All posts by Scott Lavery

Events, Gullane Primary, Nursery/Primary

Enterprise Week at Gullane Primary School

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Gullane Primary School are running a number of activities this week to demonstrate how they use enteprising approaches across the curriculum.

The nursery are having a tooth brushing and hand washing week, with information being sent out to parents and demonstrations in class. On Tuesday they are having the machine which shows up the germs on your hand!

P1 are having a Teddy Bear week because they are doing a Toys project, this involves bringing your teddy to school each day and involving him in different activities finishing up with a Teddy Bears picnic on Friday to raise money for Children in Need.

P2 are having a Viking week where they will be building mini settlements, and finding out all about life as a Viking.

P2/3 have been busy working on individual research projects and are presenting them to each other this week.

P3/4 & P4/5 are holding a sponsored walk in aid of Food Aid, they have created their own sponsorship forms and have been busy getting as much money as they can before their walk.

P5 are busy preparing for the Christmas art and craft fair that they are organising in the school at the end of this month. They have organised activities for each class to create for the fair and have been in charge of arranging stalls, producing advertising, sorting money and resources etc. The class had to apply for jobs such as advertising manager, general manager etc.

P6 have been given a challenge to create stained glass windows for the front of the school for Christmas. The groups have to measure their window, come up with a suitable design and create it for display throughout December.

P7 are creating an anti-bullying DVD (see attachment for details)

tv-drama-bullying.doc

Elise Sutherland

News, Ross High

NASA Astronaut Visit – Ross High School

 

 Ross High School, along with Musselburgh Grammar School, was lucky enough to be nominated as a participating school in a series of Astronaut visits which took place across Scotland on Wednesday 19th September. 

This was part of the 20th Association of Space Explorers (ASE) Planetary Congress which was held in Scotland and involved over 90 astronauts visiting Scottish secondary schools.  Ross High was visited by Jeff Hoffman and David Leestma, both having been in space on a number of occasions.

The visit involved all S3, S5 and S6 pupils.  The astronauts took two sessions in the Assembly Hall – one for S3 and the other for S5/6.  These sessions involved a presentation by both gentlemen on their backgrounds and how they became NASA astronauts.  Both sessions ended with a question and answer session.  Pupils asked some very interesting questions including the much anticipated “How do you go to the toilet?” and “Have you ever seen an alien?”. 

In addition the Higher Physics class attended a session with Jeff and David.  With 20 pupils, this was much more informal and enabled the pupils to ask some very personal questions with regard to the experiences of our two visitors when they landed on the space station and also what happened to them when they landed back on Earth.

 The pupils involved really enjoyed the visit and many members of staff spoke about it for days afterwards.  It was almost overwhelming to actually speak to two men who had been in space!  

Mrs R Shuttleworth

PT Curriculum  (Work & Enterprise)

Ross High School  

News, Saltoun Primary

East Lothian Forest School Pilot

Over the past few months, we have been developing a pilot project in conjunction with East Lothian Healthy Living service and Saltoun Primary School.  The idea is to set up a forest school area near the school where the young people can be given lessons in a real life context.

Forest School is a concept developed from ideas about working with children and young people in the outdoors. The participants are encouraged and inspired to grow in confidence, independence and self-esteem, through the mastery of small achievable tasks.  Hands-on activities with natural materials develop practical and intellectual skills, which can all be linked to the curriculum.

This type of learning is very much geared towards enteprise in that it gives young people the opportunity to use concepts they may already have learned in the classroom in a real setting.

More information will be posted as the pilot progresses.

Events

Enterprise Awards 2007

The winners of this year’s enterprise awards were announced on Friday 22 June.  As previously mentioned, the criteria for this year was more rigorous and the selection of the finalist was very difficult due to the wealth of good practice shown.  This will be shared across the authority in due course.

