Category Archives: 1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment

Oh to be a Pilgrim

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The RME elective is definitely been interesting, and I can already say that I’ve learned a lot! As a TDT task, we were set to visit a ‘special’ place, and as a group, we decided to investigate a pilgrimage. We found one which was first ‘done’ by the Picts, who were alive around 1500 years ago. While we do not know any details of this journey, not even its purpose. The route was long and involved many stops:

  1. Dundee
  2. Coupar Angus
  3. Meigle
  4. Alyth
  5. Glamis
  6. Kirriemuir
  7. Glenprosen
  8. Kirriemuir (again)
  9. Forfar
  10. Brechin
  11. Edzell
  12. Fettercairn
  13. Glensaugh
  14. Auchenblae
  15. Stonehaven
  16. Letham
  17. Arbroath
  18. Carnoustie
  19. Dundee

We decided to go out and try it for ourselves. We changed our minds pretty quickly. It turns out that walking to all 19 of these places would be quite hard going, so we changed the plans a little and decided to try the route in the car.

The Route

The Route

Arriving at the car, all I could really think about was the fact that I had called shotgun on the front seat and that I wanted to keep it; that and the fact that we had to get snacks for the journey. Not the most profound of thoughts, but nonetheless, all that was really in my mind. The trip took us just over 6 hours in total. It consisted of driving from location to location and singing along to the playlist along the way.

Before we started...

Before we started…

By the end we were all tired, hungry and uncomfortable. I began to think about what the journey was like for the original Pictish pilgrims. I did a little research and discovered that the journey would have taken us 55 hours to walk! This wasn’t the end of it,we should remember that that’s without a rest! Also, we have roads and paths etc. which would now make the walk a lot easier, my estimation is that the journey would have taken us 4 or 5 days back when the pilgrims made the original journey.

I wondered if perhaps we missed the point from the beginning? I thought that we hadn’t really considered the point of a pilgrimage. I sat in the car with the others, and been to Stonehaven before; and we did not really talk about the journey very much while we were on it. I have done a little research on what exactly a pilgrimage is, and The Scots Magazine says:

“It’s been described as a journey or search for moral or spiritual significance, in many cases a journey to a location of some importance to the person making the pilgrimage.”

This made a lot of sense to me, as it explains that a pilgrimage is more than a journey, its about some kind of spiritual, or enlightening moment. Now our journey was only to simulate a special journey, and we were unlikely to have any kind of epiphany, but I did wonder if we should have taken it a little more seriously. Our main mistake was not researching the pilgrimage enough before we started. I think that we could have stopped throughout and thought about what the original pilgrims were thinking and feeling throughout their journey.

Having said this, I think that perhaps I did learn something important. While writing this post, I have started to think, and I have realised that  by the end of the day we all felt tired, hungry and uncomfortable; just like I thought the Picts probably did. Also, as a group we set aside the whole day to do this task, which was a significant time out of our reading week. We all felt a sense of accomplishment for lasting the whole time. I wonder at this point, was it really so different from the Picts? Naturally we had not spent the whole week doing this journey, but the feeling that we had upon completion felt very similar. I also think that I learned from some our mistakes, specifically that pilgrimages are not meant to be easy or taken on lightly, and that they have to be significant to be considered a meaningful experience.

From a teaching perspective, I think that I learned that when teaching about pilgrimages. I think that I would not take a class outside without fully learning about it beforehand. I would want to teach them about pilgrimages in general and then take them out to mimic one and consider their feelings. I would take them out on a walking mini pilgrimage and have them consider how it would make them feel to be walking like that for several days, how hard it would be and the physical and mental strength it would require to complete. I would then like to work with the pupils to discuss these feelings and think about what a pilgrimage would mean to them, and consider what their personal journey would be.

I think that I have learned to appreciate the concept of a pilgrimage a little more. I even began to consider what a pilgrimage would mean to me. I feel that a non-theist, a pilgrimage would be difficult for me, because it is hard to determine what would be a significant personal experience.  I think that for me it’s about going somewhere I have always wanted to go, and will have to work hard to get there. In recent years I have thought about New Zealand a lot. I would love to go there one day, and perhaps move there to work. I know that I’ll have to work really hard to get there, as it’ll require a lot of saving up, but also a lot of work to get my degree to be allowed to go over and work there. I believe that, should it happen, this will be my pilgrimage. Now that I understand what it means to me, I believe that I am in a better position to teach the concept to the children that I will work with.

