Lochend Family Learning Project
Progress Report June 2006

Background

The Lochend Family Learning Project was originally developed by Glasgow City Council Education Department and Greater Easterhouse SIP in response to the need for the Community Learning Plan to engage with young people and the Education Services. This was identified by the HMIE review of Community Learning and Development in Greater Easterhouse 2003. A primary teacher, Judy Long, was seconded to develop the Project within Lochend Learning Community. She is based at John Wheatley College where the 16 Learning Centres of the Greater Easterhouse Learning Network (GELN) are managed.

This secondment was renewed in August 2005, funded by Glasgow City Council Education Department. The remit was extended to include development of Secondary school web resources, a Primary Secondary Liaison Project and creation of a Local History Education Pack.

Project Objectives

The Lochend Family Learning Project is included in the aims of the Lochend Learning Community Joint Forum Plan 2005/6 and the Lochend Learning Community Language and Communication Development Plan.

Aim 1

P5-P7 Lochend Learning Community pupils will be introduced to their local community Learning Centre and its facilities. Primary 6 pupils will be provided with an induction to the network, Internet access, an introduction to the Pathfinder website and e-mail accounts.

A total of 155 Primary 6 or Primary 6/5 pupils have visited their local Learning Centre at least twice. These visits were in small groups and during school time. The pupils learned how to navigate their local website www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk and how to email each other using the First Class system. They earned bronze and silver certificates.

Aim 2

Primary 7 pupils will visit the Learning Centres to further develop their IT skills. This will be linked to the Primary/Secondary Liaison work at Lochend High or to pupil needs as specified by the Primary School within the 5 - 14 guidelines.

A total of 147 Primary 7 pupils have visited their local Learning Centre at least twice.

In order to promote Primary/Secondary liaison, the content of the P7 lessons at the Learning Centre supported the IT skills developed during the Primary 7 visits to Lochend High School , if relevant. The subject areas covered included Internet research skills, copying and pasting pictures from the Internet and adding sounds to these, creating a website using FrontPage and using Headers and Footers.

The activities decided in consultation with the individual Primary schools included Internet Study Skills, using Microsoft Word to create a written document and using Microsoft Publisher to create a banner. Some of these lessons were also linked to Eco- schools themes.

A separate Bridging Project was also established, involving two Primary 7 classes. Three lessons on Internet Study Skills were taught by Judy Long. When the pupils reach S1 three further lessons on this topic will be taught by Lochend High School staff.

An additional 44 pupils visited the Learning Centres to use the computers to research 5 -14 Environmental Studies topics. Also 70 pupils visited the Learning Centres as part of their Health Promoting School work.

Altogether 416 primary children were involved in Learning Centre visits this year.

Aim 3

To involve young people and their families in learning together using their local community Learning Centre.

For the pupils’ third visit to the Learning Centre, their family members were also invited. The pupils took on the role of the “Teacher” and showed their family members the computing skills they had learned in order to receive their Gold Award. I41 adult family members took part in these sessions.

Family Learning Weeks were arranged, in partnership with GELN and Positive About Literacy staff, in October and May. These were publicised in Lochend Learning Community and St Andrews Learning Community. Families were encouraged to come in to do the Internet Treasure Hunts, art activities or for general email and Internet support. A total of 69 children and 23 adults attended.

Partly as a result of the above activities, 30 adults have taken IT Flexible Learning classes, arranged through the Project and supported by a tutor from John Wheatley College . The participants include a group of primary school Mums, nursery parents, local people and Lochend Learning Community Support Staff. The three classes will continue next academic year. Some of the participants are considering other courses at John Wheatley College .

This makes a total of 94 adults with some involvement in the project this year. In addition to learning with their children, or developing their own IT skills, this was also an opportunity to find out about local resources and services offered at the Community Centres.

Aim 4

To develop web based learning resources for upper primary and lower secondary children in partnership with Lochend New Learning Community. These will support the school curriculum.

Since August five new web links pages have been created for primary schools on Environmental Studies topics. They are shown as a grid with hyperlinks to the website, a description of it and questions or an interactive task. They can be found at:

www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk/geln/lochend_fam_learn/LFLresources.html

There is now a logo on the Welcome page that connects directly to the Family Learning Links pages.

The existing pages have been updated and a booklet containing all the links was distributed to Lochend Learning Community teachers and also to St Andrews Learning Community Head Teachers.

