Category Archives: Literacies

Critical Literacy @ Lasswade Primary School

Posted on by
1

Lasswade Primary School are doing some interesting work across the school with Critical Literacy as a result of  a one day training day for Midlothian staff (Primary and Secondary school teachers and librarians – not sure if any librarians actually attended) as part of their CPD. The training Critical Literacy – Raising achievement through a Curriclum for Excellence was organised and run in partnership with the University of Edinburgh with a focus on “raising achievement across the curriculum through an action research approach to critical literacy ..”. 

The school formed a working group to plan and implement Critical Literacy which is seen as

“the way that we interact with and make meaning from different texts” and “involves the reader analysing and engaging with a text”.

Text being defined as anything which communicates meaning. For early years this includes looking at pictures for clues and forming opinions of characters in stories.

 Critical questions to ask of texts include: construction of characters; gaps and silences; power and interest; whose view: whose reality?; and questioning the composer.

The working group decided to use the Scots focus month to plan and implement Critical Literacy mainly at second level:

  • P5 – Scotland Today;    identifying and explaining difference between fact and opinion (Loch Ness Monster) ; looking closely at text to see how the author influences the reader to take their point of view about the character (Granny Porage & Greyfriars Bobby); to predict what might have happened if circumstances had been different in the story – different ending, implications of different ending(Greyfriars Bobby).
  • P6 – Scotland Homecoming Video: made their own Scotland homecoming Video
  • P7 – The Broons: recognising bias, views and values of characters, view of the world the text is presenting, understanding the purpose of text 

Support for Learning Teacher – Language programme for Scots Focus present Day:

They found that:

  • the children were motivated
  • enjoyed engaging with different texts
  • used critical thinking – very quickly began to question.

They are now looking at P1 – P4.  Louise Donaldson who is part of the working group is now the teacher for Primary 1 – and is using Goldilocks and the Three Bears to look at the text from different points of view – What would you do? Using role play and looking at moral issues. What would they (the children) have done in her (Goldilocks) shoes:

  • Goldilocks went into a house that she didn’t know – would you?
  •  She sat in chairs which broke etc.

It’s interesting to hear how this same story has been looked at from a critical literacy point of view / questions here compared to Kilmacolm Nursery Blooming Blooms questions. Both trying to encourage children’s critical thinking and questioning. It was also interesting to hear about critical literacy and see its important relationship to information literacy.

It was also interesting to hear about the work of the Support for Learning Teacher and to hear of how children start in Primary 1 learning sounds and key words.  They require support from the Support Learning teacher if the know less than 10 words.  In Primary 2  the Support for Learning Teacher sessions are about spelling and phonics – checking letters. 

Discussions also took place about when children start to copy text to record information they have found.  One solution offered to avoid copying text from books is:

  1. children pose question
  2. highlight bullet points
  3. close books
  4. use bullet points and put information into their own words.

My thanks to Lasswade Primary School, the Head Teacher,  Louise Donaldson and her colleagues Hazel Stewart (Support for Learning Teacher), Audrey McGlade and her P5 class for allowing me into their world and sharing what they are doing with me.

Literacy across learning in East Lothian

Posted on by
Reply

In East Lothian Anne Johnston, School Librarian / Field Officer at Dunbar Grammar School has been working with the Senior Librarian Young People’s Services, Agnes Guyon, from the public library service to look at information literacy for young people in East Lothian. They are hoping to

establish a consistent approach across all libraries – public branch libraries, primary school libraries and secondary school libraries.

To this end Anne is currently using the national information literacy framework to map skills for levels / ages and linking these to literacy outcomes and experiences. Their next step is to find out what is actually being delivered where. They realise they

can provide materials, training etc for primary and secondary schools and then it is up to individual schools.

In secondaries there are professional librarians who are already doing a lot of good work, as you know, who will be very happy to have a clear set of activities, curriculum links etc. We will be working together organising / providing materials, activities, suggestions. As Field Officer, I will be co-ordinating the secondary part. We are intending to include our links to QMU in this section.

