Today I am using Cyber Cafe to teach a P6 class more about internet security. We will be looking at how to keep ourselves safe from anyone who has malintent in anyway. I want to encourage the pupils to use the internet without fear and without identifying themselves by givng away too much information. Earlier I tried to see if there were any good sites where the pupils could build themselves a suitable avatar to use when posting. I found one called doppelme which seems safe and I include my avatar for your amusement.


I was wondering if anyone has used avatars for pupils in school instead of using either their real image or none at all. Not using any seems a bit boring and as long as the pupils are not identified it adds a bit when you read their work or see their efforts on-line. After attending a course by Ollie Bray on internet safety I have become much more mindful but want to temper it with the pupils having the ability ,through the use of an avatar, to personalise their presentations. I supppose that if they choose a (suitable!) psuedonym to fit their avatar that should be OK. Or, has Ollie made me paranoid and just use pictures instead?

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It is always a chore to get my son Lewis to do his homework, especially repetative things like times tables and spelling. I’m always on the look out for things that excite him, take the pressure off me as a grouch and let us both enjoy homework with pleasure. I was pointed in the direction of tutpup by one of my colleagues, Dale Armatage, who, like me has a young family. This resource is for addition, subtraction,multiplication, division, algebra and spelling. It reminds me of World Maths Day as pupils play against one another to answer questions against the clock. It’s great on the interactive whiteboard, just watch them go! Another couple of sites are A Maths Dictionary For Kids and Maths Whack ‘Em Booster, both highly interactive and fun. The maths dictionary is great and I know I’ve mentioned it before but I rate the stuff done by Jenny Eather very highly. Her writing for fun is a teacher’s dream resource to aid writing in class. Her other site, Rainforest Maths has had to be taken off line as it was being ripped off by commercial developers. That has always been a concern, all of the sites above are free to use and hats off to the developers altruism. Merchant bankers and the so called money men could learn a wee lesson here about helping others before helping yourself. If you use these sites please use the feedback to let the developers know how much you appreciate their efforts. Better still get your kids to do it……

I found and interesting quote that made me think again about the purpose of schools. We are so wrapped up in so many initiatives and the sheer pressure of ‘managing’ a school that sometimes we lose sight of what is really important. The following quote from Anthony Seldon sums it up.

“This is about helping children become themselves. What is a school if it isn’t helping people find what they want to do? I don’t just mean careers. I mean teaching how to sing, dance, paint, act, write poetry, play tennis, play the guitar. We’d be a better, more harmonious society if people had these interests developed when they were young. But they don’t. That’s a cause of depression. And the things I’m talking about: children need them here [in school], but the more deprived the background, the less the infrastructure at home, the greater the need. If schools aren’t going to do these things, who is?” (Anthony Seldon,)

If we get the Curriculum for Excellence right we might just help achieve the above. Even if you don’t agree with Seldon’s politics his site is worth a look. Anyone who has enough brass neck to introduce happiness classes to 14-16 year olds has to be interesting!

 I have the pleasure to head up a Musselburgh Cluster project about money. All of the Musselburgh schools will be delivering the money outcomes from a Curriculum for Excellence at the same time and publishing the body of work for all to see at http://musselburghclustermaths.wikispaces.com/

The work will encompass all stages from Nursery to S3 at Musselburgh Grammar School. The project has a variety of purposes. We will have exemplars of planning formats, suggested lines of development for teaching staff, ways of assessing and tracking pupil work and publishing pupil work in a variety of formats. It will be very interesting to see a complete body of work across the schools that shows the progression as pupils move through nursery to secondary and how their grasp of money is developed. 

I have, however, one problem. The group are trying to find a Virtual Bank where pupils can set up bank accounts/credit cards, make purchases and keep an on-line account safely. I have had a quick search through a variety of search engines and can’t find one. Any ideas or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Today we received the final copy of our HMIe follow through report on the Inspection of the school in 2006. A copy will go home with every child. As a staff we were very pleased with the findings of the inspection team and feel it gives a very fair and balanced view. I include it here for your interest and comment.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION & CHILDREN’S SERVICES

PROGRESS REPORT ON PINKIE ST PETER’S PRIMARY SCHOOL

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIe) published a report on the inspection of Pinkie St Peter’s Primary School in January 2006.  The school, in partnership with the Local Authority, prepared an action plan indicating how they would address the main findings of the report.

The school, in partnership with the local authority, prepared an action plan indicating how they would address the main points for action in the report.  Progress on the action plan has been regularly monitored and evaluated by an officer of the local authority.  This report evaluates the extent to which the school is continuing to improve the quality of its work and the progress made in responding to the main points for action.

Point for action 1:

·        Continue to improve overall quality of teaching

Good progress has been made.

Assessment strategies are well established in all classes.  They are making a positive impact on attainment.  The school has made a good start to the introduction of the new national initiative ‘A Curriculum for Excellence’.

An independent evaluation of the quality of enterprising approaches learning and teaching rated the school as very good to excellent. Active learning is evident in early years classes. Plans are in place to extend this to all classes in session 2007/8

Staff have attended a range of professional development courses on formative assessment and learning and teaching.  They have incorporated some of the recommended approaches into their own classroom practice and shared the impact of the changes with colleagues.

