Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

Had the typical day in Pupil Support……time for planning at a premium, firefighting on about 14 different fronts and then, magnificently at the end of a long day, a bit of inspriation after all the perspiration. I went to a
meeting in Haddington about trying to follow through the ideals of ‘
A Curriculum for Excellence ‘. This recharged my weary batteries with a vision of the way learning and teaching could be.

It’s early days at the moment but has given me an abundance of ideas, it is a really exciting time to be involved in education in Scotland. The potential of the technology to connect pupils, parents, teachers and the wider community is enormous and I believe it will help education ‘catch up’ with modern life and bring ‘formal’ learning fully into the 21st century.

From an
SQH perspective, as I prepare for my school improvement project and clarify in my mind what I’m trying to achieve, being around the sort of creativity and open thinking that I experienced today helped give me more courage to try something new, while remaining vigilant about what is being delivered to the youngsters. I am hoping to set up a ‘
wiki ‘ page to gauge the views of parents, pupils, staff and members of the community about the current ’state of play’ as regards the perception of behaviour in the school. I also hope to use it to share ideas about how to make the whole school experience better for all, especially those who are disengaged from learning.

On a different note we found out one of our two cats died, probably poisoned. Not good. Emotions in the house are running high, thankfully my son is too young to realise.