Ocean Youth Trust Scotland has been named Sail Training Organisation of the Year by Sail Training International at its annual conferance held in Liverpool. OYTS was selected from organisations across 20 countries, recognising excellence, innovation and outstanding performance.

We were joined by Sue again today to help us pull together the project that we have been working on all week. Sue had set out a structure that could be applied to our individual sections. This means that the final project has a more consistant approach throughout. We spent the whole morning editing and bringing together all the Teacher notes and the Pupil notes and by 12.30 we had our final project. The web designer now has the task of turning our thoughts into an interactive, user friendly, online resource to be used in schools across the country.

We were then treated to another fantastic lunch with the most wonderful sandwiches I have ever seen! We were joined by the whole JMA team who seemed really interested in, and excited about, what we had been doing during the week.

This afternoon Emma had organised three curators from other departments to come to talk to us about the work that they do in the Library. They had been asked to bring along their favourite three items from the collections that they work with. Our first guest was Dr Marina Castrillo who is the Manuscripts Curator. Maria brought along a selection of manuscripts including a diary of a Scottish emmigrant to Canada. Dr Brian Hillyard who is the Rare Books Collection Manager brought along three rare books including one of the first books for the blind ever published. Finally we were shown a selection of graphic novels from John Birch the Assisstant Purchase Curator. This started an interesting discussion about using books, traditionally written off as mere comics, to engage the most reluctant of readers. I was particuarly interested in the Maus books which raises issues about the Holocaust.

I have had a fantastic week at the National Library of Scotland. I have been given the opportunity to work with a wonderful collection of manuscripts and learned a great deal about the workings of the Library. I have developed skills that I can use in the classroom, particularly in developing resources directly related to the Curriculum for Excellence.

I would like to thank everyone at the Library, particulalry the JMA team for making us feel so welcome and Careers Scotland for organising the placement. I also appreciate the support I have received from Knox Academy and East Lothian Council for allowing me to take this once in a lifetime opportunity. Finally, I want to say a massive thanks to the four people that I have spent a great deal of time working with this week, my colleagues Donald and Martine, our consultant Sue, and of course Emma who has supported us throughout the project.

If anyone reading this is thinking about applying for a EEBL Teacher Placement, particularly within the National Library of Scotland, I would encourage you to go for it. It really is a once in a life time chance to do something different which builds on skills required in the classroom.

After a brief planning session first thing this morning, we set about re-drafting our individual sections from yesterday. The overall unit is looking really good and it was great to see it, all be it in draft form, being put together as a single unit.

 We worked independently again this afternoon and I looked through Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Scotland to find quotes that will form the basis of links on the website to each regional section. It was interesting to note that Murray did not like Shetland and spends at least a page picking fault with the remote islands!

Tomorrow Sue will be joining us again to help us bring the final project together and tidy it up so that it is more consistant. We will then present it to the JMA staff.

Today was another very busy and challenging day at the National Library. We met Emma who had set aside some work space for us to use within her office. This was to allow us access to computers, the internet and printers. We were also given a space to allow us to sit down together as a group and plan our resource. Emma then showed us a PowerPoint slide she had made using the outline we had provided of how the website homepage will look.

We then briefly discussed the progress that had been made yesterday and agreed that today we just wanted to get started on laying the foundations of our resource. We decided that the best way to do this would be to split the tasks into three and each take a section to work on independently.

The three sections were:

• Scotland and the Scots
• Murray’s Handbook for Travellers to Scotland
• Designing a local travel guide

I decided to take the second section. This seemed the most logical choice as it is the area most closely related to the study of History. I started drafting a worksheet that pupils will use in the classroom. I designed it in such a way that it can be used by teachers to stimulate a class discussion as well as for pupils to write their answers on. I moved on to draft some teachers notes, explaining how teachers may like to use the resource in the classroom. At this point I felt it important to emphasise the way in which the resource can be used accross the curriculum.

During lunchtime Emma had organised a visit from Ken Cockburn who was the John Murray Archive’s writer in residence in 2006. Ken clearly had a great deal of knowledge about various aspects of the collection and experience in using the material as a teaching resource, as during his time at the library he had run workshops with both adult groups and with groups of Primary 7’s. Ken then set the three of us a task to write a letter to a historical figure. I shall not rewrite my letter here but I will tell you that I chose General Haig. The task he set was useful and I know my English colleagues are keen to try it out in their classrooms.

We then decided that the teacher’s notes that I had typed up this morning could be used, with some additions, as the Teacher’s guide to the whole unit of work. We spent the remainder of the afternoon editing this guide. By 4.30pm we had in place a full Teachers’ guide and draft versions of the pupil tasks to be included in the pack.

We started the morning by planning an outline of the resource that we will be desgning. The obvious place to start seemed to be with taking a note of our key aims for the unit of work.

The aims we felt the unit will cover are:

• Pupils will gain  knowledge and an understaning of their local history and environment.
• The resource will provide stimuli for reading, writing, listening and talking.
• The task will promote individual research skills.
• Pupils will gain experience in differentiating between fact and opinion.
• The unit will promote cross-curricular links.
• The unit will take into account the key capacities and principles of the Curriculum for Excellence.

We then agreed that the title of our project will be ‘Tae see Oorsel’s…’ The final task will be a discursive piece of writing which of course relates directly to to the English curriculum. However, as a History teacher I am keen to promote a cross curricular theme and therefore the ideas that we have come up with will allow teachers in a variety of subject areas to use the resource. For example, in History, Geography, Modern Studies, RME, ICT, Art, Home Economics, Business Education, Maths and Modern Languages, to name a few!

We then started thinking about the layout of the resource and how it would look on the NLS website.