The headteacher and depute headteacher have established links with local businesses, organisations and Queen Margaret University. There is a wide range of extra curricular activities. The depute headteacher has continued to develop health education, eco schools and international education.  These partnerships provide excellent contexts for learning and promoting wider achievement.

Senior staff have monitored the introduction and quality of teaching approaches through classroom observation and discussion with staff. There is a collegiate approach to changes in teaching strategies across the whole school.

Point for action 2:

·        Further improve the overall quality of learning, addressing issues of pace and challenge, particularly for higher achieving pupils.

Good progress has been made.

The senior management team (SMT) used classroom observation and team teaching to work with classes to enhance pace and challenge.

There is an extensive evaluation and testing programme. Baseline assessment in P1 is informing discussions between senior managers and teachers on their forward planning to ensure an appropriate level of support and challenge for pupils.  Overall teachers’ expectations for pupils’ work and pace of learning have improved. Setting is in place in some classes. Teachers target support to ensure children are progressing appropriately.  Learning support teachers have identified higher achieving pupils and appropriate strategies that will improve the pace of their learning.

The school has developed an effective system for monitoring, evaluating and supporting children with additional needs. There is close liaison between outside agencies, support for learning teachers and class teachers. Children are well supported.

Teachers share next steps in learning with children as part of the formative assessment strategies. Children are aware of the specific criteria for reading, writing and maths. Core programme target sheets for mathematics are included in children’s jotters and clearly displayed in classes. Children have learning targets, assess their progress and are becoming more independent learners.

A programme for personal writing has been developed and children now work to higher standards. Progression of reading skills has been developed for all levels. This has led to better pace of learning and consistency at all stages.

Action Point 3

Ensure that pupils from the Support Base are effectively included in mainstream classes.

Very good progress has been made.

The Support Base is now called the Learning Zone. It is used as a whole school resource as well as providing an excellent base for those children with severe and complex needs. All Learning Zone children are involved in whole school activities.

Mainstream children access the Learning Zone as part of integration, working alongside Learning Zone children and others from mainstream. Pupils and staff from the Learning Zone are timetabled to support children in class where appropriate. These timetables are sophisticated but well managed and clearly support the needs of the small number of very vulnerable children. Teachers across the school have benefited from partnership with the Learning Zone.  They have introduced an increased range of teaching approaches.

Mainstream class teachers are involved in the formation of Individualised Educational Programmes and receive copies of Forward Plans for individual pupils. These plans are evaluated on a regular basis through liaison meetings for each planning block.

An excellent soft play room has been established and well resourced after the school secured funding from a local business.

Teachers and support staff were very committed to the support and integration of pupils from the Learning Zone.

Action Point 4

Improve the use made of the system of tracking pupils’ progress to ensure they consistently attain in line with their capabilities.

Good progress has been made.

This is linked to Action Point 2.

The school introduced additional tests and evaluations to provide more detailed analysis of pupil performance and trends at all stages. Staff plan next steps in learning and ensure that pupils made more appropriate progress. More effective systems for tracking pupil progress were now in place. Pupils’ performance was discussed regularly between teachers and promoted staff and this was helping to improve attainment. Teachers’ assessments were now used to monitor pupils’ progress against predicted levels. Staff used assessment information to inform action where pupils were not making the progress that their earlier attainment had indicated they should. Plans are now in place for staff, with support from SMT, to take ownership of predictions and monitoring of attainment levels.

Continuous Improvement

The school shows very good capacity for continuous improvement.  Levels of attainment continue to be good.

Staff have been engaging with A Curriculum for Excellence and have adopted a range of appropriate strategies to improve learning.  The Primary 1 & 2 teachers have incorporated more active learning into the pupils’ experiences. This has had an impact on their achievement.

The school has continued to develop the use of ICT across the curriculum.  There is a wide range of technology in use and pupils are motivated and engaged by the activities.  Some classes used animations, garage band, i-tunes and made i-movies.

The school has achieved level 1 accreditation as a Healthy School and a Bronze Eco-School Award and is currently building on this success.

Plans are in place to further develop active learning, learning teams, links with local businesses and to investigate underachievement of boys in the upper stages.

Working Groups have been established to take forward improvements in, for example, reading and mathematics.

The school has recently refurbished the school library and, after discussion with staff and pupils, invested in new resources that will interest pupils of all ages and boys in particular.

The school is well placed to sustain and build on its current levels of good practice.

Conclusion

Pinkie St Peter’s Primary School has made good progress overall in the points for action set out in the HMIe report and has continued to provide a high standard of education for its pupils.  The current Head Teacher took up his post in May 2007 and improvements have continued.  There is a strong basis for continued improvement.

