Broad General Education
The Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is Scotland’s education framework for ALL learners; its main aim is to enable children and young people to develop the four capacities; successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors. In Orchard Brae School each learner is enabled to become as independent as possible, developing skills for life, learning, leisure and where appropriate work. Our curriculum offer is personalised to each pupil throughout their learning journey, as we maintain a focus on positive future destinations.
Our learners in P1 – S3 work within Broad General Education (BGE) at a level and pace that is suited to their individualised needs. Personalised targets focus core skill development within Literacy and Communication, Numeracy and Health and Well Being. The ethos and life of the school community is structured to enable pupils to learn and practise life skills as part of their daily routines. Through interdisciplinary approaches and specialist courses, we offer real life learning contexts, deepening and practicing knowledge and skills within Expressive Arts, RME, Science, PE, Technologies and Social Studies. Interdisciplinary learning, through ‘Our world’ contexts over a 5 year cycle, facilitates pupils’ exploration, experience and learning which is practiced within community contexts, ensuring confidence and success is generalised and secure. Family learning is a vital part of our pupils’ success and, along with our termly learning challenges, we offer a range of workshops, activity nights and holiday schemes for families. Achievement and success is recognised and celebrated.
Room 2 pupils all enjoy learning at Orchard Brae School – look at the happy smiling faces we’ve managed to capture on camera. We’ve included evidence of our pupils achieving some of their targets as well as planned learning activities.
Last term, Room 10, as part of their topic project, were exploring the story “A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea”!
We’ve explored fast and slow with movement games in class, to link with the lyric “grows at speed”. We’ve investigated capacity with a range of containers with water and other sensory resources, including several containers with holes in, to build our understanding of of the hole in the story. We’ve played with light (including with adapted switches so we could control them) and reflective materials to support understanding of one story feature – the sun!
Alongside this we’ve been busy with a wide range of broader learning. We loved choosing pancake toppings for pancake day and our science project for that week involved trying to get felt “pancakes” to our target, which was great fun! A particular highlight of the last few weeks has been sessions on the adapted bikes with Salvi from P.E. – the effort and enthusiasm from the whole class has been fabulous!
Our Outdoor Learning team- Roddy and Sharon- have been working hard to develop our outdoor space. The latest addition is two planter benches. Lots of us have already enjoyed sitting in the sun on them. Room 6 worked hard to get the planters ready for planting by drilling drainage holes in the trays. Room 10 then filled the planters with compost ready for the plants to go in. We are very impressd with the work these classes have been doing. The planters look fantastic and we are very excited to see how things grow.
Well done everyone!
Room 2 pupils enjoy working collaboratively as our photos show. Look at the pupils’ independent skills, their level of engagement – all actively participating with very little support and their clear enjoyment of learning though our Three Little Pigs story. They have also been having fun with Bucket Time activities on a Friday… as we all know, having fun is very important!
During this term our Primary pupils have been working their balance and control through a Gymnastics block. They have experienced balances on the floor and on different equipment. They have also had great fun exploring different ways to roll and spin.
PE kit works as an element of reference, facilitating the transition between the classroom and the hall. It also promotes and develops skills for life such as getting changed independently. A huge thank you to all families supporting us with PE kit (indoor shoes, t-shirt and shorts or joggers).
Outdoor Education has been continuing with its focus on force and motion. We took to the skies this week. The children practiced turn taking as they mastered the art of kite flying.
We explored the process of making pancakes using our senses.
We poured, mashed, mixed and blended too.
We showed our likes and dislikes using a variety of communication methods.
Handa is a young girl who lives in a village in Kenya. She decides to take seven different fruits in a basket to her friend Akeyo who lives in a nearby village. Handa walks to Akeyo’s village with the basket of fruit balanced on her head. Room 8 follows her on her journey, learning about each fruit is taken by a different animal until no fruit is left. As she is nearing Akeyo’s village, a goat breaks free from the post it is tied to and heads straight towards a tangerine tree which Handa is walking under. The goat headbutts the tree causing tangerines to fall into Handa’s basket. When Handa reaches Akeyo’s village, she is surprised to see tangerines in her basket. Akeyo is very happy as tangerines are her favourite fruit.
Every week we had a great sensory experience learning about each fruit from Handa’s basket.
Since then, we had fun making chocolate covered banana pops, pineapple smoothies and learnt about sinking and floating using some boats made from oranges.
Room 3 have been exploring different Fair Trade items.
We explored the sound of different items when they hit or move on a surface. Some were quiet and some were LOUD.
We used a fan to create a flour snowstorm and slid soap on the Tuff Tray like penguins on their tummies. We also used a bubble machine to show the clouds in the stormy sky. We then watched videos of strong penguins sliding and jumping.