We are using existing provision as the starting point for primary aged children too. The Young People’ s Services section of the library service is responsible for providing services to primary schools. They provide term loans of topic boxes to support investigations / projects and fiction boxes to each primary. They also help schools to maintain appropriate stock in their own school libraries and provide advice and professional support when requested. Agnes has also already met our NQTs this year. She and Susan Boylan, the Librarian Young People’s Services, gave a presentation to new teachers. Additionally, all branch libraries in East Lothian actively encourage classes from local primaries to take part in class visits on a regular basis. Activities during these visits are designed to develop information literacy skills as well as encourage children to visit their local libraries in their leisure time. We have already mapped these activites against CfE outcomes and experiences.

I’m sure that I will not be the only one who will be eager to see the outcomes of this work and will be catching up with Anne hopefully sometime in the near future. Anne’s contact details are ajohnston@dunbargrammar.elcschool.org.uk

Assessment for Curriculum for Excellence

Posted on by
2

The Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop announced the publication of the strategic vision and key principles for assessment in Curriculum for Excellence  at the Scottish Learning Festival on 23 September 2009.

According to the document:

The main differences from the existing assessment arrangements are that:

  • Assessment practices will follow and support the new curriculum.  This will promote higher quality learning and teaching and give more autonomy and professional responsibility to teachers.
  • Standards and expectations will be defined in a way that reflects the principles of Curriculum for Excellence.  This will support greater breadth and depth of learning and a greater focus on skills development including higher order skills.
  • A national system of quality assurance and moderation for 3 – 18 will be developed to support teachers in achieving greater consistency and confidence in their professional judgements.
  • A National Assessment Resource will help teachers to achieve greater consistency and understanding in their professional judgements.  There will also be a major focus on CPD to help teachers develop the skills required.

The document also contains information about the National Literacy qualifications being developed at

SCQF levels 3, 4, or 5. They will be available from S3 onwards and build on development of literacy and numeracy skills from earlier stages. Most young people will be presented for these qualifications before they leave school. The qualifications will be awarded on the basis of a portfolio of a learner’s work collected across a number of curriculum areas and  a range of contexts of learning, life and work and will involve external marking by SQA. The qualifications will be flexible to meet the needs of all learners including adult learners in colleges and other settings.

Something to look out for and hopefully influence.

According to the Assessment for Curriculum for Excellence website where there is a link to the Strategic Vision

Later this year, the Scottish Government will publish a Framework for Assessment as part of the Building the Curriculum series which will provide guidance and support to ensure that arrangements for assessment, at all levels of the educational community, support the values, purposes and principles of Curriculum for Excellence and build on the Assessment is for Learning programme.  The Scottish Survey of Achievement will also be redesigned to provide more information about young people’s literacy and numeracy skills.

The website also has a link to an Assessment strategy questions and answers PDF which contains 55 questions and answers. Including information that that they are “expecting schools and local authorities to develop their thinking about how they will work with the new standards and expectations over the course of this year” and that the “expectation is that from August 2010 assessment will be elated to the standards and expectations within the assesment framework”.

The Strategic vision document says that

The Framework for Assessment from 3 to 18 aims to create: 

  • a more effective assessment system which supports greater breadth and depth of learning and a greater focus on skills development
  • through collaborative working, a better-connected assessment system with better links between pre-school, primary and secondary schools, colleges and other settings to promote smooth transitions in learning 
  • better understanding of effective assessment practice and sharing of standards and expectations as well as more consistent assessment
  • more autonomy and professional responsibility for teachers.

Literacy Skills Project – Dundee College

Posted on by
Reply

Following a visit to Dundee College by Catherine Kearney, Sam Stirling, Learning Resources Manager at Dundee College contacted me about a Literacy Skills Project they are currently running for their Special Education Needs students at the College.

It is an amazing project which arose out of “a library service review which identified that they had limlited resources that were specifically aimed at Special Programme students. To ensure that they provided the necessary material to meet their special needs, a partnership project between the Library and Special programmes was established”.

The project has been running successfully for a few years and includes various external trips (Waterstones and DC Thomson) class based literacy sessions and project work. Last session the students created next year’s SEN Library Guide using Comic Life software.

The Comic Edition of the library and learning centres user guide 09/10 Dundee College is well worth a look and is an inspiration to us all along with the wider aims of this literacy skills project which has resulted in

The learners have taken ownership of the environment, as they have actively participated in the selection of the resources. Their voice has been heard and changes made that help develop their core skills and promote independent learning.

If you would like to find out some more about this project then I’m sure Sam Stirling s.stirling@dundeecollege.ac.uk would be happy to help.