

Glow Scotland blog
Fife Council’s Cultural Partnerships Team, in partnership with Fife’s Childcare & Early Years Services and The Byre Theatre are delighted to announce their early years event ‘Creative Connections fife 2012’ on Wednesday 23 May 2012 at The Byre Theatre, St Andrews.
Bookings are still open, so if you are an early years practitioner or have a professional interest in this field, then this day will be of interest to you. Book today!
To book contact [email protected] or telephone 01592 583255.
Find out more about Creative Connections 2012 - An Early Years Gathering. Also visit our Glow Group
If you are unable to attend in person please join us via Glow. All sessions will be live on Glow TV - sign up and register for all the events in Glow TV!
MoreFriday 11th of May @ 11:00
Once again join Tam Baillie and the Blether Bear live from Eyemouth Nursery and Primary in the Scottish Borders to hear about all the exciting things your children said in a RIGHT wee blether.
Tam will be saying thank you to everyone who took part and telling the story of a RIGHT wee blether.
It will be a chance for your children to find out what the Blether Bear has been doing and to ask Tam what he has been doing since our last Glow Meet.
Sign up and join us for fun and games on the day!
MoreJessie Porter Nursery School in Dundee is a pre-school centre catering for close on one hundred children aged three to five years. Jessie Porter was recently recognised by HMIE as providing a “positive, supportive and purposeful learning environment” where well planned use of ICT features to “promote links across the children’s learning”.
In this cookbook, Jo Bell, an ICT Staff Tutor (Early Years / Primary), describes how she worked with Jessie Porter to develop a Glow Group aimed at showcasing the work that is going on in the nursery, strengthen Nursery / Primary transition links and to share how they are planning for and developing the Curriculum for Excellence in the early years.
Find out more in the cookbook here
MoreOur Glow TV team had an unusually early start to their Sunday as they braved the cold and snow and made their way to Edinburgh zoo for the arrival of two very special black and white guests. Known as Tian Tian and Yang Guang, or ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Sunshine’ the Pandas arrived just after lunchtime on Sunday 4th December to an excited throng of flag-waving well-wishers and a tartan-clad pipe band playing ‘Scotland the Brave’.
The pandas’ arrival marks the start of a ten year stay at Edinburgh Zoo, which many people hope will result in a baby panda. Baby or not, the new residents are sure to bring the zoo many new visitors, keen to catch a glimpse of these endangered bears. They arrived at Edinburgh airport, having made the 12 hour journey from China in a special ‘panda express’ Fed Ex plane with panda livery and a crew dressed in kilts.
Our Glow TV team of junior reporters, Callan, Cammy, Daniel, Emma and Evan, were at the zoo’s Education centre all morning, making Chinese lanterns and watching a panda presentation as well as capturing interviews with zoo staff. They, and lots of other children were then given special black and white jackets and hats and Scottish, British and Chinese flags to wave, before making their way down the hill to welcome the pandas from the airport.
The panda reporters did, of course, capture lots and lots of footage of the arrival excitement for Glow users and this week sees Glow TV turn into ‘Pandamonium’ as we bring you as much panda-related content as we can. Pam Currie from the Glow team will kick this all off on Tuesday at 2:30pm as she gives viewers a taste of what’s to come and provides sneaky early details of an exciting panda competition we will be launching.
After that, on Wednesday morning at 10:00 am, Pam is joined in the TV studio in Glasgow by Louise and Melissa from the Daily What News, our Glow news service for schools. They will share panda facts, discuss the related news articles and resources, and give more details and tips on the competition to win ‘Pandaphernalia’, or ‘cute black and white panda stuff,’ if you are groaning at our panda puns by now!
Later on Wednesday, at 2:30 pm Glow TV viewers can watch our ‘Pandamentary’ which offers a truly behind-the-scenes look at all the zoo arrival excitement we captured on Sunday. Watch our intrepid panda reporters take part in fun panda activities and see the zoo keepers’ panda presentation from the Education centre. We even managed to grab a real scoop, when our reporters were relaxing with a hot drink in the cafe, only to see Yang Guang’s truck being reversed alongside us as the zoo staff prepared to unload him to his new home. As true reporters would do, they quickly grabbed their cameras and ran back out to the cold to try to get some sneaky footage of Yang Guang in the back of the truck.
‘Pandaphernalia’ competition details will be revealed in all of these Glow TV broadcasts this week and entries will run until December 16th. Tune in and find out how to enter. A good few black and white panda prizes to be had, including two cuddly panda toys, panda wristbands, panda rock, panda sweets, panda pens and a panda keyring, as well as some limited edition Glow TV t-shirts.
Education Scotland has set up a special ‘UK Pandas’ blog to celebrate the arrival of Sweetie and Sunshine and suggest CfE learning ideas as an inter-disciplianary resource. The blog also contains integrated links to the Chinese Embassy’s excellent ‘Panda Pals’ site, the Fed Ex blog that tracked the journey from China, the Edinburgh zoo homepage and a special Edinburgh Zoo panda site as well as videos and a host of other links.
What do you do when Santa’s too busy to talk to you? You hold a Glow Meet with Mrs Claus of course! That was the idea that Margo Kerr in West Lothian had last year.
