As we returned to school after Easter, I have reflected on my enquiry question: In what way does diversifying the curriculum affect our community’s tolerance and acceptance of one another?

This project is not going to be completed by the end of this school year and will be a work in progress, continuing into the next school session. The classes with whom I have direct contact with are enjoying the projects they are part of and are fully engaged in their learning during our time together.

As a whole school community, we celebrate and explore Ramadan and our Muslim children have confidently spoken about their faith and some of their cultural celebrations. I have suggested appropriate and diverse resources for teachers and given advice for any colleague who feels uneducated on this festival. I am also supported older learners and their families to celebrate and observe Ramadan within our school communities. The non Muslim children have been respectful and shown interest in the subject and this has fostered a welcoming ethos. There has also been some good and thoughtful questions about Ramadan, some of which I have not been able to answer. This has led to the learning been taking off track from what I had planned and the questions explored and investigated. This has been lovely to see and worthwhile!

As we bring our school year to a close and look forward to a good, and more settled school year (fingers crossed) I would hope to be able to restart our pupil voice group – Language Ambassadors. These pupils will assist me to promote language and cultural understanding in our schools. The group is made up of pupils from across the upper school and a mix of bilingual, monolingual and different ethnic backgrounds.

As the year has progressed, the teaching has shown how creative and adaptive we can be. The second period of home learning was better for families and learners as we have had time to reflect and enhance the provision. Our school was able to provide iPad and internet for our most deprived families and this meant we were able to continue the learning. Although there has been gaps in most children’s learning, in other areas the children have been able to shine.

My project was able to adapt the home learning and involve families. Companies, such as Twinkl, gave access to family learning platforms for free and the digital platforms available to teachers to were able to allow me to share a huge range of media and give instant feedback to the learners at home.

The families enjoyed sharing their culture and learning together so I have continued this and set weekly family learning. it is stressed that this is not homework or compulsory, but something to share and to complete at the most suitable time. Families can also choose to opt in and put as they see fit. This have been going well and the feedback has been positive.

Once schools reopened to P1-3 pupils after the Christmas lockdown, I was able to restart and review my enquiry project.

I returned to the classroom in late February and began a global storyline with 2 P1s and used connecting classrooms resources for 2 other infant classes. The P1 classes are learning about life in a farming community and issues such as Fairtrade and land grabbing. The 2 other infant classes picked a global goal they were interested in, and I have been using and modifying resources from British Council Connecting Classrooms website, to make these age appropriate for the learners.

Throughout lockdown and whilst the upper primary school children remained learning at home, we continued to celebrate our different cultures and community. We had a virtual Chinese New Year celebration, celebrated International Women’s Day, discussed our traditions for Shrove Tuesday and recognised the many different languages spoken within our school community on Mother Tongue Day.

Our p5 classes are part of a Connecting Classrooms cluster and our school has been paired with a school in Bethlehem. With the class teachers in both schools, myself and my Palestinian counterpart met virtually to discuss a community project. Our learners are also taking part in a penpal exchange and with have a buddy in each country. We are at the very beginning of this journey and are excited to see where it will go.

FOCUS: Using International Education and global citizen citizenship as stimulus, I hope to improve our communities tolerance and acceptance, as well as preparing pupils for positive destinations in their future.

QUESTION: In what way does diversifying the curriculum affect our community’s tolerance and acceptance of one another?

The Global Storyline experience is extremely powerful for learners.  Pupils have described how their confidence has grown, how they feel more able to debate and discuss issues, and how they feel that the issues explored are hugely relevant and important to them.

Head teachers and local authorities are now using experienced Global Storyline teachers to achieve wider improvement of the school curriculum.  Head teachers explained that Global Storylines had also provided an opportunity for the school staff in general to learn as global citizens.

Teachers from the Global Storylines project have described how their children had shared their learning with school peers, with children at other schools in the learning community and with parents and other family members.

Dr Tanya Wisely is now working on a new theme for research, in light of the GTCS  Professional Update scheme, and the standards for Career-Long Professional Learning.  Values and social justice are at the heart of the vision for Scottish Education in the future.  What does this mean to teachers in their everyday practice?

In our new normal there are two issues that stand out to me. They both involve teaching in our new normal ad in one way or other  address the effect COVID has had on our world and communities as a whole. Could I possibly combine these ideas to explore my two itches in one big ‘scratch’?

1: Global Citizenship and LfS

A passion of mine is Learning for Sustainability and helping our learners to understand and be ready for the new world they will inherit. Some of these real world issues can be complex and overwhelming for adults so how do we make these important issues relevant and meaningful to our little people?

