Angus MacRury’s Weblog

THis week I have been involved twice in organising a Staged Intervention Meeting. I have once again been very impressed with the response and support offered to the pupils of Innerwick by extenal agencies and different parts of East lothian Council. I know that this process only works if everybody is aware of all of the information about a pupil. Colleagues who I have spoken to this week have been very responsive and interested in the cases and have offered support prior to me asking. The effect of not bringing specialists in and thinking that “we can manage” is a very shortsighted view in regards the future potential of a pupil. Early intervention, professional support and co-ordinated action plans that identify courses of action and responsibilities really make the difference.

Kid Pix

This is the forgotten motivational tool for frustrated teachers wishing to integrate ICT into their learning and Teaching. Today as part of and Enterprise drive for our school fair we are using Kid Pix to create Artistic pictures for selling purposes. The motivation factor is high and all pupils are fully engaged. Once again working in pairs with a specific time frame per child there is constructive and interactive dialogue between pupils from different stages within the class. The work is of a very high quality and is produced within 15 minutes.

Kid Pix also allows pupils to construct talking books. I am sure that this is an underutilised resources that is on every primary build in East Lothian. I have P4/7 using Kid Pix regularly and as a result the quality of work and ideas have become of a very high quality.

Sixty Seconds

This is a really simple use of ICT to promote more effective listening and talking in the classroom. We have been trying this out recently with P4/7 with an astonishing amount of action points and next steps established for each pupil to improve their questioning skills and confidence in responding to questions. All that is required is a Digital camera like our Fuji 340. This takes 60 seconds of video and sound and having the pupils constrained by the lack of time we are challenging them to come up with quality questions and confident precise answers. We have also used this project in our nursery to target pupil with Speech and language difficulties. The early signs a re very positive. In P4/7 the lessons are embraced with enthusiasm and ever increasing confidence. In terms of assessment we have a progressive video diary of the performance of our P4/7 pupils as they work through the project. The children are responsible for all planning, videoing, uploading, filing, reviewing and reflection each time we set a challenge.  The project will last for the whole session. More post will follow. This project covers. ICT skills, Talking and Listening, Planning and Writing and Enterprise. In terms of ACE it covers aspects from Confident Individuals and Successful Learners