Rainbow Light School - RME and health outdoors at Unst primary school

This is the story of the Rainbow Light School, where creativity was used to increase the emotional, social mental and spiritual well-being of the pupils in this small Shetland school. At the same time they created a designated space for religious observance in a multi-faith society.

A peace garden built by the pupils contributed to their learning in citizenship and developed their sense of global citizenship and ethics.

This project is a holistic approach to meeting the needs of the pupils and the four capacities of A Curriculum for Excellence.

The seminar is a celebration of this project and can be viewed as a step-by-step guide to changing the environment of your school and your approach to religious observance.

Uyeasound Primary School, also known as the Rainbow Light School, has a number of case studies on the LTS Online Service, for example on the Health Promoting Schools, Religious Observance and IDES websites.  The school has won two environmental awards and has been nominated for a national award in Citizenship and Global Ethics.

Kate has completed a secondment with Learning and Teaching Scotland. She is a graduate of the Columba 1400 Strategic Leadership Academy. She was recently granted Professional Recognition in Teaching and Learning by the GTC. She is currently the cluster co-ordinator for A Curriculum for Excellence for the North Isles in Shetland.

Kate is a prolific contributor to the online community Heads Together. As well as teaching, she has a keen involvement in educational research and is on the Advisory Committee of the AERS School Management and Governance Network Committee. Kate has published a number of articles and recently presented a paper at the TLRP (Teaching and Learning Research Programme) conference in Glasgow on the place of spiritual intelligence in A Curriculum for Excellence.

Kate has delivered in-service training and conference workshops to teachers from all over Scotland.  She is currently leader of the Shetland Coaching and Mentoring programme.