Category Archives: Skills

East Lothian ‘Making Maths Matter’ Conference

making Maths Matter Logo‘Making Maths Matter’ is the East Lothian Numeracy and Mathematics Conference aimed at improving achievement in Numeracy and Mathematics and narrowing the attainment gap. The conference is being held at the Marine Hotel in North Berwick on Friday 13th March 2015.

Key speakers are Professor Louise Hayward from Glasgow University who will discuss ‘Narrowing the attainment gap’ and Carol Copstick from Education Scotland who will provide and overview of progress and achievement in Numeracy and Mathematics across Scotland. A variety of workshops will be led by practitioners, children and partners.

Videos of the event will be posted in due course. A full programme of the day can be downloaded: Making Maths Matter_Programme

Twitter: #makingmathsmatter

 

Using Google Docs for Assessment & Evaluation

Lots of East Lothian pupils and teachers now have access to an EduBuzz Google Apps account. This brings the power of Google’s email, docs, sites and calendars into the classroom. Robert Virtue from the CDT Department at Musselburgh Grammar School has kindly shared how they are making use of these tools with their pupils.

What have you been doing?

We are in the process of introducing online assessment and evaluation using google docs. Staff invite their classes to view their own web pages where course work, examples of work, tests and evaluations are kept. All pupils work is saved in jpeg format and uploaded to their personal web pages. Staff can access these sites to moderate pupils performance.

In what ways does this practice relate to Curriculum for Excellence?

Evidence of literacy can be gathered for all work through the online evaluation. Pupil engagement and high interest, along with good use of ICT through use of internet searching, digital cameras, blogging software, as well as being introduced to a range of computer packages which include Photoshop – Inventor – Google Docs and Comic life. Collaborative work and working with others is evident in all stages of this initiative.

What were the reasons for doing this?

To educate pupils in a way that will enable them to make informed decisions regarding applying a range of skills, processes to their work in order to have maximum success and fulfilment. To try to encourage pupils to produce high quality work, work with others, use ICT with confidence and write extended answers whilst evaluating their project work.

What has happened as a result?

A huge improvement in class engagement and a major increase in productivity and pupil performance during these tasks

What would you do differently next time?

It still in its early stages but I would increase the length of the class tests to fully examine pupil performance.

A huge thank you to Robert, and the MGS CDT Department, for sharing this. If you don’t yet have an EduBuzz Google Apps account, but would like one – email David Gilmour.

If you’ve got anything you would be happy to share, download the form and email it to curriculumforexcellence@eastlothian.gov.uk

Additions to the LTS Curriculum for Excellence website

We’ve received an update of all the recent additions to the LTS CfE Website from August to November 2009 in one document. We thought this was worth sharing here. It does not include Management Board minutes and papers that have been added to the site.

Assessment

Assessment for Curriculum for Excellence (September 2009)

Assessment is a key strand of work in implementing Curriculum for Excellence.
At the Scottish Learning Festival on 23 September the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong learning, Fiona Hyslop, announced the publication of the strategic vision and key principles for assessment in Curriculum for Excellence.

Now available on the Curriculum for Excellence website the Assessment for Curriculum for Excellence document sets out the Scottish Government’s strategy on how to build on our existing strong foundations of effective approaches to assessment.

Building the curriculum & Building your curriculum

Building the Curriculum 4: Skills for learning, life and work (November 2009)

Building the Curriculum 4 aims to help all those who are involved in planning and delivering young people’s learning across all sectors and settings. It sets out key messages about how children and young people develop and apply skills as part of Curriculum for Excellence, so as to bring about the transformational changes needed to improve the life chances of young people in Scotland.

Building your curriculum (August 2009)

A new area entitled ‘Building your curriculum’ was added to the Curriculum for Excellence website in August 2009. This section offers materials designed to help schools and other establishments in designing curriculum structures that reflect the features set out in ‘Building the Curriculum 3’ and meet their local contexts and priorities.

Early insights (August 2009)

This section shows the progress some schools have been making in developing their own curriculum structures around transition, the senior phase and a broad general education, and the totality of the curriculum.

