Diane Plenderleith, Art and Design
Following on from the success of last year’s HWB INSET, staff requested if I would provide a similar CPD opportunity this session. I gladly agreed, eager to share in the same experience as last year. Staff were provided with a canvas, of various sizes, water-colours and acrylic paints then left to their own devises, to freely paint whatever was in their mind, heart, imagination or from a source as the case may be. Continue reading HWB INSET 6th May, 2014
Ingham McGhie, PE Department, St Margaret’s Academy.
I, alongside other members of the St Margaret’s Academy PE department, attended the PE network meeting on Friday 10th January at Broxburn Academy. Each secondary school in West Lothian was well represented giving a rich and meaningful meeting. The focus of the meeting was to give a set of pupils a practical grade for National 5 (badminton) as a type of moderation process. Continue reading PE Network – National 5 performance grading
During the INSET afternoon on 7th May, I invited my colleagues in St. Margaret’s Academy to ‘Unlearn Art’. The invitation meant coming to the Art and Design department for the afternoon to spend what was to become real quality time, working together to produce artworks, with no preconceptions of what the outcomes were to be, not to worry about not being able to draw or paint and just simply enjoy being creative again, which for some meant not having lifted a paint brush since S2! What a wonderful afternoon. My creative colleagues were cross curricular, including staff from Science, Maths, English, French, TLC , and of course, Art and Design. I am tirelessly impressed with the variety of work produced by my pupils even when following the same instructions and Learning Intentions and my creative colleagues were no different. The individuality displayed was amazing, I was so impressed by the enthusiasm and total engagement, as each one threw themselves into their art work with total abandon! Fantastic, I couldn’t have wished for more. However all good things must come to an end but staff returned over the next few days to complete their art work which had become a source of pride and enjoyment for them, and rightly so. Thank you for sharing the Health and Well-being INSET with me and ‘Unlearning Art’. Hopefully we will be able to repeat the experience soon, but most definitely next year. I’m looking forward to it already. Take the time to peruse the gallery of artworks and comment as you please. Diane Continue reading Health and Well-being INSET 7th May, 2013 ‘Unlearn Art’
Sally Cameron – Health and Technology
This video shares some of the techniques we use to motivate and support the progressive, fast-paced learning of all pupils in Health and Technology. Fifty minutes is not a long time to welcome students, share learning targets and success criteria, deliver teacher led demonstrations of key skills, reinforce points of health and safety, support pupils through a practical task whilst still ensuring there still time for peer and self-evaluation, never mind the most important task of tasting your creation! You get a real sense of this in the video as you see an early S1 class making healthy pizzas.
Raising Literacy within Health and Technology
Anne Keenan – Health and Wellbeing
As part of the department improvement plan to focus on the raising attainment we decided to focus on the opportunities to develop literacy skills in S1. Pupils in S1 currently complete a Hygiene & Food Safety project. Mary Gibson observed a series of lesson and identified several methods that teachers can use to improve the quality of learner feedback.
Prior to this our feed back focused mainly on the subject contents and the presentation of their work. Following Mary’s input we have been able to identify and implement several changes that will help pupils to set targets for improvements relevant to their own literacy needs.
Steps identified include:
The opportunity to work closely with Mary has enabled the department to self-reflect on current practice, update approaches to ensure all pupils are receiving effective feedback and importantly having clear targets set.
Helen Powley, P.E. Department
This was a very informative CPD experience. We have many pupils in the school who have diabetes and we must be aware of their needs. The CPD went through the two differnt types of diabetes and how these can be controlled. Examples of the different pieces of equipment were there for staff to look at and try! The main message I took form the session was that it is important for staff, parents and medical staff to work together to ensure the wellbeing of the pupil. NHS staff were keen to point out that staff and parents must contact them if they need support. There are a huge number of pupils in the lothian who have diabetes and few nurses, so if support is required we must ask.
If pupils are going away on a school trip I recommend that a meeting set up with parents, and if required NHS staff to ensure that the correct plan and resources are in place for the duration of a trip. For example, medication may need to be changed for a sports activity trip. Continue reading Diabetes Workshop
November witnessed the first meeting of the PE working group at St Margaret’s Academy. The group is made up of primary and secondary PE specialists, school staff members and senior management and has been tasked with reflecting on the second and third level PE provision across the St Margaret’s cluster. The inaugural meeting was attended by 19 members of primary and secondary staff who discussed the PE provision currently on offer to P6 and P7 pupils across the associated primaries and S1 and S2 pupils within St Margaret’s.
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