We made it to the end!

We made it to the end!

On the Pilgrims’ Trail

Mosque Visit Reflection

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Beginning the RME module, it was suggested that we go as a group on a trip to the Dundee Mosque to the Open Doors day. I was very curious going in, as I had never been in a Mosque before. I would have been the first to admit to knowing only a little about Islam,  so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. What first struck me when we went in was how welcoming and pleasant all of the volunteers were. Of course I was not expecting anything different, but I felt that it was great how open they were, and how willing they were to share their own thoughts and experiences of their religion. I felt very welcome, and it was very interesting to see the religion! I feel more confident teaching Islam in a class, and I would definitely take a class there on a trip, as it was a great experience which I would like to share with any children I work with.

 

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Our group trying on scarves in the women’s prayer hall

 

To learn more about Islam, I watched the following video. It follows the lives of two young Muslims: Sara and Kaisan, and gives them the opportunity to explain and demonstrate what their religion means to them and their families. I felt that it was a great way of showing children what it mean to be a muslim in the UK. I believe this it is a great resource to use with children as it explains Islam in practice, and from the point of view of a child, which is very important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L45T4Q7dxV0

 

It is quite different to what some children may have seen in the media about the religion and its practices. A simple google search of “BBC News Islam” had the following top two results:

“Islamic State conflict – BBC News”

“Islamic State group: The full story – BBC News”

And other versions of this search all brought up similar results, pages and pages about extremism, conflict, and many other negative images. On a personal level I struggled with this, as I  saw no similarities at all to the real Muslims I met at the Mosque. The people were so pleasant, kind and open to us, that I found it uncomfortable to read the pages that my web search brought up. It seems wrong to me that these are portrayals of the religion that children can see. I considered the representations of Islam I have seen myself recently and came up with two very different ones which  portray it in very different ways.

One was a recent television drama called ‘Our Girl’, set in Kenya, where a young female army medic is kidnapped by an extremist group and then rescued by her friends. I do not feel I can say whether or not the storyline was realistic, however it did make me think about the way that Islam can be shown in a negative and even scary light. Alternatively, the second was ‘My Jihad’, a series of ‘shorts’ – four 15 minute episodes of a drama about Nazir and Fahmida, two young British muslims, who meet by chance and decide to marry. The story follows them as they attempt to  navigate their way though their relationship while maintaining a strong devotion to their religion. To me, this show was a far more realistic and fair representation of Islam. While I accept that the two shows are very different – being set within two very situations; in different countries; and of course with very different characters, I believe that they evoke different reactions in the audiences, and the portrayal of Islam in a negative light has contributed to there being a sense of unease around the religion, which my own trip to the Mosque simply proved was completely wrong.

 

Want to watch these two shows for yourself?

My Jihad: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01ssrp2/my-jihad-1-a-bus-a-burka

Our Girl: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0452t2n

It’s All Relative

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Having just had a lecture about families, I feel that at this point it would be worthwhile reflecting upon my own family experiences, and considering what that means to my teaching career.

To look at my immediate family, it is a clear example of a nuclear family. My parents were married 2 years before I was born and my sister three years later; I have all four grandparents around, all of whom were heavily involved in my life throughout my childhood… the list goes on.

My family seems very ‘normal’, and in the most practical sense it is. However growing up, other people often said that my family was different to theirs. My friends would come around and speak to my parents, seeming to like them more than they liked me! For a long time, I didn’t understand why people seemed to like being around my family so much, but now that I look at it from a more detached perspective, I do. My house was a happy house growing up, we laughed a lot and we were, and still are very close. My house was fun and relaxed and my friends felt comfortable being there and interactions with my family were always similarly lighthearted, and this was not always the feeling I had when visiting the homes of some of my friends.