The remainder of the day was spent looking closely at some of the manuscripts held within the John Murray Archive to pick out sections that we want to use in the resource.

 Again it was another very productive day as we now have an outline of the resource and have done some research to find key extracts. Tomorrow promises to be another exciting and challenging day.

Today was the start of my EEBL Teacher Placement with the National Library of Scotland. I applied for this placement a couple of months ago as it sounded very interesting. The brief we were given was that we would be helping the library put together a resource for use in schools based on the collection within the John Murray Archive.

 The John Murray Archive is a unique resource containing the collection of works published by John Murray publishers. The archive, which dates up to 1920, contains 150,000 items including correspondence, business records and manuscripts. Amongst these works are Charles Darwim’s On the Origin of Species, Jane Austen’s Emma and Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’sPilgrimage.The National Library of Scotland aquired the Archive in 2005 at a cost of 31.2 million pounds. This was part funded by the Scottish Executive and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

 We started off this morning by getting to know the people we would be working with. There are two other teachers who I will be working with this week, Martine MacMillan from Madras College, St Andrews and Donald Murray from Sandwick School, Shetland. Both are Teachers of English. We were met by Emma Faragher the National Library’s Education and Outreach Officer who explained that our aim this week is to develop the raw materials for a set of activities that can be used to support the teaching of English at S1-S3.

 We were then issued with Readers Tickets. I must say that this process is a lot less intimidating than it was when I used the Library as an Undergraduate. Gone are the days of the interview just to get a one month Reader’s Ticket and the security gate has gone too! Following this we were given a tour of the reading rooms by Louise McCarron who explained how to use the catalougue and gave us the procedure for reserving books.

 Emma then took us downstairs to the Conservation Department. This was fascinating and not somewhere that you get to see everyday. We were shown round by Katie Kidd who explained the work that she was doing with the historical artifacts from the Archive. We were also shown the best way to preserve the books and manuscripts that we will be using this week.

Our next visit was to meet the Curators working with the John Murray Archive, David McClay and Rachel Thomas. Both talked very passionately and with a great deal of knowledge about the collection. They took us to see the exhibition that has been set up to make the collection accessable to the public including a short film show and an interactive museum. We were then taken to see the collection inside a very secure iron cage. As the only historian, I was fascinated by the historical evidence held within this immense collection. Not only does it contain famous works from these well known writers but it also houses their personal accounts and correspondance giving real insight into their lives and events at that time.

After a lovely lunch from the Library we met Andrew McDougall who is the Library’s Training and Development Officer. He gave us a couple of activities to start us thinking about a theme for the resource. He then left us to discuss a topic and our ideas with Sue Moody who has experience of designing teaching packs and resources with Learning and Teaching Scotland. After much discussion we decided that a thematic approach would be better than looking at an individual writer and that we would focus on the theme of Exploration and Travel Writing. This was particulaly interesting to me as we were looking at the changes in society at different times.

All in all it was a very productive day and I am very much looking forward to getting started with the research part of our task tomorrow now that we have agreed on a topic.

 A while ago I wrote a post about my S3 class who asked for a homework exercise that I had set my class the year before. I set the task in October and gave the class a month to build model trenches at home. The date set was the week before Remembrance week and so the models were displayed in the Library all last week. At the end of the week the Head Teacher and the Librarian picked three winners.

As you can see in the photos above, the standard of the models was fantastic and the judges had a very difficult job picking the winners. Well done to all pupils involved!

Ocean Youth Trust Scotland announced this week that they are to add a third boat to their fleet.

Further to discussions at the Gathering last weekend our Patrons, Curly and Barbara Mills have indicated that they are in a position to provide the necessary funds to support the purchase of another vessel from the BT Global Challenge fleet.
Following unanimous support from the last board meeting to support the purchase of another vessel, and the further generous support from our Patrons, we made an offer for one of the remaining vessels early this week, which has just been accepted.

Last year at this time Curly and Barbara Mills made another very generous donation providing the finance for OYTS to double it’s capacity by buying Alba Explorer an ex-BT Global Challenge boat. This proved to be a successful addition to the fleet. This third boat will again increase the capacity of the organisation allowing more young people the chance to experience Adventure Under Sail.

Congratulation to OYTS and a massive thank you to Curly and Barbara.

Thursday saw the Remembrance Assemblies at Knox and the debut performance of the Pipeband. The service started with an introduction from the Head Teacher and then a slide show designed by my colleague Kath Anderson. The wreath was brought to the front by our Head Cadet and the Head Boy and Head Girl placed it on the wall whilst the Pipe Band played Highland Cathedral. We then heard an extract from Anne Frank performed with passion by a senior pupil and a very personal story from English Teacher, Dave Swinney.

I was very pleased with the way the Pipe Band played. Many members of staff and pupils have commented on how moving the service was with the addition of the pipes. It was a great privilage to be able to contribute to such an important assembly and I hope this will be the first of many performances.

 This week my Second Year classes have been studying the Triangle of Trade as part of our Slavery and Racism unit. Their task this week was to produce a TV advert to highlight the treatment of the African people during the Middle Passage, when they were taken across the Atlantic on a tortures and dangerous voyage lasting nearly 3 months. I gave them examples of adverts such as those for Oxfam and the RSPCA etc. They were told that they must have a presenter and the rest of the group should act out the horrendous conditions faced by those poor people stipped of their freedom. We recorded the adverts and we watched them back as a class. The adverts that the pupils made were of a very high standard as they had paid attention to details such as the force feeding of the slaves, breaking their teeth to ensure that they got the food that was meant to keep them alive. In addition, the adverts included the cramped conditions and the harsh punishments faced by the frightened slaves.