Teachers have attended in-service sessions about the web links pages in the Lochend Family Learning Area of the Pathfinder website at: www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk.

Support Staff have also learned about the web links sites created in order to support pupils, at their own In-service sessions.

Two groups of Teaching Access students at John Wheatley College were introduced to the Lochend Family Learning Project. They were shown the primary web links pages on the Pathfinder website and how they could be used. Ways in which the students might look for suitable websites and checks they should make on these were suggested.

Secondary

In consultation with the staff at Lochend High, 4 new web links pages have been made for S1 and S2 Glasgow 5 – 14 Social Studies subjects.

Websites have been found about the Modern Studies S1 and S2 topics. There are sites for teachers and 8 pages of sites with good interactive games to help young people further understand the course. A group of 14 Modern Studies S1 students used the IT facilities at Bishoploch Hall in order to update their weblog http://modernstudies.blogspot.com/. They use the websites found as a source of information for this.

Aim 5

To develop a homework support service.

There are currently 4 after school IT Homework clubs running that have been set up by this Project. The long term aim is to make them self sufficient.

Training has been provided by the Project for local people interested in developing an IT Homework club. This has taken the form of IT training (if appropriate) discussing ideas for activities and working together on a plan for the timetable of activities.

Two of the IT clubs are now run by local volunteers independent of the Project. The third club will become independent in the summer holidays when someone who lives locally will supervise it. The forth club has had volunteer helpers but they are not ready to take on the club yet.

59 different young people have attended the clubs since February. At one club there are children from 5 different schools in the area.

The focus is on developing computing skills and providing support for homework. Activities undertaken at the IT Homework clubs have included internet based quizzes and worksheets, personal project research and good educational interactive games.

When questioned 83% of the children said they had used the club to do homework or topic research.

There have been several outside agencies working in partnership with the clubs. A health wall chart was created by young people after input from health specialists. This will be distributed to all primary and nursery children in the Lochend Learning Community. The community police visited the clubs to personalise work on the www.spstation.co.uk website about the Strathclyde police. Learning Teaching Scotland has worked with the children at a club to get feedback about their Healthy living website.

Aim 6

To work with the Trondra Local History group to produce an Education Pack developed from and extending their book about the History of Easterhouse.

The project was involved in the formulation of the book “Hidden Histories”. published by the Trondra Local History Group, based at John Wheatley College . A local school sang at the book launch at the People’s Palace.

An Education Pack is now being developed to accompany and extend this work. The role of the Project is to link the local history research to suitable classroom activities and aims within the 5 -14 Glasgow Environmental Studies curriculum. Good websites have also been found to support the research, some of which the children will be able to use.

Publicity /Communication and Evaluation

PQ magazine issue 21 featured an article about the Family Learning Week organised by the project in partnership with PAL and Greater Easterhouse Learning Network.

PQ magazine issue 23 had an item “After school clubs a hit with kids” about the IT/Homework clubs set up.

Regular presentations about the project are made to the Greater Easterhouse Learning Network Representatives at their meetings. This gives an opportunity for feedback from the Learning Centres.

At the Lochend Learning Community Head Teachers’ Meeting, January 2006, the project was discussed and orally evaluated, including the aims, organisation, in-service, pupil response, use of the Pathfinder website and links with the Learning Centres.

Presentations about the Project have also been given to the John Wheatley College Academic Board meeting, the Wellhouse Trust and St Andrew’s Learning Community Head Teachers. I regularly attend the Greater Easterhouse Partnership Education and Lifelong Learning Group meetings.

A HMI Good Practice Review of the Project by Dick Staite took place in February 2006 as a follow up to the Lochend Community High Inspection and Community Planning Review. The focus for investigation was partnerships formed and providing an Integrated Service.

Feedback has been obtained from the Primary 6 and Primary 7 pupils in the form of questionnaires. Evaluation forms have also been given to attendees of the after school clubs P7 evaluation forms and the Learning Centre representatives. The results of these evaluations have been used to inform the progress of the project. The feedback has been very positive.

Judy Long

Lochend Learning Community Development Officer

The Pathfinder includes links to 3rd party sites which are deemed to be useful or of interest to residents of Greater Easterhouse as part of the Learning Network service. However the Greater Easterhouse Learning Network is not responsible for the content on 3rd party websites and a link to a site should not be regarded as a recommendation of the service.