Unusually, I also grew up for most of my childhood without a television. It seems like a much bigger deal than it really was, people – often adult friends of my parents – would visit and look around for one, ask us questions about how we ‘survived’ without one. People still ask me that now when it come up that I grew up without one, and it’s a tricky question to answer – we spoke to each other and enjoyed time together, such as meal times, perhaps slightly more often than other families seemed to do.

At 20 years old most of my friends seem to keep most things to themselves, but I am still very close to my family and tell them almost everything. It took me a long time to realise that this was unusual, and I was surprised to see how many others rely on friends before family for support. To me, the most important function of a family is to provide support to one and other, especially in times of difficulty. My family has proven on numerous occasions that they will do this, dropping everything to come to each others’ aid. I feel 100% secure in the knowledge that I could phone up any member of my family, including my grandparents with a problem, and they would solve it for me. It is a great feeling to have.

I think that there are two major points I would like to consider. Even now, despite my experiences with many different children, I struggle to understand households and backgrounds different to my own. I cannot get my head around parents who do things differently to the way that mine do or did. I understand that this is definitely a weakness for me, as it means that my thinking can often be very one-dimensional. Another point I noticed was the reactions of other people during discussions on the topic of family during the lecture. I noticed that not everyone was as open to discussing their families or backgrounds as I was, and this made me realise again, that not everybody has the same kind of family experiences that I have. In conclusion, I believe that I need to read a little on this topic, as I feel I have some knowledge gaps. I think that doing this will help me to gain a new level of empathy when discussing families and similar topics with people in the future, as I will have a better understanding of where other people are coming from in their beliefs, values and thought processes.

While looking up some ideas on this topic, I discovered an online quiz which made me further consider my own standpoint. The quiz was on the CBBC website and was entitled “Is my family normal?” it asked fairly simple questions about family, such as “How do you settle an argument?” and “What winds you up the most about your family?” and it came back as 6/6 normal. I re-took the quiz, putting in different answers, and got the same result – 6/6 normal. To me, this quiz was very significant, as it reminded that that any family is normal, even if it is completely different from my own. I think that this is a key point for me to remember, and always consider during any interaction with families throughout my career.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/quizzes/normal-family-quiz

http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/2GuchYm/Is-Your-Family-Normal

My Family

My Family

Fragile X – What is it and How do We Support Those who Have it?

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What is Fragile X?

In basic terms, Fragile X is a genetic condition which is the cause of most common inherited learning disabilities. Fragile X is also more common in men than in women, affecting 1 in 4000 and 1 in 6000 respectively.

Fragile X has many associated traits, and not everyone who has it will have all of those characteristics.

There are many potential effects associated with Fragile X, and each individual will only have some of them, in some cases almost none. The effects of fragile X appear to manifest differently in males and females, with females generally being less affected.

Some people with Fragile X will suffer from Epilepsy. This is around 15% of boys and 6-8% of girls.

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What are the effects of fragile X on the individual?

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  • Strengths of Fragile X
  • Good imitation skills
  • Good visual learning skills
  • Good long term memory
  • Sensitivity to others’ emotions
  • Likeable personalities
  • Good sense of humour

Different Effects by Gender

Males

  • More significant intellectual disability
  • Moderate to more severe learning disabilities
  • ADD
  • ADHD
  • Autism & Autistic Behaviours
  • Social Anxiety
  • Hand-Biting
  • Hand-Flapping
  • Poor Eye Contact
  • Sensory Disorders
  • Aggression

Females

  • milder intellectual disability
  • Moderate to mild learning disabilities, if at all
  • Emotional Health Issues
  • Mental Health Issues
  • Social Anxiety
  • General Anxiety

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How Can We Support These Individuals?

  1. One of the most obvious is to notice and encourage the use of some of the previously mentioned, or other, strengths.
  2. Give them plenty of warning before transitions, like 5 or 10 minute prompts before moving between  classrooms.
  3. From this, it is also a good idea to have a consistent routine so they know what to expect and when.
  4. Don’t try to force eye-contact, some individuals with Fragile X find this uncomfortable.
  5. Allow them frequent breaks to keep their attention focused on learning, this should include the opportunity to move around the room a little.
  6. Provide visual cues to assist them in following instructions and sequential activities.
  7. Some people with Fragile X are prone to hyper-arousal (high nervous system activation), so it is worth knowing what environmental factors cause it in an individual and to try to minimise this. Examples include sound, light, textures, taste, and smell.
  8. Try not to put too much pressure on them to perform, i.e. not giving a strict time limit for tasks, as it can be difficult for them to cope with.

