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.
Looking at Outdoor Art with class 10 and how art can be transient; it can blow away, wash away in the rain and disintegrate and we can just enjoy it for the short time it is there.
In room 9 we take part in a wide variety of activities in different parts of the school including PE, Lego club and art.
Room 5 have been working hard this term. Our whole school topic is Our World of Work and we have been learning to follow schedules and complete work tasks. We have also been working outside school and seeing the jobs that other people do in the community.
Our book study has been Elmer and we have done lots of work on colour. We particularly enjoyed painting with the elephants.
The children in room 4 have been exploring and creating with Gloop and Play-dough.
Play is the best way for a child to learn about their surroundings and develop fundamental skills. Sensory play stimulates their senses such as sound, touch, sight, taste, and smell. The children were encouraged to explore with these sensory activities to support their understanding and develop their creativity.
We have had a very busy term and a half getting to know each other and settling in to school life. Each day at Circle Time and snack, we practice sitting and turn-taking and we’re getting pretty good at it now! We also use these skills when we choose counting songs at the whiteboard and to enjoy a sensory story.
We try to go outside every day, either into the playground or for a walk. We have just discovered the play park at Auchmill Golf Course and are having great fun playing on the different pieces of equipment and the walk there and back gives us a chance to practice listening to and following instructions about road safety. Sometimes we go to the shop on an errand and we experience the different jobs that people who work in shops do and use money in real-life situations.
When the weather isn’t so good, we like nothing more than getting messy in the classroom with some sensory play (it’s great for our fine motor skills too!)!
To help develop our fine motor skills even further, we have been doing lots of art and craft activities, using paintbrushes, glue spreaders and glitter; we even won an award for our pumpkins at the Halloween disco!
In between times, we are busy going to Sound and Light with Kev, Drama with Sam, Music with Karin, Swimming with Amanda, PE with Scott, Drumming and Art with Keith and Home Economics with Liz –phew!
Over the next couple of weeks we are going to be doing some Christmas crafts making decorations to sell at the Christmas Fayre on 1 December. Then it will be time to enjoy the fun of the festive season!
The children in Room 2 have been working hard to make lots of festive playdough to sell at the school fayre. We worked on lots of different skills using our senses – we were touching the different ingredients, looking carefully as we were supported to pour, listening to the water pouring (we really liked this!), smelling the peppermint and cinnamon we added and some of us chose to have a little taste of the flour too! We will keep some back so that we can play with it in class too.
As part of our Interdisciplinary theme ‘Our World Of Work’, Rooms 6 and 7 have been busy looking at the different types of work we can do both in school as well as at home and in the community.
Some of us have been working on developing our skills and independence in our everyday work sessions by practicing following our schedules and sitting at the table for a period of time. Others have been undertaking a variety of household and self-care tasks such as cleaning, recycling and making snacks.
In October the Pupil Council met and discussed options for a whole school Halloween Activity.
The options were to have a Halloween disco, design a pumpkin or do both. After a whole school vote pupils chose to do both. A picture graph was used to share the results of the vote.
Caroline judged the pumpkin competition and decided that everyone was a winner as they were all unique and individual.
This was followed by the Halloween disco which was enjoyed by all.
