I’ve recently been dipping into a new(ish) website called Staffrm where teachers share their thoughts and experiences. There are some really inspirational posts and discussion in the comments and it comes across as a very supportive environment to air ideas and shape them into a reality. I first got on to the site via David Rogers whose blogging I have followed for a number of years and Jo Debens whose post on leadership I’ve linked to here
On Friday 5th June I attended a conference examining community resilience and how it is incorporated in to the curriculum. This area has been given a higher profile following the release of the Learning for Sustainability documentation that was the basis for the Learning Directorate’s visit to Inveralmond in April this year. Community resilience is examining ways in which schools encourage learners to take a more active role within their communities and how they could aid the response after events such as flooding, power cuts or rapid spread of disease – all of which are possible across large swathes of Scotland in the coming years.
The conference was a mix of presentations given by practitioners who have been early adopters of this new context for learning and professionals from various bodies who wish to promote community resilience (such as RNLI, Keep Scotland Beautiful, Save the Children and SEPA) and round table discussion in groups (taken from both educational and wider settings). The main thrust of these conversations was to examine what currently goes in schools which could be classified as community resilience and how do outside agencies best engage with schools to put across the benefits and assistance that they can provide to aid the implementation of this.
From these discussions, it became clear that the idea of community resilience would sit very well in a number of places within the secondary curriculum. Within traditional subject areas there is scope for examining previous responses to events such as flooding and the methods employed to reduce the impact within Geography and the Sciences. The organisers, primarily Eilidh Soussi from Education Scotland who has been seconded to the role of developing community resilience across Scotland, have provided a range of ideas with associated links to curricular areas for those interested.
Where community resilience as a context for learning may be more appropriate in Inveralmond’s setting would be in the inherent opportunities for interdisciplinary learning afforded by the context of flooding or other local issues. Similarly, the scope for community working with businesses and partner agencies would perhaps lend itself to accreditation in a wide range of awards (such as Saltire, Citizenship, Duke of Edinburgh or CREST) through volunteer work across a year and aiding the development of skills for learning, life and work. There is certainly a lot to think about regarding how to continue our understanding of Learning for Sustainability and the wider incorporation of its ethos within and across the curriculum.
Stephen Small
Today Pamela McConnell from the SQA spoke to PTCs about the resources available online from the SQA regarding understanding standards and internal verification procedures. Pamela was a very engaging presenter and took us all through a wide range of services available from the SQA and approaches to verification and moderation.
The understanding standards materials are available on the SQA open site and provide evidence and commentaries on assessment judgements for exam scripts and assignments. All materials online currently are from National 5 courses and Higher will come online as materials are made available over the summer. The website for this is SQA Understanding Standards, and should be of great use over the coming months. She also raised awareness of the forthcoming Understanding Standards events that will be held specifically for Higher during the autumn so look out for updates about how to book on to these events.
Pamela also wished to raise awareness of the verification and course reports to allow staff to gain up to date information on current issues and strengths in their subject areas. These are available on the SQA page and allow all staff to identify consistent messages coming out of the SQA subject teams. There were also numerous NQ changes notified in May 2015 and there will be many new UASPs coming on stream in August 2015 so staff should be vigilant for any updated materials for units they are delivering.
Finally, she delivered a short presentation on approaches to internal verification and the need to have rigorous systems in place to ensure consistency and high standards, which I am sure we can reflect positively on in Inveralmond. Pamela talked through different ways to undertake internal verification from the common ‘Team Peer Review’ approach where staff pass their marking to a colleague to cross mark and provide feedback to the more formal Lead IV approach where a member of staff will chair discussion around a table with a group of colleagues, agree marking principles beforehand and then commence marking (similar to the SQA model for marking of exams).
Stephen Small
Today I had the pleasure of attending the BOCSH conference on teaching and learning held at Inveralmond. It was a privilege to be able to meet and engage with such inspirational practitioners examining a wide range of areas of practice. The highlights for me were as follows:
Tracking and Monitoring across the BGE: This session was led by Faith Bateman from St. Andrew’s HS in Glasgow and examined how the Social Subjects faculty had worked collaboratively to moderate assessments to ensure standards were consistent. They are already engaging with RAG as terms for progress and involving learners in conversations to track their progress against both skills and SAL (this was reflected in a later presentation by Joanne Ramsay from St. Joseph’s Academy in Kilmarnock who had some very interesting ideas for how to aid learner reflection). They are looking at creating a ‘Standard for St. Andrew’s’ folder to use as a teaching aid to allow learners to see what would constitute a level 4 piece of work before embarking on a task. There was plenty of discussion around moderation and both the benefits and issues of this as a task now requiring embedding within BGE practice.
