never knew I was good at it until I tried it.’

Nico wanted to become more like Ryan as he felt this would make him a better learner: ‘I want to get better at working with people as it’s hard to work on my own.’

Samantha wanted ‘to be more like Robert so I can challenge myself.’

Dennis even thought of a way to improve: ‘I want to get better at handwriting by doing more practice.’

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.

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!

Imagineers meet with Aberdeen Head Teachers

On Thursday the 15th of September we had a team building morning with the Imagineers. The idea behind this was to get the children working together and to practice listening to each other. We also had to work together to prepare for our meeting with 80 of the Head Teachers from across Aberdeen. When we met with the Head Teachers, Demi, Gabrielle, Shannon, Dylan and Abdullah introduced the film and explained that we were going to be working with them on an activity focusing on how they as Head Teachers can make schools a joyful and happy place.

‘First in the day we played some fun games like drawing and throwing the ball to each other. After that we got the speeches and we made pyramids of things that we think are important. We made one for the head teacher’s too. I had Miss Murray, Mr Hendry and Mrs Reid from my school.’

Imagineer Demi

‘We played a game where you have to throw a ball to each other and we had to put the stick onthe floor. After this game we talked about what we would be doing for the meeting. After lunch we had the meeting with the head teachers. It was scary!!’

Imagineer Malachy

Award won by Imagineers

Children from the four schools participating in Imagining Aberdeen attended the Aberdeen City Council’s Children and Young Persons Award Ceremony on the 12th of October. On behalf of all the Imagineers involved in the project; Shannon, Dylan, Sean-Paul and Ralfs each represented their school at the ceremony. The Imagineers came away with the award for the Children and Young People’s Champions.