The winners were:

Enterprising Teaching and Learning

Gold – St Gabriel’s RC Primary School, Prestonpans

Silver – Cockenzie Primary School, Cockenzie and Port Seton

Bronze – Kings Meadow Primary School, Haddington

Enterprise Activity

Gold – Musselburgh Grammar School, Musselburgh

Silver – Law Primary School, North Berwick

Bronze – Tranent Primary School, Tranent

In addition to the school awards, a number of local businesses were invited to the event.  They were nominated by our schools for the contribution they made to the curriculum.  The awards themselves were given out by children from the school who nominated them.  This added a more personal touch to the ceremony.  A list of the businesses nominated is attached below.

enterprise-awards-2007.doc  

Events

Enterprise in Education Awards 2007

Tomorrow is our annual Enteprise in Education Awards ceremony which is designed to recognise the achievements of both schools and businesses across the authority this year.  As mentioned previously in the blog, the criteria for this year was more rigorous with a panel of judges looking at the various submissions.  There are three categories of awards this year.  These are

  • Business Awards – nominated by the schools themselves for businesses who have helped in the delivery of the curriculum.
  • Enterprising Teaching and Learning – showing examples of how enterprising approaches have become part of everyday teaching and learning.
  • Enterprise Activity – an eevnt which involved te pupils taking ownership and making choices reagrding their learning.

The ceremony itself is being held at the Townhouse in Haddington from 10.30am.  The winners will be posted on this blog in due course.

Events, Secondary

Make It In Scotland 2007

Make it in Scotland is an opportunity offered by Careers Scotland for S2s to find out more about the Manufacturing Sector in Scotland and especially about the importance to that sector of pupils with science, maths and technology qualifications, before making their Subject Choices. As Careers Scotland wish to change to a new format, all Education Authorities in South East Scotland area were asked to nominate 1 school in their area to take part in a pilot of the new materials. The new materials were constructed as a new Career Box lesson S2, lesson 7, parts A and B, and may now be accessed by all schools. In February the lesson was delivered to the pilot classes by teachers and the Enterprise in Education Advisers.

 

In East Lothian the pilot school was North Berwick High and the winning team from this school attended the South East of Scotland Final at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh on March 28th. Here the team took part in several activities: building and directing a robot, creating and marketing a new product, finding out about careers in Manufacturing and giving a presentation of their findings about the Manufacturing Sector in Scotland. The North Berwick team used Rolls Royce as their case study, gave an excellent presentation and had an interesting and enjoyable day.

 

All teachers who took part in the pilot project were asked for feedback and their comments will be taken into account when the Make it in Scotland lesson and challenge are finalised. It is hoped to offer the opportunity to take part in Make it in Scotland to all S2 classes in the South East of Scotland in the period January to March 2008.

 

If you wish further information about Make it in Scotland please contact Dorothy Stewart, Enterprise in Education Adviser, Careers Scotland Centre, Musselburgh

E: dorothy.stewart@careers-scotland.org.uk

T: 0131 653 1032 (direct)/0131 665 3120 (centre)

News

Musselburgh Cluster working together

Pupils and staff in all the Musselburgh schools have been very busy this session so far, being involved in a wide range of enterprise activities and experiences. We hope that you enjoy reading about what has been going on and sharing in the ideas coming from the schools.

On 22 February all the P7 pupils in the Cluster took part in an enterprise transition event at Musselburgh Grammar School, organised by the school co-ordinators and a group of P7 pupils representing each school. This was a most enjoyable event which was evaluated very positively by the pupils, who enjoyed the experience of making new friends and being in the “big” school – not to mention the activities they worked on at the event.

The School Co-ordinators in the Musselburgh Cluster have been meeting regularly this session and have held their meetings in  a different school each time. Part of the meeting time has been given over to the adults being given a tour of the school by some pupils. This has been very useful in sharing ideas and practice and has been most enjoyable. We would recommend this to other Clusters as a good way of working together.

Nursery/Primary, Whitecraig Primary

Whitecraig’s Enterprise Update

Whitecraig Primary has a number of exciting enterprise activities underway. A food co-operative has been set up which involves the whole community and, with the help of professional banking staff, a weekly savings scheme has been started. Following on from  a successful Christmas enterprise day, a similar event is planned for Easter, when parents will come in to school to work on activities with their children such as designing and making an Easter card, as well as an egg cup for the all important Easter eggs. A new business partnership with Dominos Pizzas in Musselburgh will result in a visit from some of the classes to the Dominos premises in Musselburgh, where the children will be shown how to make healthy pizza, using fresh ingredients. They will then bake this and, of course, …eat the pizza!