Lochend Family Learning Project

Progress Report August 2006 – June 2007

Aim 1:
To introduce P5-P7 pupils to their local community learning centre and its facilities. Primary 5 and 6 pupils will be provided with an induction to the network, Internet access, an introduction to the Pathfinder website and e-mail accounts. Primary 7 pupils will visit the Learning Centres to further develop their study skills and Internet research development.

132 Primary 6 pupils have learned to navigate the local Pathfinder website www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk and how to email each other using the First Class system. After the first visit they received a Bronze certificate. They earned their Silver certificate on the second visit.

157Primary 7 pupils from Lochend Learning Community have visited their local Learning Centre in small groups.

They have been developing their Internet Study Skills. Different sources of information were identified and the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet for research were discussed. The pupils found out 3 facts about a chosen subject and a compiled a biography of a famous person of their choice. Each fact or picture needed to be referenced by the web address.

Pupils who have attended these visits have completed an evaluation. It asks if the pupil enjoyed the visit, which activity they like best, if they think they have learned lots of new skills and whether they will return to the Leaning Centre. 91% of pupils thought the visits were really good or said they had enjoyed them. 87% of pupils said they thought they had learned something or lots of new things. 81% of pupils said they would like to go back to their local Learning Centre in their own time.

Aim 2:
To involve young people and their families in learning together using their local community learning centre.

A visit to the Learning Centres was arranged for all the pupils when members of their family were welcome. The children took on the role of “teacher”, showing their family member the IT skills they had learned. Those attending received a Gold certificate. 50 adults have participated since August. This means 17% of the primary pupils attending involved a family member in their learning.

Family Fun Weeks

Two Family Fun Weeks were organised in October and May. At the 5 different Learning Centres there were activities for adults, teenagers and children. The teenagers worked on Acid Express, creating their own music. There was an Internet Treasure Hunt for adults about household matters. The younger children were able to do Internet Treasure Hunts on a children’s animal website and an art activity.
In total 100 children, 17 teenagers and 5 adults attended.

Widening Access IT courses

Three Widening Access IT courses have been arranged for adults through the project. One member of Lochend Learning Community Support Staff has achieved the European Computing Driving Licence qualification 9 others are working towards this. IT Flexible Learning classes for parents of children at Wellhouse Primary and Buchlyvie Nursery, take place at local Learning Centres with the support of tutors from John Wheatley College.

The total number of adults involved in the project August 2006 –June 2007 is 85.

Aim 3:
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.

Web links pages linked to the 5 – 14 Curriculum

There are now over 50 web links pages linked to the 5 – 14 Curriculum. These are online on the Pathfinder website. http://www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk/geln/lochend_fam_learn/LFLintro.html .

The Pathfinder is a website created by staff at John Wheatley College in Easterhouse in partnership with local people.

The Lochend Family Learning pages of topic web links are shown as a grid with hyperlinks to the website, a description of the site and a suggested interactive task for the pupils to focus their thinking, at the appropriate level. The pages can be used to support class work, homework research or for fun. From October 2006 to the end of May 2007 there were 5864 visits to these Primary pages.

Secondary school links are also being developed in consultation with the staff at Lochend Community High. Web links pages have been made for S1 and S2 Glasgow 5 – 14 Social Studies subjects. There are 7 pages of interactive games and activities for Modern Studies and 14 pages for Social Studies topics. There have been 1085 hits on the Secondary pages since October 2006.

In total the Lochend Learning Links on the Pathfinder have been opened 9544 times since October.

The Lochend Family Learning Project is involved in finding appropriate websites to support the Sexual Health and Relationships Education pack being piloted by Lochend Learning Community amongst others.

Groups of Access to Humanities students at John Wheatley College in Shettleston and Easterhouse were shown the Lochend Family Learning primary web links pages on the Pathfinder website. Ways of finding websites for children, including a list of things to check were suggested. They were also told about the after school clubs. Two students volunteered to help at The Pavillion IT homework club. One of these is now supervising the club every Friday.

Aim 4:
To develop a homework support service.

Homework /IT clubs

Six homework /IT clubs were set up by the project. In all cases there was a mentoring period when a local volunteer worked with the project. They were provided with a bank of ideas then went on to take charge of the club themselves.

The Glenburn

The Glenburn IT Homework club set up by the Lochend Family Learning Project for local children is now run independently from the project by Glenburn staff. It takes place 4 evenings a week.

The Hub

There is an after school ICT and homework club at the Hub in Wellhouse on Wednesday 3.30 – 5.30 pm. The young people use websites for their school research or do interactive activities on suggested topics. An art activity is always available and the children borrow books from the library at the Hub. There is a display of their work in the café. This club is supported by a local volunteer.

