Category Archives: This is our Faith

Self-Reflection, Skills, Teaching Pedagogy, This is our Faith

CREDL PgCert Qualification (Religious Education by Distance Learning )

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Jane Laurie – Biology/Science Teacher

After finishing my PGDE in 2011, I decided that my studying days weren’t over yet and I applied for the CREDL course at the. CREDL is a Post Graduate certificate in Religious Education that is completed by distance learning. It allows practitioners to teach RE in Catholic schools.

What the Course Entailed

The CREDL course was completed online and involved a great deal of discussion with the tutors at the University of Glasgow. There were two modules and each was made up of 8 sections. These sections included a plethora of interesting questions and readings to be completed. At the end of each section I was asked to choose two questions and discuss my opinions via email with my tutor. Initially I thought this was going to be intimidating, as I was opening myself up to a very qualified university tutor, however it was completely the opposite, it gave me the chance to reflect on what my opinions and values actually are.  Continue reading CREDL PgCert Qualification (Religious Education by Distance Learning ) →

Interdisciplinary learning, Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, This is our Faith, Uncategorized, Vision and Leadership

R.E. Inset Day

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Frank Quinn – Principal Teacher R.E. Department

As part of the school’s plan in implementing “Shining the Light” and “This is Our Faith” (T.I.O.F.), it was decided that some time should be spent looking at part of the document “T.I.O.F.” by the whole staff during an Inset day.  The school believes the way forward with “T.I.O.F.” and the school’s Religious Education programme is to approach it as a whole-school responsibility, like Literacy, Numeracy and H&WB.  Each department should be aware where there are opportunities for them to contribute to the R.E. in the school.

Continue reading R.E. Inset Day →

Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, Teaching Pedagogy, This is our Faith, Vision and Leadership

Health and wellbeing – Values Workshop

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Frank Quinn – Principal Teacher R.E. Department

This workshop combined several areas for development within the school: continuing work started by the Chaplaincy team on the school mission statement, highlighting some key values stressed in “This is our Faith” and the Experiences and Outcomes of Health & Wellbeing.

We wanted to raise awareness of the key values which lie at the heart of our School Mission Statement and which emanate through all areas of the school, especially the relationships between staff and the young people and between colleagues. The first part of the workshop, the scenario, was set up to encourage discussion over professional methods and the values which staff demonstrate. The second part of the workshop raised the awareness for all staff of the values expected of them as part of the St Margaret’s community.

The PowerPoint used in this workshop can be accessed here whilst the Mission Statement of St. Margaret’s Academy can be accessed here.

Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, Teaching Pedagogy, This is our Faith, Uncategorized, Vision and Leadership

Using Positive Rewards and Praise Workshop

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Karyn Reilly and Sonia Ryan (English Department) delivered a workshop on Using Positive Rewards and Praise which aimed to share the wide range of systems and strategies that departments and faculties within St Margaret’s Academy use to celebrate success and reward pupils.  This workshop provided staff with an opportunity to collate ideas of ongoing practice in individual classrooms whilst allowing staff to reflect through discourse surrounding the idea of ‘praise’ and ‘reward’ and its impact on pupils.  The Powerpoint used in this workshop can be located here.

This workshop stemmed from Karyn and Sonia’s working group which aspires to further develop the positive reward system in the school.  Karyn describes their work as

“We are trying to come up with a whole school approach to reward all pupils.  We went round most departments to see what they were doing and what individual teachers were doing; we aim to use some of their good practice in the whole school system. We now need to collate all the thoughts and information we collected on Tuesday and use it to help us develop it.”

The image gallery below shows the responses that staff produced to set questions after a period of time discussing these questions.  Larger images can be obtained by clicking on each image.

Interdisciplinary learning, Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, Teaching Pedagogy, This is our Faith, Vision and Leadership

Welcome to the Professional Learning Blog

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This blog is an area where all members of staff in St Margaret’s Academy can contribute and share a variety of information about their professional growth. For example:

  • Professional reading
  • Curriculum Developments
  • CPD opportunities
  • Useful resources/weblinks/etc
  • Tips for teachers
  • Good practice

By choosing suitable categories for posts and tagging them appropriately, it should be easier to find out what professional growth is happening across our schools and how our young people benefit from this. It is easy to provide a link from a post to a Glow Group or website.