Friday 30th May

I met up with Denise Fyfe from Angus College to discuss developments in e-portfolio and to consider Citizenship for a topic to discuss at College People Week.

Sourced information to reveal Government support of e-portfolio in education.

Contacted Focus Group to agree numbers and content for meeting on Friday 13th June.

Subject Mentors' Meeting - Thursday 22nd May

Another fine meeting in which we met Marie Thompson from Learning and Skills Development Agency in Northern Ireland. We shared ideas about the Subject Mentors and it seems Northern Ireland is making great links with employers.

We had some positive feedback from Colin and John McCann about our progress.

Now we're thinking about evaluation of the Networks and preparing for College People Week - should be a good day!

Friday 16th May

Well, the English Higher, Int 2 and Int 1 exams are over. I posted a discussion today about the exams and so far general opinion has been mixed.

I contacted Marie Morrison and Margaret Tierney regarding the next meeting for the Focus Group and have published the minutes from the Focus Group.

Now I'm off to write a presentation for College People Week. Phew!

Click here for the minutes: https://claireswiki.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/Minutes+for+Focus+Group+2-5-08.doc

Friday 9th May

After the Focus Group meeting, Jerry O'Neill directed me to "Google Groups" which is basically a wiki space, but this is exetremely easy to use and, unlike Wikispaces, it tends not to crash everytime you upload materials. It's now my new favourite! Here's a link to a very slap-dash start to a wiki, but you wait, I'll get it looking beautiful soon.

http://groups.google.com/group/claires-english-class

I wrote up the minutes and will post these as soon as they have been agreed.

Contacted Marie Morrison and SQA to find out if a Core Skills representative would attend the next meeting. I'll let you know as soon as I do!

Thanks, Claire

Friday 2nd May: English Communications and Media Focus Group

Had a fantastic first meeting for the English Communication and Media Focus Group. We discussed literacy strategies, changes to the HN units, Core Skills and the inclusion of Citizenship within the teaching of English and Communications and Media.

David Neilson suggested a more accurate way in which to record students' grasp of punctuation and grammar in addition to their SQA certificates.

There were also suggested changes to the HN units to take out the reading assessment. It was suggested that this assessment is already embedded within the research necessary for the written assessments and so is already covered.

Denise suggested that the teaching of texts and discussion topics in English Media and Communication ideas such as respect, community values and responsibility for others are often covered. This leads neatly into the teaching of Citizenship and Denise suggested it is something which English Media and Communications could naturally develop.

Finally, the topic of Core Skills was considered. We were all keen to hear of new developments and of accessing interesting teaching materials, particularly for the less advanced levels such as Access 3 and Intermediate 1.

I will post the minutes as soon as possible on both Practioners Plus and the blog.



I was also interviewed for the Herald regarding the subject mentor post! It should appear either on Tuesday or Friday, so watch out for my mugshot appearing!

Over and out...Claire