Strathblane Raising Wider Achievement

The children were given 30 minutes to produce a piece of writing which summed up their experience as a group over the last 8 weeks and to reflect on what they had learned.  The work they produced is of a very high standard and highlights the team work skills that the children are describing.  See below.

The discovery teams also had the opportunity this week to read the evaluations that parents filled out at the Wacky Khaki party.  Children agreed with many of the comments and really appreciated the praise.  We then counted up all the stars given to each room and divided it by the number of responses we had received.  This gave us an average number of stars for the room.  After that we got into Primary 6 and 7 maths work by rounding to 1 decimal place and then multiplying our decimals by 10 to give us a whole number! Finally, we went out to the playground and drew a GIGANTIC bar graph which displayed our findings.  The children discussed which rooms were most popular and least popular. Please see the images page for pictures of our graph.

Hieroglyphics

Our group is really good at making the powerpoint presentation.  The skills that we developed on the powerpoint presentation were our typing and writing in sentences.  We’re also really good at building skyscrapers and designing them.  We learned that we could build good models out of cardboard boxes and some other stuff.  The part of the challenges that we enjoyed the most was the building snow pyramids because we don’t usually get that much snow in Scotland.  We were good at team work but we could still make it better.  We were ok at listening.

Pharaohs 1

We think that at the start of the whole of the big task we didn’t listen to each other and get on very well but now that it is very, very close to the end we feel that we have learned a lot from each other.  We are listening better and we are more organised.  We feel our strengths are: Leo is good at leadership skills, Jamie C. is good at finding information and brings humour to the group, Christina is good at leadership, Joseph is good at designing things and bring ideas into the group, Jon is good at building the skyscrapers, spelling and writing and Alisha is good at being the time manager and colouring.  We enjoyed the shopping day with the skyscrapers and the pyramids.

RA

Through the 9 weeks we have developed great skills like team work, responsibility, listening and being sensible.  Our group enjoyed making snow pyramids and through that we worked well in our teams.  The thing that we were best at would be writing the story about the Mummy because we all helped to write it and it really was a fantastic story.

The group enjoyed everything through out the big tasks and we have developed very much from running away from each other at the start to now, being a great group, always working together.

Our group has enjoyed being together and we will miss the big task.  We want our topic to be Egypt FOREVER!

6 Gods of Egypt

We were good at wrapping the mummy because we were good at making it nice and neat.  The thing that we enjoyed the most throughout the big task was making the poster because we liked making the children.  We got better at team work and our listening skills.

Cleopatra

Throughout the big task our skills have been developed.  If you can get on with each other it makes it much easier to do things.  Our group was really good at thinking and our group liked the snow pyramids the most.  Through the 8 weeks the group improved a lot.  The skills we developed were: listening, working together, keeping an eye on the time, telling the time, thinking, always doing our best work, try your best, tidying up, getting on with each other, good ideas, confidence, patience sometimes, we don’t panic as much with our problems and encouraging each other and yourself.  The posters were fun because you got to design the clothes and find out things on the computer and in books.  We also used the blog and fact files for information.  It was good that we could put a question on the blog and everyone else went and helped us with the research, like Mr Sandy.

Pharaohs 2

Pharaohs 2 have achieved many things but the thing we have achieved the most is working marvelously together and listening.  Our groups skills are team work because we have never left anyone out.  Our teamwork is probably ok because we have had about 1 or 2 fall outs and arguments.  We enjoyed wrapping the mummy, doing the big poster and the Crazy Talk.  During this big task, Pharaohs 2 have developed skills such as listening to each other and trying to do our best.  We have also developed writing skills and sharing out the jobs.

Ancient Egyptians

We enjoyed building the milk bottle pyramid during the big task and we were good at it as well.  We learned that the Egyptians were much more clever than us and had different writing than us.  We have developed team work because we had a long time to work together and we have developed it because in the end we did well at listening.

Curse of the Mummy

Our team were good at working with each other because we were good at co-operating and we like working as a team.  We liked making the sky scraper and the pyramid because we could go to the shop to buy the materials to build it.  We bought boxes, lego and 2 meters of cellotape.  We also got the plastecine for free because we sold the extra lego.

We developed our working together and learned a lot about Ancient and Modern Egypt.  Our favourite day was the snow pyramid day because it was outside and we had lots of snow.  We tried to make a big one and we succeeded.  Miss Carter said it looked like the valley of the kings since we made two.  We also made a mummified snowman.

