I’ve received number of e-mails this week from parents pleading with me not to establish composite classes in their schools. A composite class is one where a primary school class is composed of children from more than one year group, e.g. P3/4 composite class.
The common theme in all the e-mails is that if I care about children then I can’t allow [...]
Read Full Post »
A Curriculum for Excellence provides us with a singular opportunity to radically transform our secondary school curriculum. It seems to be taken as a fact in education that change should be something that evolves over time “Evolution not revolution” - I’ve used the term myself on many occasions. But there are times when evolution just [...]
Read Full Post »
During my visit to Preston Lodge this morning I asked a class why they throught they were able to produce such outstanding work in the Art Department - and believe me it is outstanding.
The answer blew me away!!
“They take what we know and help us learn more” Natalie
Jim Cram, the Principal Teacher, explained that the [...]
Read Full Post »
I was in Macmerry Primary School this morning observing a P1/2 class and a P3/4 class.
I watched active learning in action when I observed the infant class work in three groups on reading and writing. I was really impressed by the ability of the pupils to work independently with real quality, whilst the teacher worked with another group. [...]
Read Full Post »
I was in Cockenzie Primary School this week and watched a P7 Maths class. The class was a top set but was made up of three differentiated groups. Each of the groups knew the level that they were working towards and understood what they had to do to make progress.
I was very impressed by the effective use [...]
Read Full Post »
I’ve been working on a draft for my next TESS article. I’d welcome comments and suggestions for improvement:
One of the best parts of my job is that I get to observe the learning and teaching process in all of our schools. One of the things that I’ve been struck by during my visits is [...]
Read Full Post »
I visited Dirleton Primary School this morning. The difference between visiting a school like Dirleton and a school like Ross High School is that I observed 100% of the teachers in Dirleton in a single morning.
It was good that I managed to speak to the teachers over coffee before visiting the classes and was able to [...]
Read Full Post »
As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post I intend to make three school visits each week in the coming session.
The focus of my visits are: leadership; self-evaluation and learning tasks.
At our Quality Improvement Group meeting this afternoon I was asked what I was looking for in relation to the last of these points of focus.
So here [...]
Read Full Post »
I had an interesting conversation with a teacher today about there being little need to differentiate in classes which have been set (put into ability groupings for certain subjects e.g. maths, english)
Such an assertion must be based upon the premise that all pupils are placed (through accurate assessment) in the appropriate set and that the class [...]
Read Full Post »