RME Assessment

This week was our last week for the term in RME. The assessment activity the pupils were to complete was a trailer, advertising one of the festivals they had learned about during the term.

We had looked at Diwali, Hanukkah and Christmas and I let the children choose which festival they wanted to share about in their assessment.

The students then co-constructed the success criteria with me for their work before setting off on the activity.

Our success criteria was;

• Clearly identify which festival they were doing.
• Have the members of the whole group named in the trailer.
• Include lots of facts about their story.

The classes all worked really hard during this activity and although there were some groups that had problems with dynamics, they generally were focused on their learning through the entire session.

After undertaking this activity with the first class last week I realised that the best way of approaching the trailers was to first write out the 'story'. Groups that didn't do this then struggled to focus their work through the task and so I made sure they all completed their storylines before they began to take films and pictures.



I found this a particularly interested assessment activity as it really required the students to think about what they knew happened during each festival. They had to fill in a certain number of spaces in the video and had to think up that many different features of the festivals. Some of the groups retold the stories of the festivals rather than looking at the actual festival, but this also shows a deeper understanding than they had to start.

Buddy Reading

In P1 the children have taken to their new reading programme with great fervor. Now they are developing skills that allow them to buddy read effectively.

This enables children to support each other and model good reading strategies, whilst also developing an enjoyable reading experience as it is something that they are doing with their friends.

We talked about how to sit and behave correctly when buddy reading and covered the EEKK approach.



Then the children spent 10-15 minutes buddy reading in the class. They even got to choose their own buddies!

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Measurement Assessment MNU 1-11a

This term we have been learning about length and weight. I wanted the assessment for this unit to be a practical hands on activity and spent a while thinking about what we could do.

We ended up making a Lego model that met certain requirements. They had to weigh 300g and measure 25cm (height, length or width).

The children seemed to really enjoy this activity and worked hard to meet the criteria for their models. Only three children actually achieved it though.

I wasn't too concerned about the children managing to get their model to weigh 300g and measure 25cm but I was interested in the children being able to show me that they were competent in using and reading scales and rulers correctly. There was a lot of evidence of this through the entire assessment and the students also got opportunities for developing other knowledge and skills too.

Through the morning I had plenty of opportunity to sit with each pupil and assess their understanding of the measurement topics we have covered and have left the information for the class teacher to use in their paperwork.

Student Led Music

For the past few weeks there has been a student in my class who was really keen to teach The Cup Song to her classmates.



On Monday, she got her opportunity.

When the rest of the class were told about this there were some initial issues as they re-adjusted their mindset around their peer. I said they had to treat her as they would a teacher and I was going to be watching to make sure that happened. Once they started learning the song, the class quickly fell into good relationship.

The girl did a great job in sharing with her classmates and managed to teach most of them the whole pattern. She shared the job with a friend who already knew the song and they worked with half the class and smaller groups to support the rest to learn it.

I feel that student led activities are hugely beneficial for the students in a range of ways and hope that this activity will open the door for more requests/suggestions from the children in this class so that they can become more involved and engaged in their learning.