I also attended a short presentation on the notion of ‘flipped classrooms’ led by Jade Hunter from Preston Lodge HS Maths department. She has been experimenting for around a year and a half with colleagues on how to best implement a flipped approach, focusing on an existing two year Higher class to do this. She has created a series of 5 to 7 minute presentations which are held on a department website. Learners access these the night prior to a lesson and can then get started immediately on activities and extension tasks for the most able. Any pupils who do not complete this have access to the materials in class, allowing more attention for those prepared and ready to go. There does seem to be a fairly high front-loaded component to the preparation of this approach but would reduce some preparation in the longer term and has led to increased engagement within the classes being piloted.
Overall, it was an incredibly inspiring day and it is clear that the BOCSH group has a lot to offer those wishing to consider emerging approaches and effective and inspiring ways to engage learners and bridge the gap.
Stephen Small
I have recently been reading ‘How To Come Up With Great Ideas and Actually Make Them Happen’ by Euan McIntosh. The book is primarily about how we, as teachers, engage in and with innovation and change within education. Euan’s background is as a teacher of Modern Languages in East Lothian, working as a National Advisor to the Scottish Government on learning and technology and as a Digital Commissioner for Channel 4. He is now CEO of ‘No Tosh’, a consultancy firm seeking to guide educators through the process of being creative and design thinking, taking lessons from the creative industries and applying them to an educational setting.
Through my initial reading of the book there are some central themes that come across as relevant and incisive given the current climate in Scottish education of development, innovation and change
As part of my MSc I have recently presented findings from my research at the SERA/WERA (Scottish Educational Research Association/World Educational Research Association) conference held in Edinburgh this November. It was a rather nerve-wracking build up creating an academic poster to present to academics from across the world (USA, Taiwan, Norway, Iceland, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and over 40 other countries) and with a few glitches along the way I eventually managed to get everything brought together in the poster below. 
Continue reading SERA/WERA Conference – Edinburgh 2014
Over the last three years I have been undertaking an MSc in Educational Leadership at the University of Stirling. This culminated recently with my final submitted piece of work on how iPads can be used effectively within Social Subjects to support pupils’ development of higher order thinking skills (taken from Anderson et al’s 2001 reworking of Bloom’s Taxonomy). This project was run within the Social Subjects faculty and from the intervention, which was incorporated in to the S3 curriculum, there were several interesting findings. Firstly, pupils were less confident in their use of iPads and associated software than we as teachers perhaps assume and it was interesting to note that the majority of pupils reported increasingly levels of confidence with the use of mobile technology to enhance learning. Secondly, pupils were more capable of discussing and identifying how they can apply knowledge and skills across the discrete subject areas and this aided us in moving past the “but this is Maths/English/insert random subject” type of response to a more holistic view of learning.
Continue reading MSc in Educational Research: Use of iPads to Develop Higher Order Thinking Skills
All 3 Modern Studies Teachers attended this event at Glasgow Queen Margaret Union. All delegates received a presentation from Dr Alan Britton (Glasgow Uni) regarding lessons to be learned from Scottish Independence Referendum. This was extremely useful for all delegates as it gave further insights into voting behaviours which could then be brought back to both Adv Higher and Higher students.
Continue reading Modern Studies MSA Conference – 1 Nov 14
This event was aimed at stimulating forward thinking approaches to the key areas of development from the RME Impact Report issued by Education Scotland in 2013. Time was given to evaluate the aims, strengths and areas of development within the Impact Report and space to engage in dialogue with others about how best to move RME forward in schools. The workshops provided were a useful process of self-evaluation about how to measure the impact of RME in our own settings. I attended a workshop about engaging with RME in the senior phase as a non-timetabled option in S5 and S6 which I will hopefully take forward in discussion with colleagues and senior management. This event has made me think about the opportunities we currently have for wider achievement in the school and the explicit links that could be made to RME particularly with senior students. It was useful to engage in discussion about the purpose and impact of RME with a range of practitioners from primary and secondary, principal teachers, deputes and head teachers.
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