Category Archives: Vision and Leadership

Skills, Teaching Pedagogy, Uncategorized, Vision and Leadership

Ukulele in the Classroom

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Siobhan Cardow – Music Teacher

2.1  Learners’ Experiences

5.1 The Curriculum and 5.9 Improvement Through Self-Evaluation

With changes in SQA, the ukulele is now an approved instrument at National level.  This is a new and exciting instrument which pupils enjoy playing and was introduced into schools across Scotland in August 2013.  In the last year, I have attended a ukulele workshop at the Fringe Festival and expanded on my knowledge of SQA requirements whilst building upon my skills on this instrument at Scottish Association for Mucis Education (SAME) conferences and other CPD events, in order to effectively teach this instrument.  The music department ordered a class set as part of the S1 and S2 Music courses and this has led to pupils performing on the ukulele at National 4/5 levels.  It has become so popular in the department that the ukulele club is also running for the second year in a row.  It provides pupils with the challenge and enjoyment of learning an instrument as well as the opportunity to become a further part of the school, meet young people from various year groups and work with others.

Numeracy, Responsibility of All, Vision and Leadership

Masters of Education in Professional Practice

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Siobhan McKenna – Maths Teacher

I am currently studying for a Masters of Education in Professional Practice with PGDE at University of Glasgow. This is an online course lasting a year and a half with only a few tutorial days in the year at the university. The course is mainly conducted online and tutorials can either be carried out on Skype, by telephone, or face-to-face; this facilitates full-time work as well as independent study.

I completed the first module of the course, Decision Making and Enquiry Skills, during my probation year and am now in the midst of writing my dissertation. My proposal for my dissertation during the first module of the course involved competitiveness within the classroom. However, upon beginning my dissertation in October, I realised that this was no longer relevant to my practice and I am now focussing on Numeracy Across the Curriculum. Having now read a lot of literature on Maths and Numeracy, it turns out that our curriculum is very similar, with regard to numeracy, to that of Australia. I have also been in touch with university lecturers in Australia to find out more about their curriculum and how they support staff who are non-Maths specialists. Continue reading Masters of Education in Professional Practice →

Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, Skills, Vision and Leadership

Senior Phase Benchmarking Tool (SPBT) Workshop

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John Slavin – PTC Mathematics

Catherine Kerr PTC Science gave a presentation on the new Senior Phase Benchmarking Tool on the 6th December in St. Margaret’s Academy. The new SPBT will be used in place of the STACs which recorded the SQA results.

There are several major differences in the two systems. The new SPBT will have 7 categories, four national and three local ones.

The overall presentation is much more visual than STACs. The home page shows the dashboard which has the four national measures, based on the national priorities. It is called a dashboard to emphasise the interconnectedness of the measures.

Continue reading Senior Phase Benchmarking Tool (SPBT) Workshop →

Literacy, Responsibility of All, Skills, Uncategorized, Vision and Leadership

Literacy Development and Debating

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Lauren McMahon – Faculty of Language and Communication

For the last four years, I have been working as a Literacy Development Officer within West Lothian Council. This has provided me with a wealth of Professional Development Opportunities which have impacted both on my own practice and that of my colleagues.

I embarked on this development as literacy is core to every child’s education and I was interested in exploring ways in which this could be improved at an authority level in order to improve the learning experience for all.

