All posts by Mrs Gray

Support for Learning 2017-2018

Thank you to all the parents and carers who made it to Meet the Teacher, it was great to speak to lots of you and introduce myself and some of our team around Support for Learning.

If you couldn’t make it not worry, above you will see our key messages around Support for Learning this year.

 

Our S f L vision: Support for all learners, in all classrooms, by all staff. 

Where possible, the majority of support for our learners will take place in their own classrooms, with support from the class teacher, myself, pupil support workers, specialist staff and/or other agencies where relevant.

A huge focus for us this year at Williamston is both Numeracy and Literacy and these are our key areas of targeted support for Nursery to P7 children. Additionally we are hoping to start a nurture group, based around health and well-being needs and developing life skills…

Hello – Support for Learning!

Hello, Bonjour, Hola, Guten-Tag, Namaste, Ciao, Salaam…

It’s Mrs K. Gray here and I’d like to introduce myself as the new Additional Support for Learning Coordinator. This is especially for all of those boys and girls who keep asking me what class I have, where I am and what I am doing 🙂

I’m so lucky that I will get to see lots of you across the classes and hopefully, along with our fabulous staff team, help to maximise learning for all.

I would love to hear teacher, PSW, learner, parent and any member of our school community and wider education community’s thoughts around Support for Learning…

  1. What is Support for Learning?
  2. What does it look like?
  3. How could we make it even better?
What is Support for Learning? Some ideas…

P6 – Author Study

Last weeks Reading Activity was based on reading for information and our Social Subjects focus of Space (see our display for evidence of your work 🙂 ). This week I would like you to hop back into your novels… but more specifically your authors. FIND OUT MORE AND COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING.

 

Can you share your findings in the comments box below so we can all access your work?

If you finish early can you take the following quiz….

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/children/have-some-fun/quizzes/15 – I’d be interested to hear your feedback here too.

Enjoy…

 

P6 Author Study Reading Activity
P6 Author Study Reading Activity

#DigiLearnScot Week

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Do you follow us on twitter, if not, please do! Here you will find daily updates on children’s learning and ‘What’s On’ across the school.

We are… @williamstonps

This week it’s National Digital Learning Week. We continue to explore the benefits digital learning and teaching can bring to every level of the learner journey across the school. In addition to this we are keen to share these through our BLOG and Twitter and would love to hear your thoughts on these too.

P6B Reading Challenge Week 1

Let's look at interesting words...
Let’s look at interesting words…

L.I.: to identify and select ‘interesting’ words within a variety of passages. 

P6… how are your new novels? While I hear some of you read I would like you to find *FIVE* interesting words (remember what makes them interesting? – unknown words, ambitious vocabulary, specialist or topic words, words you would like to use in YOUR WRITING etc.).

Please note your WORD CHOICE – DEFINITION – SYNONYMS in the comments box….

An example… no problem! < See Comments Box for Mrs Gray’s example>

TOOLS TO USE: Devices/dictionaries/thesauri/peers/help boxes

 

Technologies: Where are we at?

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Within Curriculum for Excellence, the technologies curriculum area relates particularly to contexts that provide scope for developing technological skills, knowledge, understanding and attributes. At Williamston we are striving to do this through creative, practical and work-related activities. In order to meet our own high expectations this year we have been using AAL (Anywhere, Anytime Learning Network) a protected wireless system available to some schools in West Lothian. What does this mean for your child and their learning?

  • Every class has a small number of devices (ipads/Samsung nexus/kindles) to allow children to experience the variety of technologies on offer.
  • AAL is used in classes to make learning more flexible and applicable to real life, e.g. if they wanted to extend their learning as they had an unanswered question during an activity, they could personally go research the area quickly and efficiently, using a device and AAL. This type of learning enhances their own and others learning.
  • AAL and devices have been used in some classes to communicate with other schools through our Glow Meet platform. This has allowed discussions and debates with children across schools.
  • The use of Apps. in lessons and activities is currently being explored by all teachers in their professional development time. While some have been successfully trialled, we hope to make more progress with this next year in order to fully embrace the technologies available to us.

In addition to this P6 and P7 classes have been adopting the WL initiative BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). This has allowed children the option of bringing their own device into school to use when directed by their teachers. In these classes the use of technologies has been:

  • Accessing and using email accounts in the world of learning
  • Using Glow and email platforms for Homework Tasks
  • Exploring use of Apps. to support learning
  • Researching, collating and communicating information in creative ways

This opportunity has been further enhanced by the enthusiasm of our parent and carer community and the responsible nature of our learners. As well as speaking locally as events, pupils from Williamston are being recognised at a national level for their work with BYOD. We can’t wait to see where this will take us next year…!

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P6 Maths Update April-May

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Wow P6 we feel like we are flying through our numeracy and maths curriculum this term.

 

Time is our big focus this term, along with worded problems, daily mental agility work and looking at our maths targets too.

In Time… we will be looking at the following. Ask yourself, can you…?

 

* apply understanding of the relationship between 12 hour am/pm and 24hour notation to read and set time on analogue and digital clocks

* write times for morning and afternoon in different ways

* change 12 hour clock to 24 hour clock and vice versa.

* understand that a timetable is: -a schedule listing events and the times at which they will take place -a schedule of times of arrivals and departures

* know that timetables are used to help to plan events and activities

* know that timetables display times in either 12-hour or 24-hour time

* read, use and interpret 12 and 24 hour times on a variety of timetables

* calculate time intervals to interpret timetables

* calculate durations of time using both 12 and 24 hour times

 

To add more CHALLENGE, COULD YOU…?

 

* estimate simple time durations

* calculate how long a journey or activity will take/took in hours and minutes

* know that speed is the distance travelled per unit time e.g. 40km/h means that we travel 40km in 1 hour

* know that there is a connection between time, speed and distance which helps us estimate how long a journey should take

* use proportion to estimate how long a journey takes, given the speed and distance

* understand that for a fixed distance, the faster you travel, the less time the journey takes

* estimate and select the shorter /longer route in a range of problem solving contexts

* begin to use knowledge of the link between time, speed and distance to estimate and calculate speed, distance or time in a variety of problem solving contexts without the use of a formula or the D/S/T triangle.

Maths of the Moment in P6…

We are currently looking at HOW we solve problems and sharing strategies. It’s good to share because not only can we help each other, we can perhaps find easier ways, be more accurate and/or look deeper at NUMBER and our UNDERSTANDING.

If you would like to TALK more around SOLVING PROBLEMS, and SHOW YOUR WORKINGS TOO – check out this website, a good challenge for pupils and parents alike.

 

http://www.transum.org/Software/SW/Starter_of_the_day/

 

We often use this in P6 as our starter of the day, or as a mental maths warm up 🙂

Let us know if you use it and of course – HOW YOU USE IT.

In P6 we like to use a range of methods to solve worded problems! How do you do it? What tools do you use to help you?
In P6 we like to use a range of methods to solve worded problems! How do you do it? What tools do you use to help you?