For More Information

The Fragile X Society                                                                                                                                

NHS National Genetics and genomics Education Centre

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SQA? SQWhy?

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These pictures are of my 17 year old sister, who is in fifth year of secondary school, all taken this afternoon in the space of around 4 minutes. She sitting Higher History at 9am tomorrow morning. I sat this afternoon trying to help her to revise the materials she needs for tomorrow and I was struck by just how irrelevant most of the questions were. I accept that history is about things that have happened in the past, but I simply do not understand why the questions ask students to simply remember past events. One example of the 2015 exam is as follows:

How effective were the Liberal reforms of 1906 to 1914 in dealing with the problem of poverty?                                                                                                                   20 Marks

What is the point in this question? What does it really test?  I genuinely do not know the answer! I know that my qualification is primary teaching, but I believe that this is still pertinent, as it refers to where the children I will work with will end up at the end of their school education. I do not mean to say that we cannot have exams, but I believe that we do not use them in the right way. For example, the history exam  now consists of two papers, one which asks pupils to answer questions like the one above; the other asks them to answer source questions.

I believe that the source questions are a far better test of history. The exam asks pupils to use historical sources to draw conclusions from it. To me, this is better, because it is ‘using’ history, as opposed to knowing and regurgitating it; then forgetting it straight after sitting the exam.

I find it a little depressing, that we are told that primary education is all about learning experiences and opportunities, yet by the end of their education they are expected to sit formal examinations and remember facts they have learned at school. I feel that it goes against everything that we do in the primary years. This is why I am against the introduction of standardised testing in primary schools, I feel that it sits in direct contrast to the aims of the Curriculum for Excellence, for children to have experiences and to learn freely.

Not sure? See for yourself: http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/papers/papers/2015/H_History_all_2015.pdf

Bread and Butter Policy

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I came across this article in the news and I couldn’t help but post about it. Essentially, this English school attempted to bring in a policy whereby children who did not bring in their lunch money would not be given lunch that day and would be given bread and butter instead. While I admit this is better than simply not feeding them, it is still a horrific policy.

The problem I have is that it singles these children out. It may be that they had the money and simply forgot it, and that one day of not having a proper lunch would not do a huge amount of harm, though I can imagine it would be very embarrassing. The worry I have is for those children whose families struggle to pay for these meals.

At £2.10 per child per day, I can see that it adds up – £10.50 a week, and that’s just for one child! For these children, not being included with their peers could become a regular occurrence and other than being a humiliating experience, it could be worse for their health. Surely it is better for a child to have a substantial meal in the day than this proposed alternative, a meal with the proper nutrition and enough to fuel them for the rest of the day. I also think that it should be pointed out that for some children their school meal is the main or only source of healthy food and understanding of good choices, to remove this could be disastrous!

Luckily, I am not the only one who sees this in the same was as I do, after complaints from parents, the school had about-turned and agreed not to introduce this policy! However, I still find it worrying that they ever thought it was sensible, fair and inclusive in the first place. Essentially it would be punishing children for something usually out with their control!

If you would like to read it, then please see below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-35381990

The Meeting

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On Friday, my group and I were asked to role play a meeting, each of us received a piece of paper with our character and some extra information on it. We were role playing a meeting about a child called Jack who has various issues and we had to try to find a solution to. The characters were:

  • Jack’s Mum
  • Jack’s Dad
  • The Head Teacher
  • The Class Teacher
  • The Health Visitor
  • Jack’s Mum’s Social Worker

It was really interesting to watch the scene play out. I was Jack’s Dad and I knew that Jack was not receiving enough care from the mother, that the mother had lost her job and that this was for stealing.

Among all the other discussions I found myself focussing in my head that the mother was clearly not capable of looking after Jack and, as one of Jack’s issues was stealing at school, I thought this behaviour had been learned from the mother. In the end it turned out that the mother had not been stealing but had lost her job due to too many absences because she was not coping. This really got me thinking, and what I realised is that nobody in that group had all of the information. Because of this, there was not an easy way of making the necessary decisions.

