Category Archives: Curriculum

Royal Society Young Science Book Award

We’re delighted that Our Lady’s is again  involved in the judging for the Royal Society’s Young People’s Book Prize 2021.

The six books for this year are :

Picture of Young Science Book Award booksWe’re planning to involve as many of our 2nd year pupils as possible, judging the books through Art, Business Education and  of course, Science.  Art will review the design of the books, analysing the colours, fonts, illustrations, page layouts and the cover; Business Education (via ICT classes) will look at the whole idea of the book, who it would appeal to and who might choose to buy it; and Science classes will concentrate on how whether the text can be understood, how easily information can be found and any interesting ideas that jump out at them.

Along the way, we will be discussing the various tasks involved in the creation, production, marketing and selling of the books, encouraging pupils to identify potential careers of interest to them, not just in publishing, but also retailing and science.

The judging will take place later in the year and our final  collated results will be submitted to the Royal Society in January, providing our young people with a chance to share their thoughts and opinions.

Mouse and keyboard skills

Our S1 pupils are familiar with the laptops and tablets they use at primary school, all of which have trackpads or touchscreens. But the computers here at OLHS  all use mice, so our new arrivals need to lean to use the mouse pretty quickly. Over time, they’ll also improve their typing and will gain skills in a variety of computer software.

To help with the typing and mouse skills, we’ve put together a collection of games and activities that require improved accuracy in moving the mouse, drawing lines, and pointing and clicking.

The list has already been enthusiastically adopted by pupils in ICT and during lunchtimes in the Library and is helping pupils adapt to the technology.

Sunday Song

During lockdown, song songwriter Tanita Tikaram is posting an acoustic song every Sunday

in case you are forgetting what day of the week it is.

This Sunday, Tanita was joined by illustrator, James Mayhew, who interpreted the music while Tanita played. Have a watch (and listen).

 

Young Scot Mental Health support

Young Scot have released two projects to support young people’s health and wellbeing, especially mental health.

 #ClearYourHeadChallenge

The #ClearYourHeadChallenge, in partnership with Healthier Scotland, provides a different challenge every day for 31 days.

Take part in daily challenges across social media and check back here to see how others have taken them on! Available through Twitter and Instagram.

#AyeFeel

#AyeFeel is a database of information to look after your emotional wellbeing and answer questions about mental health, stress, grief, conflict, depression and healthy eating. There are ideas to help everyone cope with worries and anxiety, anger and conflict, sadness and grief with links to specialists and even a mental health jukebox, Feels FM.

 

Education Scotland newsletter

Education Scotland have produced a Parents and Carers newsletter called Scotland Learns.

Each week, we will publish ideas, hints and tips for parents,
including learning activities that your child can complete on
their own or that families can do together, a selection of these
are included in this newsletter. You won’t need lots of
resources and the tasks are designed to encourage children
and young people’s creativity. We appreciate that many
parents are also working from home, so lots of activities are
designed so that children can work independently once a
parent has gone over the activity with them.

The first issue includes:

  • Suggested learning activities for literacy and numeracy
  • Ideas to support wellbeing
  • Activities focused on staying safe online
  • Hints and tips for supporting your child to learn at home
  • Advice for engaging young people with autism in their learning

Parents and carers can sign up for further issues

https://education.gov.scot/media/mahdmrxm/parentcarernewsissue1.pdf?dm_i=LQE,6V1NG,3LDLFQ,RK3TI,1

Create a National Book Token design!

Another competition!

Design a book token and you could win a token for everyone in your class. Between Wednesday 6th May and Sunday 28th June 2020, National Book Tokens will pick one winner every week.

See the link below for details – also coming soon through an Art and Design class near you 🙂

https://www.nationalbooktokens.com/create-a-national-book-token-for-your-class

MyOn books and MyOn News

MyOn from Renaissance is a huge collection of easy reading books (over 7000) currently available for free.

Each book can be read aloud (and you can change the speed as you need), there’s a dictionary, a zoom function, and you can search or browse by category.

No need to sign up for anything, just hit Read.

https://readon.myon.co.uk/library/browse.html

There’s also MyOn News which provides daily articles, again in an easy to read way, but again there are added extras: you can change the news article into French or Spanish, which can also be read to you; you can change the font size; view where the story is taking pace on a map; watch connected videos and slideshows

https://readon.myon.co.uk/news/index.html

Free eBook: The Book of Hopes

The Book of Hopes: words and pictures to comfort, inspire and entertain children in Lockdown

This is a collection of stories, poems and illustrations from over 100 children’s authors and illustrators.

The Book of Hopes aims to comfort, inspire and encourage children during lockdown through delight, new ideas, ridiculous jokes and heroic tales. There are true accounts of cats and hares and plastic-devouring caterpillars; there are doodles and flowers; revolting poems and beautiful poems; and there are stories of space travel and new shoes and dragons.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/news/katherine-rundell-launches-the-book-of-hopes-a-free-childrens-book-by-over-110-authors-and-illustrators/

The book has been published online or free. To read it, please click on the link below

https://literacytrust.org.uk/family-zone/9-12/book-hopes/

Royal Society Science at Home

The Royal Society have put together a collection of materials suitable for Science at Home for Primary and Secondary pupils, including 16+.

There are links to their own resources and other scientific bodies, including videos and ideas for experiments, as well as a range of STEM activities (Science, Technical, Engineering and Maths).

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/education-skills/teacher-resources-and-opportunities/science-at-home/