P7 Bloggers

P7 were having a good time today. I went in to help them get blogging. They’d love some comments if anyone has time to drop by their blog! They are looking at aspects of functional writing and non fiction reading at the moment with their Africa rich task and have been working hard already. Southpark are up and running with their blog too – it’s on the sidebar of this page – Mossneuk are also up and running -they’re looking for comments too! The children really start to understand the power of this as a learning tool when they get feedback so I know they’d appreciate it.

Rich task start

The schools in our Duncanrig learning community have begun their rich task, this is linked to work ongoing related to Malawi and other parts of Africa. They are going to try blogging too which is a new step for many. So good luck to them all – I’ve read blogging starts from Southpark and  Castlefield – they’re on my blog roll at the side here.

I enjoyed hearing an update from Con Morris on CPD Find today and was interested to hear about a self reflection tool they are developing which will be available to staff in the future. But listening to Con and having been involved recently in school with the Glow pilot, looking at CfE roll out within our Learning Community etc, I had a flurry of butterflies in my stomach….Shift happens alright and at the moment things which have been talked about for some time are beginning to roll out.

I do worry however that it might be too easy to make some of the mistakes that we have made before. Are we all understanding CfE? For me its all about using appropriate methodologies and reflection and improvement of how we learn and teach. I’m worrying at the moment of all the talk I’m hearing  of “unpacking” outcomes and making “banks” of materials. I’d like to see teaching professionals with knowledge of “hows” at their fingertips (not more programmes of study please), who can decide what best method of learning and teaching suits their children’s needs and helps them deeply understand and move towards outcomes. Teachers who can access technologies to help with their own professional learning and that of their children. Maybe this will come and I’m just in a gloomy, worry hole at the moment.

Rich task update

We held our Learning Community’s Malawi rich task meeting tonight.

The outline of the Malawi rich task has been completed. The teachers used the handy blank publisher template from Argyll and Bute to write this up. Tonight, we all looked at how to set up a wordpress blog so fingers crossed we’ll soon have some blogging networks going on amongst our pupils in the eight different primaries. At the next meeting we will all agree how we are going to do the first mindmap/brainstorm piece of work in January with all the classes and agree the pre assessment format for the children. So far we’ve got a lot done (that’s the royal we..). What I should say is that this group of teachers have got a lot done!

Everyone has gone off tonight with some shared good ideas – thinking about sharing the criteria for the task, using various ways of doing this, peer and self assessment ideas etc. We’re looking forward to seeing materials Mossneuk are bringing back the next time related to sharing writing learning intentions.

If anyone is working on this too then just get in touch – the more sharing the better, is my motto! Sharing and learning from each other is the best way to learn! We’ve got on much faster because of what Argyll and Bute have shared on their website. It’s certainly made our task much easier to plan.

Prior to this meeting I had been at the lead officer network in the afternoon where we were sharing with each other what we are all doing and discussing action research. I met a visitor from New Zealand’s Education ministry who is over doing some research here for a couple of months. It turned out she is the New Zealand visitor coming to see us in a week with our HMIe district inspector to complete our HMIe process. This is to do the moderation of the Local Authority report on our action plan.

We are also having 5 visitors from Norway’s education service a few days after that. We are inundated with visitors since we moved to our brand new building and you’d think by now that we would be accustomed to working in our new environment. But I have to say that I pinch myself everyday as I still can’t beleive we work in such a beautiful building! So I’d show it off to people every day given the chance as we’re all so proud of it!

Tomorrow we are celebrating St Andrew’s day with various activities in class. In the afternoon parents and carers are invited to “family time” where they can wander and discuss with the children the work they have been doing on Scots Language. The books we have used for these book studies are , Katy’s Coo, Katy Morag and the Birthday, Scots FairyTales, Planet Perjink, Planet Fankle, Hercules Bampots and Heroes and Kidnappit. Some of our after school Scots singing group performed with other schools at Cathkin High last week and they will be singing to our visitors.

And somewhere as if by magic, Christmas has suddenly come upon us. We’ve been getting all glittery and sparkly, singing the nativity songs, sticking things together, making crafts for our fair  – the usual things that make Christmas so Christmasy in our school. I admit though that the nativity scenery making was weighing heavily on me until I went to the local craft shop and discovered these fab 50 foot long polythene sheets with stars and nativity back drops on them! Fantastic and then as the best plan in a while we recycled last week’s Anderson shelter into a stable! A roll of brown corrugated card and recycled oil drums can go a long way in our school!

Learning about Africa and Scotland

We had a good day today. The P7 teacher used quizdom with all the classes – she’d put photos from her trip to Malawi schools, on as a presentation with related questions. The community policeman talked about how we treat new children to the school. We all heard talks from Street Kids charity and saw movies about the journey of a back pack which had things collected by children here. We saw where it went on its journey and who recieved it in Africa. We heard about how parents in Malawi work to provided daily lunches in school. Children played games about a refugee’s journey. We talked about food and homes, school and life in our two countries. For fun our active school co-ordinator held a mini highland games. We made models, art work and wrote to the children in our link school in Malawi so they know more about our children. We had family time in the afternoon when the children’s parents and relatives came in and worked with them in classes and chatted to them about what they had been up to.

We felt proud of the children and of what our staff do as a team by the end of the day!