If this was a real-life meeting, I would imagine that the mother would feel ganged-up on by the father and all of the various professionals. Our group decided that Jack should go to stay with his dad to allow his mum to get back on her feet, but I know that in reality this would not have been so easy a decision and the mother would not have let this happen so easily.

What I have learned from this activity is that there are always two sides to every story and we need to be able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Another observation I made was that Jack was not included in any decisions we made, and it seemed that none of the adults had even asked him his opinion. This shows that there is a real need for childrens’ voices to be heard by those who hold the power to make huge changes in childrens’ lives. I will keep this in mind when it comes to my own practice, and in the classroom while teaching.

The Mystery of the Named Person

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Nearly every time I log into Facebook nowadays, I am faced with yet another post about the Named Person Act. Somebody always has a problem with it, often people who are not children and do not have children themselves! The same thing happened last night, a good friend of mine bemoaning the legislation, and now I am going to put my own opinion across!

To be fair on some people, simply being told that your child has a ‘Named Person’ surely sets off alarm bells. I don’t have children myself, but I can completely understand how a parent may feel, it does sound like there is someone who is in charge of a child over the parent, so I can see why they may panic. I asked my mum recently and she said “No one has my child’s best interests at heart more than me”.  The problem comes when people stop there and don’t put any effort into finding out.

First, I’m going to try to explain what exactly the Named Person Act is and what it offers us. The role of the named person is to support children through the various trials and difficulties of their childhoods, be that moving school, bereavement, disabilities or something more serious. They are a point of contact for the children and families they work with. Before starting school, the named person is a child’s health visitor, and once they start school it will usually be the head teacher at their school, or possibly their guidance teacher.

The Scottish Government’s Website explains:

“What will a Named Person do?

The Named Person will be available to listen, advise and help a child or young person and their family, providing direct support or helping them to access other services.  They can help families address their concerns early and prevent them becoming more serious.

They can also respond to requests for assistance from other services in situations where this may support the child’s or young person’s wellbeing.”

Does it say that the named person will take over from parents? Does it say that they will have children removed from their families? Does it say that the named person is in charge of the child in any way?

The answer is definitely no to all of these questions.

Now, my own understanding of a ‘named person’ is that the named person is the individual whom anyone who is concerned about a child can go to to share their concern. This means that concerns are shared with the appointed professional, who then has a full and more rounded picture of the life of the child in question.

For example, say a child’s teacher notices something in a child’s behaviour changes,  then the school nurse notices something that causes them to have a concern, a social worker involved with the family is made aware of a change in the family’s circumstances, and finally then the child tells their scout leader something that raises their concern. If this information is not shared, the circumstances could become worse and cause something significantly more serious to happen. The Named Person’s role is to receive this information and build up a picture of the life of the child and inform the relevant professionals, deal with the problem themselves, or simply keep the information on record for future use.

To find out what people think of the legislation, I asked a few people I know for their opinions, here are some of their responses:

“Good idea for vulnerable children to give them neutral support if there are other professionals involved with the child.  Not necessary for all children”

There are countless services out their like social workers, Childline which do similar things & I think improving those services would be much more beneficial”. 

“I can’t see it being that effective compared to other services”

“a total waste of time”

“it undermines the parents and from what I can tell grants the person access to confidential information about the family and they have no say in the selection “

“I don’t see how this will actually help identify vulnerable individuals when everyone has a state guardian”

“affront to the freedoms of both parent & child”

“we shouldn’t operate on the presumption that all parents need monitoring”

“I guess they are a good thing but if people didn’t understand what level of involvement they would have then I could see why they’d be against them.”

This clearly shows that, while not everyone is in complete opposition to it, most people are not open to the legislation at all. I think that it is essential now to educate people, specifically parents in what this legislation is all about and what it means to them. The GIRFEC documentation refers to the role of the named person, saying:

“The Named Person also needs to help children and families feel confident they can raise concerns and talk about their worries to people who will listen and respect their point of view and work with them to sort things out”

This means that parents need to be informed that the named person is there for them and is not just a faceless professional who’s going to turn on them when things become difficult.

