Materials for engagement

I've set up another site full of materials to help teachers, departments and schools engage with CfE and the new outcomes. Just click on the English and Literacy section. I'll be adding more over the next couple of weeks.

Among other things, there are diagrams explaining the layout of the outcomes, and a couple of pages which explain the differences between the new outcomes and 5-14/ Standard Grade.

Have a look here.

Draft English & Literacy Outcomes Published

Yes, they're finally out! Download them here.

More information and materials will follow.

Critical Essay Findings

The Aberdeenshire AifL project which has been looking at the teaching of critical essay writing has made great use of a pupil questionnaire devised by Linda Donnelly and Kathryn Russell of Meldrum Academy.

The questionnaire is designed to find out how well pupils feel they coped with different elements of essay writing and which teaching strategies they value. It consists of multiple choice questions and asks pupils their opinions on their knowledge of texts, their understanding of the task, structure, using quotations, timing and assessment.

Having now analysed the results, the group are going to focus on teaching strategies which:

• give pupils more choice when it comes to text and task
• involve more collaborative working
• focus on handling quotations
• raise pupil's awareness of the benefits of peer assessment

as these are the issues the questionnaires flagged up.

Linda and Kathyrn are happy to share the questionnaire. If you would like a copy to use with your pupils, please leave a comment with an email address and I will send it out to you.

More info on the progress of the project will follow in the coming months...

Books for Reluctant Readers

Publisher Barrington Stoke's books aimed at reluctant readers have been going down extremely well with pupils in Aberdeen City. Several departments have been using these titles which deal with themes affecting today's youngsters. Pupils, especially those unmotivated third year boys, seem to love them . Photocopyable teacher packs are available which are full of close reading questions and activities to generate writing and discussion.

Two particularly popular titles are TWOCKING by Eric Brown, and Burnout by Robert Swindells. TWOCKING deals with a group of friends who become involved in joyriding and have to deal with peer presure and ultimately bereavement and guilt. (The title refers to the Police term 'Taking Without Consent'). Burnout looks at firestarting and most English teachers will already be aware of the quality of Robert Swindells other novels.

To have a look at the full range of texts on offer, visit their website here.

CfE Twilight Seminar 11th Feb

I'm delivering a twilight seminar for Aberdeen City English and Primary teachers on Curriculum for Excellence. This will take place in Summerhill on Monday 11th February at 4.15pm. Teachers from Aberdeenshire and Moray would be welcome to come along too.

I'll look at the background and rationale of CfE, as well as discussing possible implications for English teaching. Language and Literacy outcomes will hopefully be released next month and this session will provide a context in which they can be considered. It will be best suited to those who have not had an opportunity to engage with CfE in schools.

Information should be out this week, but you can always email me at gomckenzie@aberdeencity.gov.uk if you can't find it or would like further details.

Burns Night Resources

It's Burns night on the 25th of January - if you're thinking of marking the occasion in your classroom or department, LTS have a few pages crammed with links and resources which will help. They look at Burns, Scotttish culture and also poetry in general.





You'll find Early Years resources here,

Primary Resources here

and Secondary resources are here.


In addition to this, the Robert Burns World Federation has organised a range of national and school-based competitions suitable for pupils in primary, secondary and special schools. The closing date for these is not till March 22nd. Full details here.

There are also school-based competions which you can run in areas such as verse-speaking and writing in Scots language. Work can be sent away and rewarded with official certificates from the federation. It may well be that work already completed can be recognised in this way.

I'd love to hear about any Burns-related work going on in schools over the next week or two!