Thursday dawned like any other day however…..something strange was afoot in our school.

As you will be aware staff were all in school on Wednesday for an In-Service day. This was a great learning opportunity for us as a staff and was a most productive day. Our main focus was assessment and moderation; we met together to discuss our planning formats, our evaluation process and our assessment techniques.

Together we discussed a way forward to ensure our learning is in line with the core principals of A Curriculum for Excellence. Also on this day we took forward our ‘Swap-Shop’ day. This was a discussion, which took place some time ago, when in conversation with staff we talked about the professional and personal benefits of everyone having a different class/stage for a day.  I put this idea forward to our Parent Council who could also see the benefits of such a day.

We opted to host our Swap-Shop day on Thursday of this week. Each class teacher planned for their own class but overtook the day-to-day teaching within a different class. It was a most enjoyable learning curve for all staff and indeed was greatly enjoyed by our children. On Monday of this coming week, at our weekly assembly, Pupil of the Week and Good Work Wall Awards will be those as selected by the teacher the children had on Thursday – an additional incentive for children to impress an alternative teacher.

Interestingly, I have received some communication from other head teachers who have heard of our Swap-Shop day and have indicated an interest in taking this forward in their own school.

Friday normal services were resumed. Friday football continues to be a most successful joint venture for our two establishments – a big thanks to ‘Willie’ the football man who overtakes all of the work – and all on a voluntary basis, fantastic.

Our littlest people also enjoyed a new face on Thursday, they too enjoyed having a different person with whom to enjoy their learning.

Here’s Mrs. Murphy’s Blog…

Only two days in nursery this week but as always the two days were jammed packed full of activities.

To celebrate St Valentine’s day the children got the opportunity to make cards for their loved ones, they decorated them with a variety of materials and traced heart shapes on them. Each child had a special message for the inside of their card. In the art area they made heart shapes from salt dough and decorated them. Some of these can be seen displayed in the art area. They made and explored heart shaped ice and made heart shaped biscuits in the snack area which were delicious and went down a treat on Friday. They also had the opportunity to go on a hunt for red hearts which were hidden throughout the whole nursery building. This is always an enjoyable activity that the children love to take part in. In the maths area they were concentrating on matching number to quantity using all things red and heart shaped.

On Thursday we were joined by Mrs. McCoy in the teacher swap shop programme. Mrs. McCoy spent the whole day in nursery and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience!

Normal service will resume next week!

As always, thanks for reading and please feel free to comment.

Mrs. Shields