Ultimately, you and your families will probably never need to use your child’s entitlement to their named person, but who are you to deny that right to others, people who need the support or in extreme cases – intervention. To me it is essential the children have as many professionals looking out for them and their wellbeing as possible, and it is equally important that they understand this right and know that they are entitled to all the support they need. As I have already said, the ‘Named Person’ is not there to make parental decisions on behalf of children, but to co-ordinate people and resources, if the Scottish Government are guilty of anything when bringing in this legislation, it’s a poor choice of name for it!

 

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Young-People/gettingitright/named-person

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Young-People/gettingitright/named-person/top-ten

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00423979.pdf

Interagency Working, This is Just the Beginning…

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Since today was our third day back after the Christmas holidays, I thought it could do with a post about the beginning of the new module. The module is about Interagency or Multiagency working. This, as you can imagine, is highly important for teachers. In the most basic terms, it means professionals in the lives of the children: teachers, police, social work, healthcare workers, community learning officers… The list goes on but those are some of the main ones.

 

We have been split into groups of 7 or 8. We are to do group activities and go on community visits together. Having met and discussed this with the rest of my group, I am feeling really confident in our ability to work collaboratively with this group. This is a massive benefit, as we have been told that this is not always the case. Clearly, as professionals, we have to simply work with the other professionals in the childrens’ lives – obviously, we cannot allow children to be put in danger just because we do not particularly like their social worker. I believe that the same logic applies here, as we cannot just decide not to work with each other because we do not like each other. I think that it is essential to remember this throughout the module with the group and to reflect on any issues arising.

 

I think that the main goal for the module is to keep up with the lectures and tutor directed tasks. Of course it is always good to keep up with these things, but for this module there are 6 other people who will be relying on my to do my share of the work in order to be able to do do their own or to learn their own materials. I also would like to set the goal of building a relationship with the remainder if the group, as I have identified the need to be able to speak to each other openly and honestly, especially if any problems arise between us. Towards the end of the module, I will update this post to see if I have managed this.

http://amberleyeducationcumbria.co.uk/onewebmedia/Picture%2014.jpg

The End is Near…

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At the beginning of this module, I tested myself for maths anxiety and the results suggested that I was ‘fearful’ about maths but that I didn’t have maths anxiety. As this is the end of the module, I have tested myself again and came out as ‘on the fence’, the level below the one I was a before. This is great, because it means that my feelings around mathematics have changed. It means that I am more positive and have become comfortable doing mathematics after having completed this module. Now though, I have to wonder what that means and why my feelings have changed.

The lecturer, Richard Holme, has been great. He is very enthusiastic and I thought that he was really good at keeping us interested and engaged. I also thought that he made us feel that we could ask questions and email with questions or queries to ensure that we really understood the content. This is something I am specifically going to take away from the module as I think that a lot of the feelings children will have about mathematics will come from the teacher. When teaching maths as a teacher, I would like to make the children feel that they can come to me and ask questions. I also would like for them to feel engaged and included in my lessons.

Additionally, I think that the content of the workshops we did were great because they were especially engaging. My most favourite was the ‘Demand Planning and Logistics’ workshop, especially the game we did to learn it. I thought it was a great activity to engage all of us and in response, I decided to us it as an example in my assignment. I think that other activities, such as the Fibonacci in art workshop or the using boardgames, were the same – active, engaging, and fun. I hope to do this for myself when I’m teaching.

Of course, if I am being honest, I have not enjoyed absolutely everything in this module. I found my biggest weakness came in the ‘Maths in the Outdoors’ input. I knew I couldn’t read maps before the input, but to be honest I never really thought it was that important as I don’t like the outdoors and was almost certain that I was not about to take up hillwalking. That was before I took part in the workshop and when I realised that everyone around me seemed to know a lot more than I did, knew exactly how to complete the activities we were being asked to do. I hated that floundering feeling of just not being able to access these activities and I now realise that that is exactly how any children in my class will feel when activities are simply too obscure to them. This is something that I will always keep with me and try to use to help me be the best teacher I can be. I also realise that I need to look at my map reading skills, something my friend Kim has assured me that she will help me to do this very soon!