Glow Scotland

August 27th, 2010

“Which Writer Wins?” Chapter 1: The Author & Book pages

Gail Cairns

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Angus, Curriculum for Excellence, Pupils

The “Which Writer Wins?” initiative takes place each year in Angus and involves around 1200 pupils in 55 primary schools.

P5 pupils are invited to read, or listen to, at least one book by each of three different authors and then to vote for their favourite writer. This is the first of a series of cookbooks in which we’ll explore how Glow has added a whole new dimension to this enjoyable and hugely valuable project.

Visit this cookbook to find out how the “Which Writer Wins?” project aims to provide pupils with opportunities to:

• Read for enjoyment
• Develop awareness of genre
• Reflect on writers’ ideas and crafts
• Express their opinions and listen to the views of others

August 25th, 2010

MR BIG – The tale of a literacy project!

Gail Cairns

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Angus, Development, Glow Meet, Literacy

“What can Glow do for my pupils?”

One teacher’s question led staff tutor Graeme Reid down some quite unexpected routes, developing a literacy project encompassing early reading skills, functional writing and regular use of a gorilla suit.

Over the last year,  Graeme Reid has been seconded out of school three days a week to be a staff tutor in Angus.  Graeme’s remit includes supporting schools to use Glow to enhance learning and teaching. On one of his school visits, Graeme was asked by the P1-P3 teacher how Glow could be used with, and by, young pupils.

As copies of the picture book “Mr Big” had recently been given to all P1 pupils by the Scottish Book Trust, Graeme decided to use the book as the focus of a literacy project. “Mr Big”, by Ed Vere, is the tale of an enormous gentle gorilla who finds it difficult to make friends, as his physical appearance scares people away.

The Mr Big project focussed on developing pupils’:

• Early reading skills
• Listening and talking skills
• Functional writing

Visit this cookbook to find out how Glow was used to support the project by:

• Providing a wider audience for pupils to share their learning
• Providing pupils with opportunities to communicate with pupils and adults beyond their own school.

December 11th, 2008

Time to realise some benefits

Andrew Brown

Comments: 6 Comments » Tags: Tags: Aberdeen City, Angus, benefits realisation, Midlothian
 : Categories Aberdeen City, Angus, Midlothian

Today a small group of folk drawn from Aberdeen City, Angus, Midlothian, RM and Learning & Teaching Scotland got together for a workshop with a consultant to look into the area of Benefits Realisation. Part of the day was spent thinking about the original high level strategic benefits that the rollout of Glow would bring for users and administrators across the country, but the majority of the day was spent investigating how these high level benefits could be articulated in a much more meaningful, practical way for schools and local authorities to make use of.

Early on in the proceedings, it became clear why so often in many projects the area of Benefits Realisation gets placed in the ‘too hard’ tray, and only returned to at the end of the project. Tragically, this would be all too late in the process for many projects to provide any meaningful benchmarking or comparative data. With a project the scale and scope of Glow, production of benefits realisation documentation will be of great value to those tasked with measuring the progress of the project, and investigating how Glow has directly impacted on teaching and learning.

The challenge we face is in producing documentation out of the high level strategic benefits originally scoped at the outset of the project, that provides meaningful guidance for schools, local authorities and national agencies to work with. Not an easy task, but with the benefit (if you’ll pardon the pun!) of Glow, a task that we can make collaborative so that many can contribute?

Early in 2009, we’ll set up a Glow group inside Glowing Potential at the national level of Glow that will look at benefits realisation. In this group, we’ll put the documentation up for all to see as we’re working on it. That way, those with access to Glow can discuss it’s development in the Glow group and help shape it into a framework document for realising benefits that’s of value to us all.

Imagecredit: Trays Modern by JeffK (altered AB)