We liked the topic because it felt like there was no work because it was all so much fun.

We like Egypt now because we have learned so much about it and now we want to go there.

Well, what can we say…other than well done to P34.  We are so proud of every single one of you and all the hard work you have put in over the last 8 weeks.  The Big Task has been a very enjoyable learning experience for all of us.  It has been interesting to watch you develop so many vital skills throughout the task, in all areas!

Thank you to all the parents that came last night and have kept in touch with us through the blog.  Next week each team will have the opportunity to write about the wacky khaki party and also an individual piece of writing about the highs and lows of the topic.  Keep checking the blog for updates.

We will also be looking at the comments slips in more detail next week and collating all the information.  The children began this today and reading some of the lovely things people had said and also some of the improvements and suggestions.  For some children this was difficult but we will look at these comments in more detail next week and why people suggested these improvements.  Today (between clearing out cupboards, sweeping up sand, sand and more sand, treating a scarab beetle plague and carrying precious artifacts around) we had a lovely  circle time for the children to share some of the comments that their parents had made while exploring the tombs.  Lots of children couldn’t believe how much their parents enjoyed seeing their work.  It looked like everyone had a fantastic evening parents, children and teachers!

Thanks again to all the children for their hard work.  We are really very proud of you all. Have a great and relaxing weekend!

Love Miss Allen and Miss Carter

Thanks to Miss MacGregor who has pointed out the lack of a date in the recent letter home about the Wacky Khaki Party! I blame the management team…! The Wacky Khaki Party is on Thursday 26th March at 6:00pm. 

On Friday we each have been very busy preparing for the Wacky Khaki Party.  THe management team met and worked out all the jobs that needed done.  We were all given jobs depending what our strengths are.  Some of us have been put in to groups some of us are working alone. We all had different jobs some people were floaters that means they walked around and helped people there was also people making pin the leg on the scarab beetle. Some other people were making signs for rooms and fact fortune tellers there was also wrapping the mummy and making sarcophagus.  Two people from each group had to pick their four favourite pictures and why they chose them.  Then they need to copy and paste them into Word and we will print them for the parents to read.  The sarcophagus looks really good. Thank you to Mrs Peel and Mrs Hamilton for helping us today.

This is the letter that the management team sent home today.  It is very important that you reply and if you reply quickly then you get entered into the draw for 1st class seats.

By Jamie C., Emma and Olly

Dear Parents,

As you may know P34 have been working on our Egyptian big task for 8 weeks. For the last week we have been working towards the parent’s wacky khaki party which we would love you to come to if possible. We want to show you our excellent work. You will see the best work a child has ever done. Please could you wear as much khaki as you can ( if you don’t have any  khaki clothes wear something camouflage but if you don’t have anything camouflage don’t go out and buy anything because you can  always just look like an explorer). So please could you bring a torch because it is going to be …? (Sorry can’t tell you but please could you bring a torch anyway). Also could children wear a white or grey top and jeans and could children be upstairs by 5:45pm and could adults be seated on the plane in the gym hall by 6:00pm and leave at 7:30pm.  The first couple of people to hand this letter back in will be put into a hat and chosen for a 1^st class seat on the plane.

From The Management Team

(Christina, Ben, Leo, Rory, Katy, Blair, Jeanie and Cara)

Please can you hand this slip back as soon as possible

 ————————————————————————————-

Child’s Name ________________________

I do/don’t give permission for my child to attend to the whacky khaki party.

Number of plane tickets required _______________

(You do not need a plane ticket for P34 children)

____ I will accompany my child to the event.

____ My child will be picked up at 7:30pm by____________________

____ My child is allowed to walk home by themselves.

Parent’s signature_______________________

Today we have done loads of things! We finished our posters and took pictures of them.  We also worked on our fact file and the picture thing.  The picture thing is where you get four pictures and cut and paste them into Word.  Then we had to write about the picture and why you chose it.  Our factfile is where we write about the thing we want to know most about in Egypt. I have just finished clothes and make up (Erin). I have done Insects and Animals (Fearghus).  I did the same as Erin (Hannah).  My factfile is about mummies (Jamie U.).  Jeanie is off sick. 

We finished off the flags for the blog wall downstairs.  Our team had to make the Norway flag.  The leaders of the day were chosen as people who each team said had been good leaders throughout the big task.   Some teams were doing Crazy talk today but we didn’t get on to it yet. Our assessment sheets from Friday were used to improve our posters for one final time! We didn’t have any improvements to make.  P4 were working on their debate writing and P3 were working on Scarab beetle writing.

