Edenside Primary School

At Edenside Primary, we have three core values; learning, laughter and love. These are the three ‘ways of being’ that we believe are fundamental to enable us all, children and adults, to ‘be the best we can be’. Learning as a value does not just relate to children in the classroom or playroom, it applies to our staff and, as much as possible, our families too. Since the onset of COVID, we have had to adapt our approach to professional learning but we continue to enjoy a rich culture of learning and growing together in a number of ways.

Teacher leadership model: One approach that we have been able to continue is our teacher leadership approach. This sees every teacher offered the opportunity to lead on a whole-school project about which they have a personal interest or passion. Time out of class is provided by the Head or Depute. Louise Cowan, our P3/4 teacher, has this to say about impact of this approach on her own professional learning:

“Engaging in professional reading, working collaboratively andimplementing SEAL in our school has hugely impacted my professional learning. There has been such an increase in confidence in my subject knowledge and day-to-day teaching practice. Noticing a difference in our learner’s attitude and seeing the strong foundations of numeracy being built is so rewarding. Edenside loves maths!”

Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) ‘Critical Collaborative Professional Enquiry’ (CCPE): This current school year, our Depute, Karla Pearce, introduced a CCPE with our ELC team. The focus on documentation of child learning has had a marked impact on the practice of the team as evident from Amanda Fenney’s reflections:

In October 2021, our ELC team wanted to take a different approach to how we documented our children’s learning. We did this by developing a shared understanding of Pedagogical Documentation, a Reggio Emilia approach to documenting children’s learning. Our first task was to observe children through free play. To do this we worked with a different colleague each week to get the best results in our new approach. We would share our observations as a team each week, discussing our findings and potential lines of development to identify next steps for our learners and to inform our planning.

Using a more relaxed approach with our children finding out their interests rather than documenting learning that children may not be interested in, based on tracking sheets.

Using the questions ‘the why’ (why we doing this?); how (how do we do it?) and the what (what are we actually doing?) gave us a new vision for our pedagogy. To enrich children’s learning, we now create and share panels of fun learning experiences. What makes it all the more special is that the children can look at them and comment on what they were doing, adding their own voice, and seeing themselves as learners. With this new style of documentation it gives the parents an opportunity to see their children’s learning more visually and a lovely learning journey full of positive experiences from children’s time with us at nursery. The impact on my professional learning has been very beneficial.

It has also given our staff an opportunity to explore and deepen our understanding using this method of documentation. NQT support programme: We know a lot of schools support NQTs every year but we’re particularly pleased with the approach we’ve developed over the past year. With a clear programme of in-school learning, our three NQTs have felt supported and challenged, as Shauna McCombie, our P5/6 teacher, testifies:

“At Edenside I’ve been supported to develop my existing skills and knowledge of teaching, learning and assessment whilst also learning about the pedagogies, curriculum and approaches specific to our school. Through collaborative planning, professional dialogue, moderation activities and opportunities for peer observations, I feel supported and confident to follow and contribute to a shared approach for quality teaching and learning with my children.”

Cluster improvements: Edenside is part of the Kelso cluster and we enjoy a rich and
rewarding partnership with our local schools. Having developed our cluster-wide
Learning and Teaching Toolkit back in 2020, this past year we have focused on
teacher professional judgement with a particular focus on Comparative Judgement.
This is an assessment tool championed by Daisy Christodoulou and our early
engagement has been very promising, as noted by our P4/5 teacher, Peter Wood:

“The opportunity to engage in a large-scale comparative moderation enabled me to reflect on my students’ writing abilities and the direction of our teaching and learning on a larger scale. It generated useful discussion and debate about where our focuses should lie as a school and a cluster.

Using comparative analysis and statistics to establish a consistent qualitative judgement was fascinating and has the potential to revolutionise some of the ways that we adapt and evolve our approach.”

Weekly professional learning bulletin: Having invested in the Tom Sherrington and
Oliver Caviglioli WalkThru books and online resource, our new weekly professional learning bulletin is a simple but effective way to bring identified ‘WalkThrus’ to everyone’s collective attention. A simple mid-week email is sent to all teaching staff
(and cluster Heads) setting out the rational for a given pedagogical approach. The impact of the weekly bulletin was noted by John Wood, our P7 teacher:

“The professional learning bulletin is an informal way of supporting my teaching practice. The mere fact it exists and continues no matter what sends a clear, overarching message; that we should always look to improve our teaching and learning, and importantly, there is evidence and guidance on how to do this.

I gain much just from knowing I’m supported in a positive, professional culture within which the bulletin is just a part. Additionally, in response to the bulletin I enjoy the freedom to alter my practise, try out new approaches/methodologies and evaluate their effectiveness. Being honest and realistic, there are also times when I should have been teaching or providing learning in a certain way- them am reminded of the underlying rationale and then restart with renewed focus.

Less frequently, but no less importantly, I sometimes follow up with the suggested ‘further reading’ and delve into an area/ subject further. This is also supported by a good range of relevant educational reading books within the school, and available for all staff.”

Maths pedagogical development: Improving our teacher’s subject knowledge associated with number has been a focus over the past few years. Initially supported with input from outside experts, our ongoing learning is now led in-house and centres
on key texts including ‘Developing Fractions Knowledge’ by Robert Wright et al. The impact of the reading and collaborative learning is notable, as shown by our Principal Teacher, Susie Bryce:

“When surveying our teachers, we found fractions to be the component of number that we were collectively least confident in teaching. To address this, staff worked in level teams to engage in a series of collaborative sessions based on a core text, Developing Fraction Knowledge by Wright, Norton & Hackenberg. Together we reflected on our reading and investigated the progression of understanding fractions, pedagogical approaches and assessments.

Having opportunities to analyse the text and talk about its theories’ implications on teaching and learning within my classroom brought far more benefits than if I had engaged in this professional reading independently.

The collaborative learning extended beyond our CAT sessions, with teachers discussing their fractions lessons, assessments & insights regularly. The core text gave us a shared understanding, approach and language to enable us to do this.”

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Professional learning for our wider community continues to be a focus, as we look at ways to engage our support staff and families. Learning is never ‘done’ but is an ongoing, evolving journey, one which we enjoy every day!