Last week my colleague Jayne Easson and I accompanied 12 S4 pupils to the annual Outdoor Education Challenge. This year it had a watersports theme with the pupils (and staff) getting a taster of Kayaking, Canoeing and Sailing. The pupils have a brilliant time trying out the various activities and I particularly enjoyed sailing the Lazer picos although it was a bit scary in the gusts!

The event finished with a rather chaotic race to retrieve a ball. I am very pleased to report that the Knox Academy team won the trophy.

This afternoon I received a phone call from Claire McCallum from the BBC. Admittedly when I received the message from the school office I thought they had asked for the wrong person!

However, I was invited to join the BBC Learning Secondary Consultative Panel. This is not something I had even heard of before but it sounds very interesting. The literature I have since been sent states that

The panel is a reference set of “critical friends” whose contributions can help to inform our provision of resources for the secondary sector.

I was very curious to know why I was being invited to join this panel only to find out that I had been located through this very blog!!

Yesterday I visited Liz Brookes, Principal Teacher of Outdoor Education within East Lothian Council. The reason for my visit was that Liz had very kindly offered to talk to me about the various qualifications I would need in order to become GTC recognised as a Teacher of Outdoor Education.

We are very lucky in East Lothian as we have a very good and busy Outdoor Education Team who not only provide lots of opportunities for our pupils but also provide a wide variety of staff development opportunities. I intend to book onto various courses over the coming months in order to build up my qualifications. In addition, Liz is also allowing me to help the team out during my spare time to build up my experience.

 I would like to thank Liz for taking the time to talk to me.

It doesn’t seem very long ago that I was planning a sailing voyage on board Greater Manchester Challenge for 11 S2 and S3 pupils. The trip has now been and gone and we have already started the planning process for next years trip. We left Knox Academy on Monday 19th May and headed to Troon Yacht Haven to meet the 78ft Gaff rigged ketch that was to be our home for the next week. We were welcomed aboad GMC with a lunch of soup and sausage rolls. After a discussion on our aims for the week and all the relevant familiarisation and safety briefings we departed a plan to get to Campbelltown.  After alot of ‘feeding the fishes’ we arrived at Campbelltown where we stayed the night. The next day was another long sail round the Mull of Kintyre to Bowmore on the Island of Islay where we anchored for the night. Both days had been tiring for all the pupils so we made the descision to stay in Bowmore on the Wednesday. This allowed the pupils to have a look round Bowmore and go swimming. On the Thursday we left Bowmore at 7am to head back to Campbelltown. Due to weather and tidal conditions the sail took us 21 hours and we arrived in Campbelltown at 4.30am on Friday morning, just in time to watch the whole of Cambelltown fishing fleet leave - quite a sight to see! Friday morning was spent catching up on some well needed rest and buying goodies for the remainder of the trip. We left Campbelltown late afternoon to enjoy a short sail up the Mull to Carradale Bay where we played lots of games around the table. On Saturday we sailed up round the top of Arran and headed back down towards Troon before heading off to the beach to play rounders. We cleaned the boat on Sunday morning before leaving on the bus to go back to Haddington. A great week was had by all and I must thank my colleague Peter Doig for stepping in to help at the last minute.

I read with much excitment the statement made by the Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop yesterday about the future of Scottish Education. This is truly a very exciting time in education and these plans will allow for a greater flexibility in the curriculum which will take away the pressures of subject choice and external exams for the younger pupils whilst equipping them with the necessary skills for later life. In addition, it will allow more time to study for Highers which, particulalry in History where there is vast amounts of information can be very rushed. I look forward to hearing more about this in the coming months.

Last week we were visited by Matt Roache from Ocean Youth Trust Scotland who delivered a very enjoyable presentation to both parents and pupil involved in the sailing trip. Matt explained what it would be like for the young people from the minute we arrive on the boat until we leave 7 days later. He showed some video clips including a snapshot of a typical voyage. This was a real eye opener to the pupils as they saw what life was like at sea from the people working on deck to people enjoying their time off watch by reading a book or chilling in their bunks. Matt also told the pupil about ‘Happy Hour’ which we will have every morning. This is when the music is put on and we clean through the boat.

I was really pleased when one pupil came up to me the next day and told me that he is even more excited (I didn’t think this would be possible!) than he was before.

I would like to thank Matt for braving the horrendous weather and coming into Knox to give a fantastic presentation.

Today I attended a Podcasting session run by the East Lothian ICT support team. Before the session I had a pretty good idea what Podcasting is and how I can use it in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning. A few weeks ago I posted about my S1 Modern Studies class who have asked to do Podcasting as part of their Mock Election campaign.

This meant that I went into the session with very clear aims:

• Find out what equipment is required
• Find out what software is required
• Find out how to post it to the internet

The session started with an introduction on what Podcasting is. We were shown a number of podcasts by various schools across Scotland and East Lothian. We were then shown the software that we would be useing and how to use it.

The rest of the session was given over to hands on experience of the technology. Although, it was dissapointing that some of the technology failed us, the course certainly left me with a much clearer idea of how I can bring Podcasting into my teaching and I have even learned how to post the Podcasts to a blog. This means that the class can link up their blog to any Podcasts they make.

I would like to thank David Gilmour, Dave Rawson and Tess Watson for presenting a very interesting course and Ann Cochrane for arranging it.

This week my S4 classes have been studying how all German people were affected by the Nazi regime under Hitler. We have looked at verious groups of people in society from women to workers and from Christians to the Jewish. Yesterday we were looking at the young people both in schools and in the Hitler youth.

I found a fantastic PowerPoint on School History which I used as a basis for some very successful lessons. Firstly, I asked my head of department as well as another two colleagues to enter my room at the start of the period. Meanwhile, the pupils were arriving outside my door. They could hear lots of shouting from inside the room as we were pretending that we had a technology problem delaying our big announcment which was to be given to every school child in Scotland at exactly the same time. By the time the pupils were allowed to enter they really believed something was very wrong. I have never seen the classes so quiet!

I then talked through the PowerPoint which outlined how the Scottish Curriculum was going to be changed. This included seperate subjects for boys and girls, the abolition of subjects such as RME, Modern Languages and History. Of course, these were to be replaced with Scottish Heritage, more PE for boys and Domestic Science for girls. There were many moans and groans, especially when I told them that as of Monday school would start at 8am!

I was so surprised that only one pupil out of my two classes did not believe it to be true. Only when I told them that their noses would be measured did they realise that I was ‘winding them up’.

Nonetheless, when I informed them that I had in fact been ‘winding them up’ everyone of them knew that the reason behind the lesson was to show them what it would have been like for children in Germany, and it really made them think about how those childrem must have felt.

For the rest of the day yeserday and today I have had comments from other members of staff and pupils about ‘that’ lesson. One thing is for sure, they may never forgive me for scaring them but they won’t forget what happened to young people in Nazi Germany!!

Last week I posted about Carl Williams, the new drumming tutor working with the East Lothian Piping and Drumming Trust. Yesterday Carl gave an fantastic drumming display in the school hall. Although this was held at lunchtime, around 50 pupils arrived to hear Carl play. Carl outlined what he expects from his students, this includes not only commitment to practicing their instrument but also to their school work. In addition, he informed the pupils that next week auditions will be held in the school hall and all pupils interested in learning to play in the school drum corps will be asked to take part in this audition. It was great to see so many pupils showing an interest and I look forward to hearing them next week. The picture above shows Carl during the display and was taken by Jim Hunter, a colleague of mine and very talented photographer.