Primary 5 to 7 have been attending a range of Masterclasses to develop their skills for learning , life and work. They chose from some very exciting subjects-

First Aid, Movie Making, Street Dance, Photography, Cake Decorating and Fitness.

The children gained a great deal of expertise from the group leaders who included teachers, pupil support workers and Armadale Academy pupils. The First Aid group used some very realistic stage make up to help them to identify which type of injury they were dealing with ! The Street Dance team might be giving Diversity a run for their money and Mary Berry would have been delighted to see the cake decorating skills that were on show. The photographers now know a great deal about setting up an effective shot and the movie makers can describe ‘stop start’ technology. The fitness class are able to share rules of various games.

The children were all asked to complete an evaluation using the principles of Bloom’s taxonomy . They allocated skills learned to each area, which are remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating.

Here are some of their comments-

Remembering-  ‘We had to remember the moves and the dance.’ ‘ We needed to remember the instructions to decorate the cake’  We had to remember the parts of the camera’ We needed to know the order that the recovery position goes in’

Understanding- ‘We show we have understood by demonstrating our first aid skills’ ‘ We have learned how to take a picture including how to zoom in and not make it blurry’ ‘ We had to understand how to use the software’

Applying- ‘We had to measure and cut out the shapes correctly on our own after observing the leader’ ‘ We applied our knowledge of different games and used our fitness skills’ ‘We had to apply our skills when putting photos into a story’

Analysing- ‘We had to look at shapes and positions, making sure everything was in the right place in our photographs’ ‘ We analysed wounds and situations’ ‘We broke down what we did to see if we could do it better or not’

Evaluating- ‘ We evaluated each other’s work’  ‘ We were assessing’ ‘ We looked at things like lighting and focus to see if we could make things better’  ‘We looked at our cakes and saw if they were good or bad’

Creating- ‘ We modified our designs’ ‘We were creating loads – story lines,effects, noises, backgrounds, conversations and special stuff”  ‘ We created our own wounds!’  ‘We created images of our surroundings’ ‘ We put games together’

The children also had a think about some of the jobs we could do using our new skills. Here are a few

PE Teacher, Referee, Tennis Player, Coach, Footballer, Fashion/ Wedding Photographer,  Photography Assistant, Advertising Photographer, Dancer, Choreographer , Actress, Doctor, Nurser, Paramedic, Baker, Chef, Set Decorator, Cartoonist, Producer, Work for Apple and advertising . Phew!