Category Archives: Vision and Leadership

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

Planning a school trip abroad – CERN Geneva

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Gerry Burns, Physics/Science Department

My recent CPD activities included taking 18 pupils to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The purpose of this trip was to allow pupils to investigate particle physics at the biggest experiment on the planet. As I hadn’t taken pupils on a trip abroad before, there was great value in understanding how to organise the event in a way that the pupils got the maximum benefit while ensuring all the health and safety needs of the group were met.

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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.

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Self-Reflection, Vision and Leadership

Using data analysis for targeted intervention, mentoring and raising attainment

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John Slavin Faculty Leader Raising Attainment

My recent CPD has included working with Seemis and TMR (our data management system) to exact data entered by teachers, analyse this and use the results for targeted intervention. By manipulating the data, pupils who are underachieving can be identified and targeted. A monitoring programme has been devised and teachers were invited to participate in delivering this to the S4 pupils. The course I am currently undertaking at Stirling University is in Coaching and Mentoring and the programme for our pupils is based largely around the major themes from this.

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Self-Reflection, Teaching Pedagogy, Vision and Leadership

Stirling, SQA and SSERC CPD Supporting Science Improvements

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Catherine Kerr Faculty Leader Science

My recent CPD activities have included starting an MSc in Leadership at Stirling University, attending SQA workshops for national qualifications, attending the Secondary Science Education Research Centre and becoming a writer for a Biology eTextbook. In addition to this I am completing a course in Coaching & Mentoring and trialling the online Edmodo resource with my Higher classes. This invaluable professional learning journey has had a positive impact not only on my own practice but also on colleagues and pupils within my faculty.

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

Diabetes Workshop

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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 →

Health and wellbeing, Teaching Pedagogy, Vision and Leadership

Primary and Secondary PE Provision

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Paul Stark

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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Uncategorized, Vision and Leadership

Consultation on the Revision of the Professional Standards

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The General Teaching Council for Scotland are currently consulting with all stakeholders with an interest in Scottish education regarding their Revision of the Draft Framework of the Professional Standards.  As such they are inviting your views and suggestions with respect to the attached draft Professional Standards.  To participate in the consultation process which closes on October 31st please click here.

Self-Reflection, Teaching Pedagogy, Vision and Leadership

Working Together for Better Science Learning – a Cluster Approach to CPD

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St Margaret’s Academy Science department has been approached by SSERC to develop the transition process in science. The rationale and outline of this programme: “Working Together for Better Science Learning – a Cluster Approach to CPD programme” can be downloaded here. Myself and colleague Keith Varty along with one of our primary colleagues Jennifer Currie were invited along to the first workshop of the Armadale cluster to see how this works and if it is something that we would be interested in leading across our cluster. Each cluster primary school had sent at least two representatives to this event and Armadale Academy also had members of the science department there to help support their primary colleagues in the science tasks carried out during the workshop.

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Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, Vision and Leadership

Assessment and Moderation – Key Messages

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IS Day presentation by Catherine Kerr (PTC Science)

To be honest I’m not really an expert on the subject. As a starting point I walked about the school asking staff what their understanding of Assessment and Moderation was. The responses were really interesting as the teachers that I put on the spot (mainly un-promoted staff) all had very similar understandings, concerns, and misconceptions. My Assessment and Moderation presentation therefore focussed on the teachers at St. Margaret’s point of view and my hope was that it would build on what was already known as well as clarify some of the key messages from educational policy and best practice.

The information provided came from several sources including the Education Scotland website which provides lots of current information on Assessment and Moderation. In addition I accessed the National Assessment Resource (NAR). As a database I think the NAR is a bit of a let down but the search facility is useful. I searched for ‘sharing the standards’, which brought up different authorities examples of moderation some of which were excellent and used throughout my presentation. All of the information I thought staff might find useful has been placed in a ring binder for each curricular area.

Further useful links include:

Responsibility of All, Teaching Pedagogy, Vision and Leadership

Using CAT data effectively – Presentation

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John Slavin Faculty Leader Raising Attainment

This was a brief introduction to how the CAT data that the school has for each pupil could be used to aid teaching and learning.

Initially, I explained that there are three batteries of tests: Verbal examples, Non-Verbal examples and Quantitative examples and briefly described examples of each. Pupil profiles are generated from this data and strengths / development needs can be identified.

Data for whole classes can be graphically represented in a Scatter graph to give a powerful visual interpretation of the results. The results can be analyzed with the help of the scatter diagram.

I have produced such scattergraphs for each class in S3/4 and will do likewise for S2 in time. If anyone is interested in looking at CAT data and how it can be used to highlight achievement / underachievement, Dr. Ben Doody and myself (John Slavin) are running a workshop on 07 September 2012. This will provide teachers with an opportunity to gain further experience of using this data and can hopefully aid the identification of the pupils’ needs.