Every group had to do some brainstorming for the Wacky Khaki party for parents.  Some groups have really good ideas. 

By Curse of the Mummy – Fearghus, Erin, Hannah, Jamie U. and Jeanie

From the Management Team

Last Friday we had interviews.  They put us under a bit of pressure. The worst questions were the scenario questions.  They were like this.  You are setting up for the Parents Wacky Khaki party and you break an ancient artefact which is very expensive.  Nobody sees you break it.  What do you do?  Another of the questions was you are setting up for the Wacky Khaki party and finish one of the exhibits for the museum.  You close the door and hear a massive crash, now you know everything in the display has fallen and broken.  What do you do?  The final one was you have worked for weeks to prepare for the Wacky Khaki party.  All the parents have been invited.  There are 47 very excited children and you walk into the hall together.  When you get there you discover that only 5 parents have shown up.  What do you do?  What answers would you give to these questions?  Miss Carter and Miss Allen were acting very strict.  It was nerve wrecking because I couldn’t think of anything to say and there was loads going on in my head.  I didn’t know what answer would be a good one. 

This morning the management team had their first meeting.  We were doing brainstorming.  We came up with loads of ideas for the Wacky Khaki party.  We can’t tell you our ideas because it would spoil the surprise.  We need to choose the ideas that we are actually going to do now and each group handed back a sheet of their ideas.  We will look at them tomorrow.  The management team had to speak to Pharaohs 2 because they had silly ideas like the egg and spoon race and who can eat the most cupcakes and that doesn’t show what we have learned.  I felt nervous about speaking to them because I didn’t know how they would take it.  They didn’t take it very well.   It is all part of the responsibility of the management team though.  Before we talked to them we discussed which approach to use and we decided to say that we knew they hadn’t understood the task properly and offered to help them to do it again. 

Christina – Managing Director and Ben – Assistant Managing Director

Apologies to today’s bloggers as we ran out of time and didnt get a chance to write up the blog.  You will get to be the blogging team on Monday.

P34 looked a little bit different today as everyone was dressed in as many colours as possible for Comic Relief.  These bright colours were reflected in the bright and colourful posters which were finished off today! All the groups have worked really hard during a week which has been quite difficult at times.  Miss Carter and I are delighted with the finished product but just as important the valuable team work skills which have been developed. 

Interviews took place today for the management team.  Our managing director is Christina who was chosen because she has continually worked hard and been supportive of others throughout the big task.  She has demonstrated leadership skills and an ability to work well with many different people.  The rest of the senior management team is made up with another 7 children, from P4 – Rory, Katy, Leo and Ben and from P3 – Blair, Cara and Jeanie.  Congratulations to all 8 of our management team and well done for surviving what proved to be a tough interview.  Each individual nominated someone from their team to go forward for interview.  This was someone who was a good team member. 

We were delighted to have a guest assessment panel with us today.  Sarah came from Switzerland and Donna from Bermuda to be with us! They are children’s workers and were able to look at the posters and and also to share some of what life is like for children in their countries.  The feedback from this assessment stop will be shared on Monday.  We also had several parent helpers so thank you to Fiona Owens, Cathie Moir and Rhona Stevens.  It has been great to have had so many parents working with us this week. Thank you.

Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing you on Monday, when we will be relying on our management team to guide us through Monday and Friday’s big task activities!

The day started off with a circle time about how it feels to receive criticism about a piece of work that you worked really hard on.  We had comments that included disappointed, upset, thankful etc. Some children felt happy or fine (think that’s just a standard answer!) Then we showed with our thumbs if we felt criticism was helpful, ok or unhelpful. It was interesting to see a mixture of thumbs up, down and to the sides (even some with one up, one down)!  Although, after further discussion, most people were in agreement that the comments they had received from their teachers and peers had helped them to improve their work.  Walking in to the P34 classrooms you can see a huge improvement in the standard of work from the beginning of the week.  A very worthwhile exercise indeed! Please see our posters, below, and feel free to compliment them or be positively critical!

However, some children will be shocked tomorrow morning when they discover a whole new set of improvements and suggestions for their posters! Carter and Allen sure make them work hard! Another interesting activity that took place today was when the teachers asked each group who they thought had been the best at each of the task roles over the whole Big Task.  It allows them to see where everyone’s individual strengths lie. From this information the teachers will be selecting some children, with different strengths, to make up the senior management team for the next part of the Big Task.  Interviews will take place on Friday.  Thank you very much to our parent helpers today.  We really appreciate you coming in. Thanks to Fiona Owens and Marion Hoyle (and baby Peter Hoyle who was named the Pharaoh, undercover king and was even accused of being Mr Sandy!)

