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’
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.
Andy Wilson (TLC Dept), Maddy Quinn (TLC Dept) and Keith Varty (Biology/Science Department)
After watching a Horizon programme which focused on the theory that dogs evolved the way that they did in order to appeal to man and also studies linking the release of oxytocin in humans with working with dogs, Miss Wilson and Miss Quinn chose to do some professional reading of research describing the benefits of using pets in the classroom. Some of this research claimed that school pets have been found to:
Further research showing that teachers have also found therapeutic benefits for children with special needs and how pets in schools also have social benefits for the school community can be accessed here and here.
This professional reading led to Mrs Wilson and Mrs Quinn organising a day where Mr Varty would bring his well trained, placid dog Laika to the TLC to deliver a lesson focusing on the responsibilities of having a dog. This lesson provided pupils with the opportunity to ask questions observe and participate in obedience training whilst continually interacting with Laika.
After reflection pupils made the following quotes about having a dog in the TLC for the day:
“It was very well trained and it was a very good feeling to have a dog in the class because she was very friendly.”
“It was a cool dog and it made me happy.”
” If we had a dog regularly in class it would make us more motivated”
” if we had a dog regularly in class it would make us more peaceful”
David Downham and Nick Torsney, P.E. Department
This workshop aspired to raise the issue of a whole school responsibility for health and wellbeing and looked at identifying a hot topic, theme or issue that affects the school. As a group we selected one of the building blocks of health and well being that would help us focus on and try to raise awareness of or tackle the issue. We then broke up into smaller groups to discuss strategies that individuals, departments and the whole school could adopt to help with this.
The building block identified was Respect which falls under the title of Relationships and Friendships. This would cover a range of issues including inappropriate uniform, litter, eating habits, correct use of equipment/areas and punctuality.
After the workshop we will work towards bring together all the information and report it back to the staff before putting some of the strategies in place as well as identifying all experiences and outcomes covered. The feedback from the staff was very positive and suggested that more time would have been useful in the workshop. The accompanying PowerPoint for this workshop can be located here.
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.
Gerry Burns, Physics/Science Department
This workshop aimed to generate discussion of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) with staff to raise awareness of what it means. This also allowed staff the CPD opportunity to gain an insight into the forthcoming RRSA project. In addition, this was used to test this activity before it is used with pupils.
From a selected number of articles printed on card from the UNCRC, staff were asked to pick the three most important articles relating to pupils within the school. They were asked to discuss each and provide an insight into why they thought their selection was important. The Specific instructions for these tasks can be found on the powerpoint located here. The responses from this were collated from a plenary session at the end of the workshop.
On the whole, staff commented that they enjoyed this task and thought it was an effective way to generate discussion of the needs of the pupils within the school and also in a wider context for young people around the world. For the most part, groups in each workshop picked different articles which again led to discussion of the thinking behind the selection. Staff commented that they believed that this would be an effective tool to use with pupils to raise awareness of UNCRC and RRSA.
In the future pupils will undertake the same task in PSE or during a dedicated period. This will also be used as a survey and the results collated to gauge the overall opinion of the pupils within the school. An additional task will be undertaken whereby pupils will use the same articles to place them into the categories of rights (survival, protection, development and participation)
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