I am still perstiting with my collaborative writing project and will be adding work from the pupils here at Pinkie St Peter’s. I have come across some other resources that can help provide advice and a focus for motivating and directing pupils. I have used Comic Life with success in the past and will continue with it as it really motivates pupils and adds interest to their writing tasks across a variety of genre. Please note that is it now available for Windows as well as Mac. Some other comic making free web-sites are readwritethink which is quite a safe one and very easy to use. A couple of others you may wish to use with pupils but need a good checking out are stripgenerator and stripcreator, both of these also have adult content, especially stripcreator, so use wisely. A really good writing resource is to be found at khake which gives lots of advice in communication skills. A good cut and paste piece for your school web-site can be found at the Free Dictionary which has news, word games and a free on-line dictionary. For help with a variety of things Fact Monster is a good starting point, well worth a look.

Musselburgh High Street

I haven’t been keeping up with my blog of late for a host of reasons but I’m back. Back to my old home town, back to my old stamping ground and my old primary school. I have been the ‘New’ head here at Pinkie St Peter’s since the 8th of May. It’s strange to be back as Head Teacher as I was once a pupil here. It was strange to enter some of the classrooms, definite ghosts from the past! It’s a delight to be here. Pinkie was famous for its lack of speed but we now have a 10mb connection so all excuses for not keeping up to date are redundant. One of my first major tasks is to prepare an HMIE follow through report on the progress of our Action Plan. I am gathering in as much evidence as possible. Earlier on I did an analysis of our assessments and found, to no great surprise, a distinct difference between boys attainment and that achieved by girls. There is a clear difference in the levels of attainment. Now finding the whys and wherefores is my next task.

pinkie-attainment-data.xls

This very raw data shows that there is clearly something going on with the boys that needs to be investigated. This is not a unique Pinkie problem as this type of drift is something I have seen before in other schools. I am going to establish a pattern of assessment here to give me a base line on reading attainment using the Suffolk Reading Scale to measure progress over a year from Primary 3 to Primary 7. I’ll use my blog here to record my findings. At the same time I will audit all reading resources/practices here to see the best way forward. I am also constructing a new school web-site. Still in its infancy but to be put on-line soon.

We all know the effect of good teaching versus bad teaching, or , at least we think we do. I found a piece of research that explores these issues in some depth. It is called ‘Good Teaching Matters’ and is well worth a read.

Click on the graphs to see the measured, cumulative effect three consecutive good/bad teachers on a group of low attainers generally, maths students and reading attainment. The numbers are expressed as percentile points. The evidence is quite dramatic and stark and bears out what we all instinctively know. Bad teachers can damage the learning process. The effects of bad teaching are pernicious and have a long lasting effect. Bad teaching has effects on life choices.

Counter it with the effect of good teaching and the results are there for all to see. Although the research was carried out in America, I’m sure that similar work carried out here would bear similar results.

New statement of quality for a teacher…I would be happy to place my son in your class for a year. Too contentious for discussion?

How do we bullet-proof our schools so that the default for pupils is to succeed? Is it possible? It is certainly desirable and should be an outcome that we at least strive for. We have all sorts of measures in place in terms of How Good is Our School and other quality measures which measure success in their terms. The problem is that success does not have a constant value either across cultures or time. What was strived for in the past and valued as learning experiences now have no credibility, phrenology is a good example of what was once a science and is now viewed as a quaint and somewhat cranky idea. What are we teaching now that will be seen as irrelevant in the future? I’ll leave you to ponder. Certainly learners in the future will need more than a set of paper qualifications. Guy Claxton is a very influencial force in building learning power. He states that to thrive you will have to be tenacious and resourceful, imaginative and logical, self-disciplined and self-aware, collaborative and inquisitive. His book Building Learning Power is worth a read, in fact, buy a copy for your staff.
This leads us to the 5r’s that should be the vehicle for today’s learners
responsible
resilient
resourceful
capable of reasoning
reflective
and we should be using a pedagogy that uses an understanding of how learners learn to inform a responsive teaching process which effects inclusive and personalised learning. Learners learn through motivation, relevance, social process, memory and recall, learning styles, confidence, self-worth and positive attitudes. I believe that we should be actively teaching and promoting these to our youngsters today. When I reflect on my own educational experience as a child, motivation, relevance, confidence self-worth and positive attitudes were sadly lacking in the teaching style of the time.
The leader of any establishment sets the tone and ethos of the organisation. The culture of that organisation is the difference between nurturing and thwarting the educational process. The leader should foster a learning culture that develops the physical, social and emotional elements of development. I think it is clear that huge progress has been made in Scottish education over the past few years but we still have a way to go. If we continue to improve our ability to use reflective practice and self evaluation to measure the impact of:
leadership
learning and teaching initiatives
new initiatives and developments
improved and more relevant CPD
continuous learning
managing change
then we will place ourselves in a strong position to make our schools more pre-disposed to success.

Personal Learning Plans
Help! Has anyone used Wordpress as a template for a PLP? Please direct me to a source I can use as a guide.

Have you ever wondered where some people get that unshakeable self belief and supreme confidence? Not the misplaced variety we see on shows like the x-factor and others of that ilk. Well, there is a huge body of secure evidence that tells us we can do something about this for our pupils and dare I say even ourselves, but we must teach it and teach it consistently to bring it out in all of our youngsters.

I was given seven big messages about learning recently and include them here for your comment: Continue Reading »