All posts by Mrs Bell

Health Week

The children engaged in a wide range of activities to develop physical and mental health and well being. Sport’s day was a roaring success with each House competing to win. The nursery sport’s days were a great display of sportsmanship ! Thank you to all who attended to cheer on and support their children.

Here are Primary 5 creating Healthy Pitta Pockets.

Kingswood Update

capturedvideo click here!The Primary 7 children are having a fantastic time at camp!  They have all challenged themselves and have made the staff very proud of their achievements. They have taken part in a very full timetable which carries on right up until bedtime and as such everyone is very busy until lights out time! Here are some pictures.More to follow-please bear with us as the connection here is not the best !

Lower School Masterclasses- Skills for learning, life and work.

The children in Primary 2,3 and 4 have been busy developing their skills for learning , life and work. They have participated in a range of masterclasses which culminated in a showcase for their parents. Masterclass choices were Orienteering, Fun with Food, Clay Modelling, Dance and STEM activities (Science, Technology,Engineering and Maths) We are very grateful to those pupils from Armadale Academy who led and assisted with our masterclasses.

The children evaluated their classes and decided which higher order thinking  skills they had learned.They also thought about what jobs they could do using their new skills.

Some of the comments included

Creating-

‘We made our own maps of the classroom and made funny faces with the gym equipment!’

‘We made various clay animals creating our own patterns and designs.’

‘We all picked a song- took out ideas and put things in. We looked at other people’s ideas and changed them and put them into our dance.’

Evaluating-

‘We watched what Leah was doing and compared it with our moves- we tried to make them better.’

‘ Mrs MacDonald did a demonstration and we copied- We also learned from each other.’

‘ We adapted some models.’

‘We tried to complete the course in a faster time.’

Analysing-

‘We tried something new.’

‘We took out parts of the dance to make it look better.’

Applying-

‘ We sourced different foods and looked at ingredients.’

‘We applied all the tricks.’ (to our dance)

‘We applied skills to different models.’

‘ We used what we had learned about maps and a compass directions to follow an orienteering course out in the meadow’

Understanding-

‘We learned how to follow a map.’

‘We understood the main moves’

‘We understood food types and allergies. We understood the recipe and followed the method’

Remembering-

‘We remembered the routines and when we had to come in’

‘We remembered the instructions and the techniques’

‘ We stayed with a partner the whole time and remembered to be safe in the meadow’

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Masterclasses

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!