It was a very interesting day because today we were thinking about strengths and improvements.  We started by collating information about what makes a good poster.  The children agreed that the posters they were making were to give information rather than for advertising.  Next, the children wrote a positive comment and an improvement each on a post it note to go along with each of the posters.  Each discovery team chose the three priority improvements and the target was set for them to address those improvements by the end of the day. 

The rest of the morning was given over to language work and the children carried out their own research using the internet and the library.  They got to work on their posters again just before lunch using the new information that they had gathered.  We were delighted to have the help of Mrs Carruth with this task.

We are really pleased with the improvements that has made and the mature way in which the comments were received.  Our goal is always to produce our best work and just as our headteacher says its ”got to be gold standard work”.  So look out teams because Carter and Allen believe you can always improve!   

Today we will have a visit from Learning Teaching Scotland, Balfron High school and our very own Primary 7s and Primary 2s.  More info to follow.

The day will be focussed on continuing with our poster project and the Primary 7s have the challenge of assessing the team work during this activity.  The special focus will be are all members assigned a role and sticking to this job.  They will also generate their own ideas of what good team work looks like and sounds like before their visit.

See today’s comments for the P7 evaluation.  Daily blog and children’s questions will be posted later today and they will be looking for your advice.

First of all we would like to thank the P7s for their fantastic comments.  These are really helpful to the children and gave each team something to think about for the rest of this task.

Carter and Allen spent some time after school assessing each of the posters. We will get pictures added as soon as possible for you to add your comments.  We were on the whole very pleased with the work that we saw but we have definitely seen some areas that require improvement.  We have chosen to give each team a few key areas to work on tomorrow.  Teams please read this advice and discuss with us, anything that is causing you concern. Thanks for your hard work.

Cleopatra – Cut out each of your figures and use paint/coloured paper to add a background.

Pharaohs 2- Rebuild the face of the Ancient Egyptian child, Cut out all of your characters and think about adding a background.

Heiroglyphics - You have lots of detail on the Scottish child and the same is required for the Egyptian children.  Rebuild your ancient Egyptian child.

Ancient Egyptians - Cut out the Scottish figure.  Rebuild the Egyptian children using books for information. (In an Egyptian City is a good book)

6 Gods of Egypt -Make sure that everything is stuck on really well.  Use the top part of your paper for detailed information about your children.

 Curse of the Mummy - Think about the skin colour of your Egyptians.  Glue a background to the Modern Egypt section and replace the Scottish body, thinking about what clothes you wear.

Ra - Excellent work Ra! Now you need to add a title and add some clear text explaining the differences.

Pharaohs 1 - Tidy up the skirt of the Ancient Egyptian, Make the modern Egyptian child as big as the others and add some good quality information.

Hieroglyphics:

What a team!  Marco, Hamish, Harry, Anya and Isla.  It was an honour to join them as Guest Blogger!

We hit the Science Centre at pace: zipping through the fantastic exhibits.  Highlights were the snails, mirrors, knots, floating fish but above all the “heart transplant” puppet show.  You may well ask…

Next up, Imax 3D!  Little did I know why we needed to sit in the front row – aaagh!!  They found me under the seat.

The museum was superb too – I was amazed by what they knew about Egyptians.  The highlight was the drawings – excellent.

Mr Kennedy

The Curse of the Mummy:

We had a fantastic trip today!  The Science Centre was brilliant.  Our favourite was the giant bubble wall – Fearghus even managed to complete the bubble wall…it was a great challenge!  We all had great fun trying out the different pieces of equipment. 

Next we went to the Imax Film.  This was great and very life like – I felt like we were under the sea!  I’m sure the rest of the group felt this as Jeanie was even stretching out to reach the different fish which were right in front of us!

Lastly we ventured over to the Museum.  The Egyptian room was very interesting and the children were telling me lots of Egyptian facts they already knew.  It was fantastic!

The group were great fun to be with!  I thoroughly enjoyed my day! Thank you Curse of the Mummy!

Miss MacGregor

RA:

Merci – RA! It was a bit of a whirlwind day – fast and funny.  What do you think about trying our hand at building a science centre shaped place as we’ve had such success with both pyramid and skyscraper?

