ACTIVELY ENGAGING CHILDREN IN SHAPING SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT AT NORTHMUIR

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ACTIVELY ENGAGING CHILDREN IN SHAPING SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT AT NORTHMUIR
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Actively Engaging Children in Shaping School Improvement at Northmuir Primary School - transcript

Actively Engaging Children in Shaping School Improvement at Northmuir Primary School



HEADTEACHER: I’ve been involving children in school improvement planning for a number of years now and I believe it’s really important. I think it’s very important that the whole school community understands and shares the same aims around improvement. So when I’ve written the adult improvement plan, I then make a child-friendly version of that. And in that child-friendly version we have targets that we’re all working towards and also success criteria, so we’ll know how it is that we’re improving.



HEADTEACHER: And I share these with the children, I share them through assemblies, and there’s a copy of this goes into every classroom. And this way just by continually sharing that message I know that the children really understand what it is we’re trying to do. In practical terms what happens is that every time the School Pupil Council meet we have some discussion around the learning, but from time to time we have a particular focus on the school improvement plan.



HEADTEACHER: So the children as our learning detectives are given the task of going back to their classrooms where they are discussing with their peers and the teacher and the progress and the impact of the school improvement plan to date. And because they have that child-friendly version of the plan, it really can come alive for them. Last year we were focussing on reading and we were looking at developing children’s understanding of what they’re reading and also their enjoyment of reading.



HEADTEACHER: Children were able to tell me that part of the reason that they didn’t enjoy reading was because they often didn’t understand the words, they didn’t understand the vocabulary. And so that really helped to shape what we were doing as teachers, so we were able to give more emphasis to developing vocabulary, really focussing in on that in lessons. Another area was they wanted quiet spaces where they could, you know, hide away and read a novel.



HEADTEACHER: And so they suggested that we had reading tents and so around the school and in the good weather certainly, we have one outside in the playground, so that children can use this at playtime and lunchtimes and just go somewhere quiet to enjoy a book.



PUPIL 1: Our teachers have been giving us twenty minutes or half an hour every day to read our own books, so the teacher will give us maybe a book for homework in some classes and the teacher might read a book to us. But they’re giving us a chance to read our own books. PUPIL 2: Before last year I wasn’t really into reading and never really did it in my spare time or for enjoyment. I used to like, play video games and things because I didn’t have a type of book that I enjoyed and I like, couldn’t find it and it got on my nerves, so I just decided not to read. And when the school improvement came along I sort of found the type of book I liked which was sort of like, action, and I started really enjoying reading. And now I read quite a lot, probably about at least an hour every day.



PUPIL 2: So yeah, I really enjoy reading now.



HEADTEACHER: So as a result of children being involved in the school improvement plan, we have seen significant improvement in their reading. This is showing through in the statistics as well as in practise, so you can see that children are reading more often and they will tell me themselves that they are really enjoying reading. We’re seeing children using our reading tents, children sharing books with one another and talking about different authors that they enjoy.



HEADTEACHER: So there’s really quite a buzz about reading in the school.


INSTITUTIONALGOVERNMENTPUBLIC …CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT THAT ACTIVELY STIMULATES THE DEVELOPMENT


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