A major aspect of this post has involved the wider development of debating across West Lothian. I have, for the last four years, run the West Lothian Speaks! Debating competition which is aimed at encouraging S1 and S2 pupils to learn debating skills and develop their confidence. St Margaret’s has participated in this competition each year and is the current holder of the shield. This has impacted on St Margaret’s as I believe that by raising the profile of debating early, pupils are more encouraged to join the school debating club which is highly beneficial to developing their literacy skills. Last year, I launched the West Lothian Public Speaking Competition, aimed at S3, in which 8 West Lothian Schools participated. A member of staff within my department assisted in preparing the pupils for this competition which also contributed towards her CPD. Continue reading Literacy Development and Debating →

Self-Reflection, Skills, Vision and Leadership

Internal Verification

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Anne Keenan (Health and Technology) and Laura Watson (Science Department)

Internal verification is a huge aspect of the new CfE qualifications. Over the last year we have become very familiar with the process of internal verification through teaching Skills for Work: Laboratory Science and Skills for Work: Early Education and Childcare. Both of these courses are internally assessed and require the assessors and verifiers to have a sound understanding of the assessment procedure to enable the internal verification to be carried out accordingly.

The key to this process running smoothly is for the assessor and verifier to have an agreed and shared understanding of the standards that must be reached in order to ensure the candidates’ evidence meets the assessment requirements.

It is the role of the assessor and verifier to discuss and record (SQA guidelines) the agreed assessment, any amendments and an in-depth discuss to ensure the candidates’ evidence meets the assessment standard.

Internal verification provides us as teachers with the responsibility of ensuring standards are met, allowing ourselves to draw on our professional judgement in deciding whether candidates evidence meets the set requirements, enabling them to gain the overall qualification.

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 →

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

Pupil Centred Learning – Chartered Teacher Professional Enquiry

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Sally Cameron – Health & Technology Teacher

The Health and Technology staff, together with their pupils and parents, carried out a study into pupil centred learning approaches. We had identified that homework was being poorly completed by a number of pupils, was not being completed at all by some pupils and was doing little to promote learning. Research suggests that there is a substantial link between homework and attainment and our aim was to enhance the learning via the creation and implementation of a pupil-centred approach to homework in S2 H&T.

As partof the study we tried to answer 3 questions:
• Can a pupil-centred approach improve homework returns and quality?
• Can parental involvement in a pupil-centred approach improve the number and quality of homework returns?
• Will a pupil-centred approach to homework improve learning?

Teachers worked closely with their pupils to develop a new approach to homework. Over a period of eight weeks, the teachers provided pupils with opportunities to choose and complete several newly designed, fully inclusive, creative homework activities. Pupils, together with their parents, were asked to comment on, and sign, each completed homework task.

Continue reading Pupil Centred Learning – Chartered Teacher Professional Enquiry →

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

University of Stirling Professional Enquiry

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Laura Watson – Biology/Science Teacher

Postgraduate certificate – Professional enquiry

Over the last year I have undertaken a postgraduate certificate carrying out a professional enquiry at the University of Stirling. The first module in this course looked at professionalism in practice and involved researching and critiquing different aspects of current educational policy. The second module involved enquiring into ideas within current educational policy such as interdisciplinary learning, active learning, outdoor learning and technology enhanced learning. Both modules required us to undertake self study tasks, reading educational literature and carrying out tasks to critique this. These self study tasks informed the tasks that were carried out on the taught days, which took place once a month. During these taught days the tasks that were carried out provided us with an opportunity to carry out discussions with other members of the cohort. Continue reading University of Stirling Professional Enquiry →

Interdisciplinary learning, Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, Skills, Vision and Leadership

Stirling, CERN, SQA and RRSA CPD Activities

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My recent CPD activities have included completing the West Lothian Leadership course and have now started an MSc course in Educational Leadership at Stirling University. I have also undertaken marking for the SQA of both Standard Grade and Advanced Higher scripts. I have been leading the Rights Respecting Schools initiative within my school and have recently been appointed the Business Links development post holder within the school. Over the past year, I have also been trying to implement more use of technology in my teaching, by using facilities such as the PS3 and XBOX to enhance the learning of pupils. In addition I have recently been looking to use Edmodo with my classes such that more online resources have been available to them. I have also lead a recent foreign trip to CERN in Geneva, and undertaken the arrangement of the end of term shows within the school. Continue reading Stirling, CERN, SQA and RRSA CPD Activities →