Monthly Archives: May 2013

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Bon Anniversaire St Margaret’s Academy

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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the opening of St Margaret’s Academy[1], pupils in class 1.1 undertook an interdisciplinary learning project encompassing French and Health & Technology. Miss Williamson (ML) and Mrs Thomson (H&T) joined forces to connect learning across both subjects. In French, pupils translated a cup cake recipe from French into English and followed the French recipe in H&T to make celebratory cup cakes. The cakes were decorated with maroon icing and finished off with an edible topper bearing the school badge. In another lesson pupils created handmade invitations written in French. To round off the project pupils hosted a Tea Party where invited guests including Mr Sharkey, Mrs Laing and Mrs Brennan sampled the baking skills of class 1.1. The event was a great success with pupils asking when they can do this again (and staff no doubt wondering when the cup cakes might appear again!)  Here are some of the comments pupils made about the project:

“I enjoyed the joint classes between French and H&T. The recipe was easy to translate and all the teachers (at the Tea Party) looked like they had fun”.   Calum Duff

“I enjoyed everything. It was fun making the cakes and (working on) the recipes and invitations. I would love to do it again”. Zulaikha Gul

“I enjoyed baking and eating the cup cakes. I found it fun to see many teachers join in the party”. Marielle Beloy

“I enjoyed seeing our French teacher see what we do in another subject”. Courtney Mangan

“I enjoyed everything. It was awesome. Hope we do it again”. Zara Iqbal

[1] St Mary’s and Our Lady’s High Schools merged to form the new St Margaret’s Academy in 1993. St Margaret’s moved to its new building in Livingston in August 1994. The school was officially opened in November 1994.

Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, Teaching Pedagogy, Vision and Leadership

Science – Good Practice

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Keith Varty – Biology/Science Teacher

When you watch this video you will observe a Science lesson where S2 pupils were actively engaged in learning about cell biology, specifically microscopy and cell structures.  This lesson began with sharing the learning intentions, both visually and verbally, in the form of questions to allow pupils to recognise what their specific targets for successful learning would be.

Afterwards, the lesson progresses to the identification and description of parts of animal and plant cells and shows how I used an innovative approach to Smartboard use and Show Me Boards. This approach captivated pupils and  focused them on their learning, whilst ensuring that they were actively engaged in activities that would allow formative assessment of the knowledge and understanding, which they had developed during the course of the topic.

Continue reading Science – Good Practice →

Self-Reflection, Skills, Teaching Pedagogy, Uncategorized, Vision and Leadership

Action Enquiry in Science – Talking to Learn

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Ann McLean – Biology/Science Teacher

In 2009, I completed my masters at Stirling University. Three years hard slog to obtain the status of Chartered Teacher but the benefits have been invaluable. The course introduced experienced teachers to ‘Action Enquiry’ and guided us towards being researchers in our own classrooms.

We carried out two research projects. The first was a classroom based enquiry and involved only one teacher as researcher. The second was a collaborative project, involving two or more teachers.

My first project was inspired by a ‘difficult’ second year science class I had inherited (2V).  Most students were poorly motivated, badly behaved, had a fairly negative view of Science and failed to engage with and participate in lessons. A nightmare class you might say!

The class had a large number of less able students who were struggling  and a couple had significant behaviour  problems.   The only way I could get them through any work was to resort to rigid ‘ lock step’, teacher led lessons. I couldn’t trust them to do practical work so I demonstrated it and any notes they had to make were copied from the board. I became increasing  unhappy  with this ‘reception’ style  teaching where my passive learners were  receiving facts from me and expected to learn them. Although I tried to encourage and motivate my students, I didn’t see much improvement. They continued to be reluctant Scientists with very low self esteem. They performed poorly in assessments which triggered the whole cycle again. Continue reading Action Enquiry in Science – Talking to Learn →