A date for your diary . . . courtesy of Education Scotland

Robert Louis Stevenson Day will take place on Friday 13 November, though celebrations will be taking place all week, from 9—15 November. This year the theme will be ‘Stevenson on Stage and Screen’ and pupils of all ages can take part in celebrating Stevenson. To find out more about how you can be involved, visit Edinburgh City of Literature Trust’s website: cityofliterature.com/rlsday

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894), novelist and poet, was born and bred in Edinburgh. He wrote poems, stories and novels for children and adults, in Scots and English, travelled all over the world, and was gifted with a vivid and lively imagination. He is one of the best-loved and interesting authors of all time. His best-known books are Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Kidnapped. He is known as RLS for short, and his life and work are celebrated every year on his birthday, 13 November: we call it RLS Day.

The Scots Language Co-ordinators have produced some resources on the writer’s work. For more ideas about how to celebrate this great Scottish and Scots writer visit the Blether: Scots Blether RSL resources

Shared courtesy of Education Scotland – 

A  competition has been launched to help primary school children understand how the latest research becomes headline news in the media.

The ‘Rewrite the Headlines’ initiative will work with schools to assist young people to better understand what research is and how it gets reported in the media. They will get a better understanding of the journey from “lab to headline”, so they can more confidently judge any research stories they might come across. Equipping children to evaluate what they read and hear is a valuable life skill.

http://researchtheheadlines.org/rewritetheheadlines/

Yesterday the Literacy and English team at Education Scotland released their revised professional learning paper and progression framework as part of the Assessing Progress and Achievement resource.

There are three significant aspects of learning (SALs) in Literacy and English.

• Listening and talking
• Reading
• Writing

Although teaching and learning will often take place across more than one significant aspect of learning, a learner may achieve a level in listening and talking or reading or writing. Progress and achievement within these three significant aspects of learning in literacy and English will be evidenced as children and young people achieve across these key themes:

• engage with a broad range of increasingly complex texts, including Scottish and Scots texts
• develop and apply knowledge and understanding of language
• find, use and organise information, including developing critical literacy skills
• use reading and listening strategies to understand, analyse and evaluate texts
• create texts of increasing complexity using more sophisticated language.

CLICK HERE – Literacy and English Assessing Progress and Achievement
CLICK HERE – Revised Literacy and English Professional Learning Paper
CLICK HERE – Revised Literacy and English Progression Framework

The relevant changes to The Highland Literacy Progression – Steps to Success will be made in due course to reflect the changes at National Level.

As well as the training in Highland provided by Highland Libraries on the P1 Bookbug pack, you can find an event on Glow TV which can be accessed remotely if you are unable to attend one of the Library events over the next few weeks.

CLICK HERE Highland Library events – P1 Bookbug Update 

Bookbug Primary 1 Family Bag Session
Wednesday 28th October @ 4pm

Join Scottish Book Trust as they introduce you to the Primary 1 Family Bag, a free bag of books and resources for every Primary 1 pupil in Scotland. The bag can provide the springboard for a whole host of creative learning opportunities and gives pupils the chance to vote for their favourite book in the Scottish Children’s Book Awards. We’ll go through the practicalities and show you how you can make the most of this wonderful resource!

Primary 1 Bookbug packs should have arrived in schools now. Highland Libraries kindly ask that P1 Bookbug packs remain in school and are gifted, where possible, during Book Week Scotland between Monday 23^rd November and Friday 27^th November 2015. CLICK HERE for information on P1 Bookbug training in Highland. Golspie training now taking place on Thursday 5^th November 2015.

CLICK HERE for Education Scotland’s key development messages for the 2015/2016 session in Literacy and English.

Have a great October break!

Why not create a display where learners are able to identify character traits? This could be from a text in guided or independent reading. There’s scope for learners to make comparisons between characters across a number of texts.

CLICK HERE – Character Traits: Read, Write, Inc.

Scholastic have some suggestions of how to introduce and develop character traits when analysing texts.

CLICK HERE – Scholastic Character Traits

This Thursday, 8th October, is National Poetry Day. This year’s theme is light.

The Forward Arts Foundation has created some great free resources for teachers to use on National Poetry Day.

CLICK HERE to download Primary and Secondary resources

You can also find some brilliant learning resources from the Scottish Poetry Library on the theme of Light.

CLICK HERE – Scottish Poetry Library resources

Even if you’re not celebrating National Poetry Day this week, check out the resources as they may come in useful when you’re teaching poetry.

Following our earlier post on the upcoming training from Highland Libraries on using the P1 Book Bug Pack, there are now fifteen events across the Authority in October and November.

CLICK HERE to find out more about the sessions.

Please email the contacts below directly to book a place. This is a great opportunity for classroom practitioners and the library service to work together.

If you’re attending the training, the staff at Highland Libraries ask that the P1 Book Bug packs do not go home with children until after the training.

Check out The Communication Trust: What Works webiste by clicking the image below.

The website, once you have signed up, will allow you access to a number of interventions to support speech, language and communication. There are resources to support universal teaching as well as targeted support.

These resources will complement and supplement the activities within the Highland Draft Developmental Continua.

CLICK HERE – The Communication Trust: What Works

My Storybook is a fantastic website that can be used to create texts online. Learners can select scenes, create images and write words – a great way to support the development of digital literacy skills. To check it out, click the image above.