Pupil Voice (August 2009)

Three new videos were added to the Curriculum for Excellence website exploring what pupils and students want from their education, including their answers to four questions related to putting ‘Building the Curriculum 3’ into practice.

Building your curriculum – an inter-authority approach (October 2009)

This study outlines how six education authorities worked collaboratively with LTS and the Scottish Government to plan and deliver a joint event which would support schools in developing their thinking on curriculum structures and reflect the framework set out in ‘Building the Curriculum 3’ (BtC3).

Exemplification and case studies

Support for staff – exemplification of Curriculum for Excellence

Exemplification of good practice used in implementing the experiences and outcomes was published on the Curriculum for Excellence website from October onwards. The case studies provide staff with exemplars of how some schools in Scotland have started to implement Curriculum for Excellence.

Early level

Supporting the Early Level resource (October 2009)

Children’s Minister Adam Ingram launched the Curriculum for Excellence ‘Supporting the Early Level’ resource in October 2009. Information about the resource is on Early Years Online. The new DVD resource will help early years practitioners and teachers to develop successful practices in areas such as active learning, self evaluation, additional support needs and the learning environment – including making the best use of outdoor opportunities.

The Early Years Framework – Putting the Vision into Action (October 2009)

Outcomes from the HMIE/LTS Good Practice conference for early years that was held in the Hilton Hotel, Glasgow, on 9 June 2009.

Modern Languages

Working together to develop cultural awareness and multilingualism (October 2009)

Clarifying the learning: Sharing the standard (October 2009)

Using collaborative learning and peer mentoring to improve transition (October 2009)

Partnership working in modern languages using collaborative learning and ICT (October 2009)

Sciences

Properties and uses of materials (October 2009)

Promoting science during primary to secondary transition (October 2009)

Social studies

Planning for the Scottish dimension (October 2009)

Improving engagement by developing literacy and numeracy in social studies (October 2009)

Scotland’s History Online (November 2009)

Technologies

B!te: Big Ideas – Technical Education (October 2009)

Computing for Excellence – HMIE-LTS Good Practice conference for computing and information systems. This joint conference was held in the Carnegie Conference Centre in Dunfermline on 3 June 2009 (October 2009)

Healthy Eating project – Dollar Academy (October 2009)

Blast from the Past – Scottish history project (October 2009)

Literacy

Growing up with Loch Leven – exploring literacy across learning (October 2009)

Social studies and literacy at third level (October 2009)

Numeracy

Co-operative learning activities: an active approach to teaching numeracy (October 2009)

Using numbers to count – pathways to numeracy (October 2009)

‘In the Doghouse’, a numeracy across learning project (October 2009)

Interdisciplinary

Planning an interdisciplinary study on China (November 2009)

Planning for a broad general education (November 2009)

16+ Learning Choices in action (November 2009)

More Choices, More Chances – Alva Academy (August 2009)

Other resources

CfE News (September 2009)

CfE News – a newspaper for practitioners – was developed to showcase and signpost practitioners to just some of the support, advice and online resources available on the CfE website. 96,000 copies were issued in September across the entire educational community

Keynote presentations and three workshops (September 2009)

The keynote presentation and the three workshops from the nationwide ‘Turning the experiences and outcomes into action’ events which took place last session were put up on the CfE website to offer support for the next stage of implementation of Curriculum for Excellence. These materials can provide the groundwork for further discussion within educational establishments, for example during in-service days.

Experiences and outcomes by level (November 2009)

The experiences and outcomes can now be downloaded by level as Word and PDF documents. These levels documents have been added to the ‘Getting started’ section of the website.

Parents

Trailer for Parent Toolkit (November 2009)

In January, a Curriculum for Excellence toolkit to support all practitioners as they engage with parents and carers will be launched. As implementation gets underway it will help all those who work with children and young people to deliver key information around Curriculum for Excellence and answer questions parents and carers may have about how it will affect their own child.

Building the Curriculum 4

Building the Curriculum 4: Skills for Learning, Skills for Life and Skills for Work was released today. Click here to download the document directly, or you can read more about the document on the LTS website by clicking here.

Another new addition to the LTS website is their CPD resource for developing partnership with employers, click here to access this.