School of Education

The Strathclyde Visual Arts Studio is a new facility set up to support students interested in pursuing a career in Fine Art or Design.

The University of Strathclyde and Glasgow City Council Education Department are delighted to support this course that builds on the success of The Tramway Visual Arts Studio that enabled students to gain acceptance to all of Scotland’s main art schools and other British institutions including Goldsmiths and The Royal College of Art.

Ashlaigh Byrne, Associate Lecturer and Wilma Eaton, PGDE Lecturer in Art and Design, will run the course.  It employs the unique approach, developed over many years, of teaching students a wide variety of skills, encouraging them to engage in an experimental and creative process enabling them to produce a highly individual and imaginative portfolio focussed on their specific area of interest.

The course is designed to concentrate on skills and creativity and will cover all of the main disciplinary areas including drawing and painting, printmaking, sculpture and environmental art as well as in depth support for jewellery, textiles, fashion communication design, architectural and interior design.  There will also be opportunities to consider more specialised areas including computer graphics and animation.

Students applying to higher education will have focussed support with expert guidance on upload processes, personal statements and advice on interview processes and techniques.

More information can be found on the Strathclyde Visual Arts Studio webpage.

This offering involves two interactive online sessions designed to support creative approaches to inclusion. These sessions are participatory so participants should come prepared to do some low stakes drawing, and to have their Zoom cameras switched on to unleash the power of drawing for learning and fun in your classroom.

Whether you are you a habitual drawer, doodler, or, whether you would say “but I cannae draw the curtains!” this forum might be for you. We will discuss the benefits drawing can bring to everyone’s mental wellbeing, why it is an important thinking tool for learning, and how it extends and enhances children’s literacy skills. We will discuss current research evidence on why drawing is a powerful memory tool which can be used across every curricular area. You will participate in some practical drawing activities that can be easily applied into your classroom practice and that change your perceptions about what drawing is for. This CLPL activity will be especially useful for practitioners working in multilingual classrooms, and working with learners who struggle with traditional approaches to literacy.

More information can be found on the School of Education website.

The conference is a great opportunity to listen to a variety of speakers talking about young children’s learning within the early years. This year the focus is ‘Creative Thinking Spaces’ and we are delighted that Manor Wood Foundation Stage Unit will be presenting a recent project on curiosity and creativity. The setting previously are proud winners of ‘Nursery World Best Early Years’.

We also have a variety of workshops including: sewing, sculpture, painting, clay and designing a creative space. You can select to attend two workshops.

There will be opportunities to Discover, Design and Discuss.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is one of the core elements of Learning for Sustainability and, as such, is featured in the GTCS Standards for Full Registration, Curriculum for Excellence and How Good is Our School 4. ESD is also an international approach that is used to address global challenges relating to social, economic, and environmental sustainability.

More information on this course can be found on the HASS Career Long Professional Learning webpage.

Deirdre Grogan and Charlotte Bowes will be presenting bite-size training to support play pedagogy within the early years. Each session will last for twenty minutes and will focus on three key points. Participants can opt to attend all the sessions or select to attend one session.  The training is suitable for anyone who is involved in the development of play pedagogy.

The following sessions take place between 17:00-17:20:

• 7th September - The Power of Play
• 14th September - Observing Young Children’s Play
• 2nd November – The Adult Role
• 16th November – Planning

Mentoring is a term frequently used in education but what does it really mean for those supporting secondary students on placement? These two seminars seek to explore the concept of mentoring, the role of the school-based mentor within initial teacher education (ITE) and how to mentor ITE students actively and positively. The Donaldson Report (2011) emphasised the importance of mentoring for ITE students while they are on placement, and the GTCS Professional Standards reflect the importance of developing positive relationships including the need  to “work collaboratively to contribute to the professional learning and development of colleagues, including student teachers” (2021 p11).

These sessions are aimed at current or aspiring ITE mentors in secondary schools to provide some practical guidance in developing as a reflective and teacher-orientated mentor, with a view to supporting the development of autonomous and effective student-teachers with a positive attitude to life-long professional learning. The topics covered in the sessions include:

Session 1 – The context for mentoring within Scottish schools, the purpose of mentoring in ITE and developing a positive mentor-mentee relationship; and

Session 2 – An exploration of effective approaches to working with your mentee.    

Are you interested in developing, or strengthening an existing, method of assessment for student assignments? Perhaps you have recently designed new student assignments for modules, or perhaps you are thinking about how well your current assessment is working. If these situations describe you, this short course is for you!