The Pavillion

The Pavillion IT Homework club is on Fridays. The young people who attend are developing excellent computing skills. The Health wallchart made last year in partnership with Lochend Learning Community Health co-ordinator was used as an example of good practice at the SETT exhibition. Other activities have included a booklet about the Learning centre, Powerpoint presentations to accompany songs and creating Art using IT. Since January the club has been run by an Access to Humanities student from John Wheatley College.

Support was provided through this project to the Bishoploch Hall Learning Centre out of school care staff. Ideas for IT activities were discussed and demonstration sessions taken. The staff are now more confident to supervise IT activities independently.

Community Connections’ Kidz Club

Community Connections’ Kidz Club was started in partnership with this project. It was initially an IT project, a local volunteer introduced art activities then Glasgow City Council provided a sports coach to take PE sessions. The club attracted over 30 children a week but had to close with the liquidation of Community Connections’ parent organisation.

The Homework club at FARE

The Homework club at FARE was set up in partnership with Commonhead Primary and the Project. Interactive Environmental Studies tasks were given to the P4 – P7 pupils to be completed at home or at FARE Learning Centre.

Other Learning Centres

Other Learning Centres in the Greater Easterhouse area outside Lochend Learning Community have been visited to discuss how to set up an after school club. They have been given a booklet of ideas and activities.

Aim 5:
Involving local schools in community life.

The Community Involvement Programme at Lochend Community High started in August 2006. Lessons were organised for P5/6 pupils at Bishoploch Hall in partnership with Lochend Community High School, John Wheatley College, Bishoploch Hall and this project. S5/6 students created music and wrote about community related issues of their choice with guidance from a John Wheatley tutor. The two groups merged into one after Christmas, due to school leavers.

After liaison between schools, the Bridge Library and this project, the staff of three primary schools came to the library for in-service sessions. Two classes of primary children have attended authors’ readings. Copies of the Lochend Family Learning web links pages were given to the library staff to support the Library’s after school IT club.

Blairtummock P3/4 came to the John Wheatley College restaurant as part of their work on Healthy eating. The pupils were served a nutritious breakfast by college students. They met the chef who showed them around the kitchen then presented them with a certificate.

A group of P5 – 7 Wellhouse pupils visited Provanhall house to learn about local history and take photographs as part of a Scottish Civil Trust project. Primary 6 planted strawberry plants and bulbs at The Hub. They researched Wind Power on the Internet at Innerzone as a wind turbine is being built in the area. Wellhouse Primary 7 developed their school Year Book using the IT facilities at their local Learning Centre.

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.

Education Pack

The education pack is being developed to accompany and extend the book “Hidden History” published by the Trondra Local History Group, based at John Wheatley College. 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.

Through the Lochend Family Learning Project, plans designed to link the Trondra research to 5 – 14 Environmental Studies have been written. Pupil activities, worksheets and assessments were designed for the Bronze Age and Life in Stewart Times sections.

Web links pages

Ten web links pages on local history topics have been created to supplement the Education Pack. These are online at http://www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk/geln/lochend_fam_learn/LFLlocal_history.html These have proved very popular with 2188 hits to the Local History web link pages since October 2006.

Publicity /Communication

Lochend Family Learning pages can be accessed through the Glasgow City Council Education Intranet GEN2 from the Library Section.

Information about this is included in the News section of the Pathfinder at http://www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk/news/070308LochendLearning.htm

There are articles about Family Learning week on The Pathfinder website at http://www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk/news/famFunWeek06.htm , http://www.greatereasterhouse.co.uk/news/070529FamilyFunWeektMay07.html .

The local magazine, Glasgow East Outlook will include an article about Family Fun Week in its summer issue.

The John Wheatley College staff magazine featured an article about the Wellhouse Mums’ IT flexible Learning group during the summer. In February’s magazine there was a piece about the Teaching Access to Humanities’ students’ involvement with the Pavillion IT after school club.

The Greater Easterhouse Partnership Education and Lifelong Learning Group meetings were attended. The Project is now represented on the Shettleston, Bailleston and Greater Easterhouse Community Learning and Development Group and the Shettleston, Bailleston and Greater Easterhouse Youth Network.

Evaluation

Primary pupils who attended Family Learning sessions have completed a multiple choice evaluation.

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.

Learning centre staff have also filled in evaluations about the organisation of pupil visits, experience of pupils, links for primary schools, support for after school clubs and the effect of the project. The response has been very positive.

A presentation about the project was given to the head teachers of Lochend Learning Community. They confirmed the continuing success of the project from the schools’ point of view.

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.