Comments for Engage for Education

Comment on Aileymill’s Gallus Galoshans by Andy Thomson, Engage Community Manager

Andy Thomson, Engage Community Manager — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:56:54 +0000

Thanks for contributing to Engage, Elaine.

Apologies for the delay approving this and several other recent comments, we were recently hit by a spambot so have had huge volumes of comments to review to avoid deleting genuine discussion.

Comment on Aileymill’s Gallus Galoshans by elainewebster

elainewebster — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:27:12 +0000

Loved visiting the school and the card is fantastic. keep in touch.
Elaine from Scottish Language Dictionaries.

Comment on New Youth Employment Minister by AnActualTeacher

AnActualTeacher — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:37:49 +0000

More Ministers, more pay, more costs for everyone else. Seems like in the rarefied atmosphere of Government, fiscal restraint is an unknown phrase; perhaps we’d better promote/reward some more loyal MSPs to undertake Ministerial portfolios related to explaining the concept.

Comment on Nominations open for Scottish Education Awards by iainellis

iainellis — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:03:07 +0000

This year there is a new category – Parents as Partners in Learning Award. This new award recognises the important role that parents play in the education sector.

You can nominate individual parents, Parent Councils or someone who is supporting parents to help their children.

Last year we, the National Parent Forum of Scotland had the privilege to take part as judges, it was a great experience and gave us an insight to all the tremendous work going on across the country.

We will be involved again this year not only as judges but, also by promoting it, especially the Parents as Partners in Learning Award.

We need to show off all the tremendous work that parents are doing to support not only their children but, all children across Scotland, they contribute so much to Scottish Education and this is a great way to recognise and value it.

Let’s highlight all the different ways this happens by nominating as many as we can.

Log onto: http://www.scottisheducationawards.org.uk and get started.

Iain Ellis
Chairperson NPFS

Comment on Which areas of education do you want to discuss? by AnActualTeacher

AnActualTeacher — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:24:17 +0000

Hello again Andy Thomson
With regard to your statement “One topic that has been mentioned by several people/groups is ICT” and so another update from the ICT Programme Team. Tom Renwick clearly had a point about simple mathematical processes. On this thread issues such as:
*Heritage;Music;School Health Service; Adult Education;Donaldson review; the role of civil servants like your good self have appeared ONCE
*ICT; Local Authorities/COSLA have appeared TWICE
*The SQA has appeared FOUR times
I think your agenda has been set along the lines you requested back in late October- clearly you will need to speak to your colleagues over at the SQA again and encourage them to enter into some fun and full discussion.

Comment on Which areas of education do you want to discuss? by AnActualTeacher

AnActualTeacher — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:11:21 +0000

Hello Andy Thomson

As ever it’s half or less of the story. Most National 5 assessment PROVISIONAL info is available, primarily because for most subjects it is a direct transcription of Intermediate 2 (hope people at SQA haven’t been paid lots of extra money to re-invent/re-package the wheel there!?), and I never said otherwise. However, a lot for National 4 HAS NOT and so the SQA HAS missed its own generous deadline leaving teachers struggling to plan.

Clearly your colleagues have not fed you all the current information.

Comment on Which areas of education do you want to discuss? by Andy Thomson, Engage Community Manager

Andy Thomson, Engage Community Manager — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:55:54 +0000

Hello @AnActualTeacher

I have checked with my colleagues and more detail on the assessment at National 4 and 5 was published on the SQA website on Monday (28th) in keeping with the schedule, it can be accessed at: http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/47993.html

We are continuing to work on future discussions based on the feedback. One topic that has been mentioned by several people/groups is ICT. There will be second update from the ICT Programme Team on the next phase of the project shortly and as ever comments and questions will be welcome.

All the best,

Andy, Engage

Comment on Which areas of education do you want to discuss? by Tom Renwick

Tom Renwick — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:42:53 +0000

Assessment for Curriculum for Excellence actually needs to be tighter, more rigorous and therefore more helpful than was the case for the 5-14 levels. We need to address to issue of pupils passing higher maths yet needing a calculator to do 6×5, then some going onto university to gain a maths degree unable to mentally add four simple cheques, and then some going onto become investment bankers. There are a number of numeracy weak links, that if collectively addressed, would make the whole chain stronger.

Comment on Which areas of education do you want to discuss? by AnActualTeacher

AnActualTeacher — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:42:59 +0000

Why hasn’t the SQA been able to provide assessment details for proposed National 4 and many National 5 courses yet? It would appear they can’t even keep to their own belated deadlines.

As it’s been over a month since suggestions were invited for discussion topics (hope there’s some action on that sooner rather than later) let’s have a mass debate about the utility or otherwise of the monopoly exercised by the august body that is the SQA.

Comment on ICT in Education: Update on summit feedback by ICT in Education Programme Team

ICT in Education Programme Team — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:17:06 +0000

@Jimbuchan

Hello Jim, the team are monitoring the hash tag and taking into consideration any other sources.

Best regards,

Sanjin, ICT in Education Team