Margo is currently seconded from her nursery post at Kirknewton Primary School and is working as the Early Years ICT Development Officer within the West Lothian Council ICT team. Margo’s remit is to provide curriculum support to the Local Authority’s standalone nurseries.
Margo administers the West Lothian Early Years Glow Group, which is open to all Nurseries and Primary schools.
Last December, Margo was keen to use Glow as part of nursery and school Christmas activities and came up with the idea of having a Glow Meet with Mrs Claus.
To find out more read the Cookbook here.
MoreHave you and your class been taking part in a RIGHT Wee Blether? If so why not join our Glow Meet and share with us what you have been doing?
We all hope you have enjoyed blethering with your 2 to 5 year olds. In this Glow Meet you will see Tam Baillie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People in Broxburn Primary and Nursery talking to staff and children about how they took part, join us to show us your wee books about him and tell us your stories!!
We will also be looking at some of Our Wee Stories which have been returned to the office and if we’re lucky the blether bear will be there too.
So sign up and join us in Glow TV on Thursday 24th November from 11-12pm.
MoreDuring their first year at primary school, all children in Scotland will receive a free book with a message from Bookbug.
This year’s chosen book, ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ by Julia Donaldson, won in the 0-7 age category of the 2011 Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children’s Books. Thousands of children voted in this age group, so we are pleased to be gifting a book that really was their choice.
This Glow Meet will explore the book ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ including gifting ideas and fun activities that students and teachers can plan at school or in their classroom. The official gifting week is the week beginning November 21.
The session will be presented by Tracy Lowe from the Scottish Book Trust who is a regular Glow Meet presenter, her enthusiasm and love for books is clearly demonstrated in her presentations!
Sign up and join us on Friday 11th November at 10.45am.
More “Really useful way of teaching the topic, the pupils get really excited about it, when they see the log in screen, even on the smart board they shout Glow, Glow. It is something really exciting for them and it’s brilliant.”
Amy Lumsden and Ruth Torrance teach P1A at James Gillespie’s Primary School in Edinburgh. Following introductory training in Glow, Amy and Ruth were keen to investigate if the Glow tools and functionality could support learning and teaching in their class.
Read more on the cookbook here
MoreAre you involved in the Wee Blether? It started on the 12th September and nurseries and Primary 1 classes across Scotland are taking part.
Following on from the very successful RIGHT blether, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, Tam Baillie would like children between the ages of 2 and 5 to have their very own creative conversation using their own forms of expression. It’s important to get involved as it is a chance for young children to inform the Commissioner’s work, to celebrate the variety and diversity of the ways in which children might choose to participate and to encourage their active engagement and involvement.
Find out more about the Wee Blether and how you can be involved on the SCCYP website.
Why not join us live in Glow TV in a nursery setting in North Lanarkshire to see how the children there are getting on with their wee books and talking to staff? You too can join us to share your experiences of a RIGHT Wee Blether and take part in some interactive activities during the Glow Meet.
Why not sign up and join us in Glow TV on Tuesday 4th October from 11-12pm.
We look forward to seeing you then!
Pamela Deponio is Programme Director of post graduate awards in Additional Support for Learning, at the Institute for Education, Teaching and Leadership, Moray House School of Education, Edinburgh University. She is a well respected leader in the field of research and study of specific learning difficulties: Dyslexia and has published books and articles in this area. Today she delivered a seminar at SLF 2011 on ‘Assessing Dyslexia’, online toolkit for all teachers.
A groundbreaking online resource - the ‘Assessing Dyslexia’ toolkit - was launched in June 2010 and has since been widely disseminated. It can be found at www.frameworkforinclusion.org.
Click on the Glow Radio to listen to Pamela’s introduction to the seminar.
Pamela gave the background to the creation of the resource which should have a big impact on the difficulty schools and local authorities face getting to grips with identifying Dyslexia and how to best support children. She stressed the need for identification to be made as early as possible.
She took us into the resource itself and demonstrated how it can operate at 3 different levels depending on the level of knowledge of the teacher who is using it. The resource offers a pathway based on Curriculum for Excellence levels and stages of learning that all teachers can follow to ensure that appropriate assessment and support are in place for learners they are concerned with. There is then a wealth of materials available from starting the process, what to look for, factors to consider, planning and responding, reporting and support resources available.
Click on the Glow Radio to listen to why the audience had come along to the seminar.
The resource sets out to demystify Dyslxia, to encourage teachers to be confident in beginning to access. Pamela pointed out that in Curriculum for Excellence every teacher will now be a teacher of literacy and the toolkit provides an opportunity for all teachers to further their professional development in this area. The Support for Learning Teacher in a school is unlikely to become involved with a child until the class teacher has flagged up that there is an area of concern.
Although already in use, teachers can make the resource even more useful by providing samples of work to illustrate how dyslexia affects children in the classroom and what can be done to alleviate their difficulties. The team are looking for feedback and samples of pupil work from teachers at this address: [email protected]
You will also catch the Glow TV interview with Pamela Deponio by clicking here where you will be asked to log in with your Glow username and password.
Or on this link from Vimeo:
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