Information About Improvements and Resources

We're working on lots of things to improve the learning and teaching in school.  Here are some of the resources we've been developing and implementing.

Literacy Ladders 

Numeracy Ladders

Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood  - the national framework we use to teach this area of the curriculum

Colourful Semantics - an inclusive approach to support literacy across all levels

Accelerated Reader - a resource for increasing comprehension, engagement and confidence in reading.

Health and Wellbeing 

Homework

Homework is relaxed at Auchterless as we know that children and families have really busy lives and that the impact of attending extra-curricular activities, down time with friends or family and spending time cooking the dinner or being part of family life cannot be underestimated.  The younger children do get reading books home to practise with an adult or older sibling and there are activities shared through J2Journals and J2Homework if there is a particular focus or opportunity for learners to work on at home.  We use digital platforms such as SumDog, Accelerated Reader and other games based sites to reinforce the learning in school and children are encouraged to use these at home as well.  Homework should only ever be reinforcing the learning done in school or providing opportunities to apply their learning.

Any practise of numeracy and literacy used in every day life adds value and deeps the understanding of concepts taught in school.  Counting change, reading maps, having the subtitles on when you watch a film together, chatting at the dinner table, weighing ingredients or practising number bonds when you're driving to swimming lessons are all great ways of supporting your child in their learning.  Homework almost never needs to look like a worksheet or a jotter.

Home Learning

In the event of school closures due to adverse weather, learning activities and resources are posted on the childrens' J2Journals or J2Homework with supporting teaching resources and/or recordings to explain the learning.  These are high quality learning opportunities shared, monitored and supported by teaching staff online to reduce the impact of missing time in the building.  This can only provided to this extent if the school is fully closed.  When the school is open but transport runs, every effort is made to share what is being done in school online as well but this cannot be monitored by staff who will be teaching the class in person.