| Stirling Council |
|
| Strategy |
| The Stirling Council Early
Intervention project is part of an authority-wide strategy for raising achievement. It is
focused on improving early literacy. The key principles of the project emphasise the need
to build on good practice, involving all staff. The encouragement of high expectations and
positive self-esteem are important aspects of the work. Schools each have a seconded
nursery nurse and will share a home-school development co-ordinator. Effective partnership
beteen staff, parents and children is an important feature. |
| The strategy in the first 6
months has been to allow each school to develop an "action research" approach to
the work. Parameters for the evaluation of progress and success have been agreed for the
whole project by the monitoring group, which is representative of the range of staff
involved. Each school has been encouraged to select parameters to work on and identify
actions and methodologies which may be useful. This work has been supported by an
extensive staff development programme aimed at helping staff to reflect on the ways in
which children learn and providing them with specific skills, approaches and resources.
|
| |
| Scope |
| Five schools in areas which
experience cumulative deprivation and disadvantages are involved in working on the
development of reading and writing skills. Three schools are in Stirling and 2 are in
former mining communities. A total of 249 primary 1 and primary 2 children are involved,
154 in P1 classes and 95 in P2 classes. |
| |
| Achievements and emerging lessons
|
| In the first 6 months of the
project, schools have explored a number of specific approaches to the development of
reading and writing skills and ways of changing attitudes of children and parents to
literacy. They also examined staff expectations of children, roles of adults in the
classroom and co-operative working strategies. They are aware that there is no single
answer to improving literacy and the staff development programme has allowed them to
consider a number of approaches which are new to them. The value of this initial
"exploratory" activity has been that each school has felt that it can go forward
into the new session with a strategy which suits the individual needs of the school. Staff
have developed confidence in trying out new approaches. The Core Area Teams set up locally
involving all the project staff have been seen as an extremely useful forum for sharing
ideas and successes across schools. Schools are learning from each other without all
having to conform to one model. In the next session more time will be spent in each school
on putting into place the strategies that have emerged from the exploratory phase as most
suitable for that school. This will include careful tracking of the role of each
person involved in each activity. |
| |
| Local Views |
| "The most enjoyable
aspect of the project so far has been finding a renewed fascination with the teaching of
reading and writing" P1 teacher |
|
| "I have enjoyed being
involved and part of the excitement expressed by the children while they are
learning". Nursery nurse |
|
| "The mixing and sharing
ideas with fellow teachers, finding mutual problems and solving them through discussion
has been valuable". P2 teacher |
|
| "The CAT has been very
useful as a safe sounding-board to try out ‘ideas’". Headteacher
|
|
| "Staff are more willing
to reflect on practice and implement changes". Headteacher |
