Fife Building Bridges case study
PDF file: Fife Building Bridges case studyGlenrothes High School and South Parks Primary
Glenrothes High School has a roll of approximately 900 and all four associated primaries are within walking distance. South Park has a roll of 300 and draws upon a mixed catchment area with a high level of placing requests.
The teachers involved in this study would concentrate on reading to reflect on the writer’s craft. Their agreed aims were to provide pupils with appropriate terminology to discuss texts, to prepare them to analyse texts independently and to give them the confidence needed to attain Level F ‘writing about texts’.
A poetry questionnaire was completed, with pupils indicating that they derived little enjoyment from poetry and experienced significant difficulties with comprehension. Pupils were filmed to allow teacher observation of how they ‘explored’ poetry. An inconsistency of approach emerged. To address this, ‘poetry prompt cards’ were produced to enable a systematic and logical examination of texts.
Poetry partners were established and poems were read aloud to emphasise the importance of sound to meaning. A series of lessons explored decoding meaning, linguistic analysis, shape, imagery and rhyme. New terms were introduced as appropriate.
A ‘where are we now?’ evaluation was carried out six months into the programme, revealing a new-found confidence, increased collaborative working and an enthusiasm for poetry. There is a commitment to see this approach rolled out across all of the associated primaries in the Glenrothes cluster.