In partnership with WOSDEC, I have been trained in delivering Global Storylines, which combine traditional interdisciplinary methods of Storyline, with values-based research, process drama and deep reflection, to address some of these.  Learners “become” characters within a community affected by a particular global issue.  How will using this method of teaching affect the attitudes of staff, pupils and families?

2: Parental engagement, family learning and learning at home

More than ever, we know that parental engagement leads to better outcomes for our learners. This is why parental engagement, family learning and learning at home is a key theme within our schools. Within my own establishment, we used this as a vehicle for change,  with a particular focus on closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

Parental involvement means “being available to speak with parents at the school gates” However, in this new normal the ‘school gates’ have changed. My itch is how do we make ourselves as welcoming, nurturing and inclusion with our families and communities while we must stay physically apart.

In exploring these two itches, I wonder, could I combine them and involve parents in home and family learning through the use of Storyline methodology?

Teacher leadership is many things. Its is reflecting on your influence and looking at ways to better your skills and attributes as a teacher. This does not always mean a management position. Teacher leadership is something we all owe. I think there can be an attitude that leading something in schools means you aspire to management, but this is not always the case. The things I lead are subjects and areas I am passionate about and enjoy sharing with pupils, staff and families.

My enthusiasm and expertise in International Education and Global Citizenship is an area I have been able to lead within my school. This has lead to many opportunities such as a seconded post to Glasgow’s International Education Service and working with the British Council. In these positions, I have had many leadership opportunities from delivering training, writing case studies and modelling good practice, for teachers in Scotland and n European.

As part of my PRD discussions with my SMT, it was suggested that I also apply for Glasgow aspiring middle leaders course. I was success in gaining a place. The TLP and Aspiring Middle Leader courses have very similar outcomes and ask that we keep a reflective diary. In an effort to keep my workload manageable, I will combine my reflective journal and my leadership blog for the duration of both courses.

As part of the Glasgow run course, we have been asked to read and reflect upon leadership and given reading from two texts – Effective School Leaders by John MacBeath and Leadership Matters 3.0 by Andy Buck. The chapter in Andy Buck’s book about influencing others particularly resonated with me. This is leadership is me. Influencing others in a positive way to get the best for our learners.

Hello!

I am Claire Mackay and I am an EAL Teacher in St Rose of Lima, Glasgow. I started my leadership and enquiry journey last year but once the pademdic hit in March and I became a full time working from home single mum, I chose to hit pause on my journey.

I am excited to be back and to see what this year of uncertainty will bring. I enjoyed learning from my colleagues in the last round and can’t wait to virtually meet you all.

Recently life has been a bit hectic, personally and professionally, but the good news is I’m here and ready to make progress with my enquiry.

After the recall day, I did spend time second guessing myself and my enquiry focus. However, after some good reflective discussions with a colleague, I have decided to stick with my original theme, as its something close to my heart. I find things are always more enjoyable and manageable when your doing something you care about.

Part of the reason I have been delayed in writing my blog posts is I have recently been seconded to Glasgow’s International Education Service as a Leader of Learning. I am loving new role and the opportunities it presents. It has also helped me remember my ‘why’ – why I love teaching; helping learners to be the best they can and giving them opportunities to explore their potential. It has helped to remind me how celebrating diversity in our classes and school communities is vitally important for all our learners, not just my bilingual pupils.

In terms of my enquiry, I am currently preparing a questionnaire for staff to gather their views of bilingual learners and more important where they feel the CPD and gaps in their teaching practice are. From this information I hope to be able to offer schools bespoke training and guidance to help enhance their provision for our bilingual learners.

As for the pupils, I feel its impotent to gather their views too. I have prepared a diamond nine activity for classes to use. They will be asked ‘What makes a good school?’. Statements involving bilingual learners, using home language and international education will be included along with other general statements. Classes that have higher percentage of EAL leaners will be sampled, as well as those with few EAL, and therefore less exposure to bilingual learners and their impact will also repeat the task. I will also ask my groups of EAL learners to discuss the task and video these interactions. Younger pupils will be asked the question ‘What makes a good school?’ and we will make a word cloud with their answers. These will serve as my base line assessments. After all the data is collected, I will be able to see what the learners think and make an action plan to continue what works well and what gaps we ned to address as a school.

Each year, we participate in a whole school international project, using eTwinning. This year’s stimulus is World Picnic Day. We are working with schools in Italy, Spain and Tanzania. After this international work, which our bilingual pupils help to organise and play a central role, I will repeat the above activities with the pupils and compare the results. I hope that after the exposure to other cultures and languages, the pupils will recognise the advantages of celebrating diversity in their classes.

Wish me luck!