The Daily Grind

It’s a day for Congratulations -

Firstly to Sat, our P6 teacher!!

He’s been accepted as a Glow (formerly SSDN) Mentor for our Authority. A really good development opportunity for him – and I’m sure we’ll get some positive spin-offs for the school as well.

Secondly to Andrew, our Education Support Officer for ICT!!

He’s moving on to work in a seconded post for LTS – developing a new online facility for teachers in Argyll. An exciting project in which we wish him well. Read more about it here.

While we’re pleased with his success, we’ll be sorry to lose him. He’s provided us with much advice over the last few years and has helped us develop our thinking and practice in ICT.
I think I might know how to keep in touch though!…
We had a great session this afternoon for the Parents and Carers of our new P1 children.
It was an opportunity for us to share the P1 curriculum with them and is something we have done now for a number of years. Each year we learn a bit more and try to modify accordingly.
For a while we have been aware that there is only so much information @ this stage in the session that is both useful and meaningful. This year we cut down the information to the absolutely necessary and also gave participants a handout from our Powerpoint presentation.

The feedback from today has been positive. The participants were appreciative of the additional information – and the ways in which they can support their child’s learning. the handouts went down well; and the questions they asked at the end have been noted for inclusion next year.

We had two very positive and significant outcomes.

The first was the suggestion that we hold a Parents’ Workshop for Maths.
It seems that some parents would be interested in finding out the methods we now use to teach some mathematical concepts in order to help out with homework, particularly for older children. We, as teachers, know that the way we teach our pupils has changed certainly from the ways in which we were taught as pupils ourselves. It is clear that parents want to be better equipped in using these more up to date methods at home as, understandably, their children are confused when shown a different way at the homework table.

The second was the positive reaction to the creation of school blogs.
One parent spent quite a bit of time with me enthusing over these. I’ve spoken to a number of staff who are keen to set one up. We like the idea of creating a real context for writing and the prospect of a real and wide audience is an exciting one. In reading others the comments do certainly seem to motivate the children into blogging more…

I also mentioned that I have one, and the first school newsletter will be due next week. However, before I advertise the URL I need to give more serious thought to its use for Parents and others.

Like JJ though, time is very limited for all else now that term has started. Perhaps, instead of sheep-counting, I’ll do some hard thinking instead!