Ra were a great crowd to go around with thanks for making my day such good fun.

Miss Carter

6 Gods of Egypt

We had a great time exploring the science centre. 

Our 3 favourite things were -

1. The energy machine – where you watch the balls travel around a huge machine.
2. Tower of power – Craig, Jamie and I managed to wind the handles fast enough to make the Radio, food mixer amd fans all work at the same time.
3. The bubble wall.

We also loved the plasma ball!

The 3D under the sea film at the Imax was super cool!  Great fun and we found out lots of amazing information.

One fact we learnt was: The triton trumpet snail eats sea stars by drilling through it’s skin, injecting it with venom and killing it from the inside out. (This is good for the coral reef as seastars eat coral)

After lunch we went to Kelvingrove museum and had fun exploring the Egyptian Exhibits.  We answered all the questions even Miss Allen’s stinker!  Our room to find was the Lady Anntisa Stakis gallery which contoured our favourite exhibit – a builder rubbish chute!  You could put bricks in it, hoist them up and then watch them tumble down the chute.

Rory drew a great picture of this exhibit. Craig, Halle, Jamie, Rory, Jenny, Iona and myself have all had a really fantastic day out.

Thank you for letting me be the 6 Gods of Egypt’s guest blogger for the day.  You have been marvellous.

 Mrs Currie

Ancient Egyptians

As we boarded the plane to Egypt we had a quick headcount and safety demonstration from Miss Carter explaining what to do in case of an emergency.  Then our group of 45 children, 10 adults, 1 bus driver and a bucket (just in case) headed off to the Glasgow Science Centre.  Upon arrival at the science centre the ancient Egyptians and I explored all the exhibits and learned lots of things we didnt know.

During the Imax film I had the pleasure of taking 3 children from other groups to build pyramids and skyscrapers! We tried out different building techniques and all decided skyscrapers are a lot easier to build than pyramids!

After lunch we boarded our plane once again and travelled to the Kelvingrove museum in another part of Egypt. My team decided that after 10 minutes playing tig and green people it was time to go exploring.  We took out our map and went to find the secret location marked by the x.  Then we answered all the REALLY hard questions in the Egypt exhibit and drew our favourite thing which was the smiling mummy who was called Ankhesnefer (We named her Jennifer for short!)  With our challenges done we went shopping and bought lots of Egyptian merchandise! Luckily, we even had time to check the blog in the study area and leave a comment. We sent an email to Mrs Randall and Miss Spencer in case they were missing us! After having a look round the rest of the museum it was time to get our flight back to Strathblane.

I had a brilliant day with the Ancient Egyptians and really enjoyed being a guest blogger with them! Thanks guys!

Miss Allen

Pharaohs 2

Pharaohs 2 were brilliant. We all had great fun playing with the exhibits in the Science Centre.  Rebecca enjoyed the giant piano and Katy used the big mirror to make it look like she was floating in mid air.  Afterwards we visited the IMAX to see lots of weird and wonderful fish, crabs and squid.  Calum was awed by what the squid eats.

After lunch we went to the museum.  Blair knew loads about the Egyptians. Everybody worked really well together to find the answers to the questions.  Afterwards we had to follow a map to our secret location.  Jack took the lead and very quickly found where we needed to go.  After we had looked at the tables and chairs we visited the people of Scotland, the animals and the shop.

Rachael was great during the day helping me carry the sign and keeping everybody together! Not Easy!!

Dr Hoyle

 Pharaohs 1

Thanks Pharaohs 1 for taking me on the high speed trip on Friday. We survived the hissing cockroaches then swam through some spectacular coral seas before arriving in Egypt.
The whole group worked well to complete their quiz. Even the stinker of a bonus question was no problem for the amazing Pharaohs 1!
Have you found out anything about Egyptian food yet – ancient or modern?
Thanks to our air hostesses Allen and Carter for a well organised and fun excursion.
The flight back was smooth with just a little turbulance as we descended into the valley. We Worked Hard, Smiled and Had Fun!
Mrs Owens

Hi P34 what a great day I had yesterday with all of you , of course Pharoahs 1 were the biggest stars as always only joking. I have loved being involved in the work you have been doing on your Egyptian topic. I especially liked the pyramid building day and it is still standing you are all stars. Thank you for letting me be part of your team. Jon you were right you told me you wouldn’t get lost and you didn’t and even better still neither did I. see you all Monday love

Mrs Retson x