October holiday developments

Things are moving pretty quickly. Development of the FLaT room is taking place and should shortly be ready for installation of the digital music equipment.

We have booked a Video Conference session with the National Maritime Museum (NMM) for Wednesday, 7th December. The topic for our first video conference is "The Moon". We have established a dedicated connection for our Polycom equipment and a test call with NMM will be placed on the 8th November. Matthew at MSE-Scotland, and Mike Griffiths at Global Leap have been providing great support in ensuring a successful experience.

Our eTwinning initiative with teacher Treasa Farrell from Antrim has been established. The project will run from 7th November to 23rd December, and involves group collaboration between Class 2 at Hillside and a group of students from Rathmore Educational Guidance Centre (just outside Antrim Town), who work with Treasa in Northern Ireland. Pupils will introduce themselves (via group email), collect data on their locality, then make a presentation to the other group. We expect to complete the link with a "show and tell" video conference in January. Note that as this project is taking place withing the UK, it is not formally recognised as an eTwinning link

Despite some 'teething problems', all Class 1 pupils (and several other pupils and staff) will commence the online IC3/PC Passport course on 31st October. This resource is provided by Momentum, and supported in Scotland by Scotsys, of Bellshill.

The Access Network YahooGroup is now operational. We have 7 members at the moment, and have been recently been discussing proposed changes to Scottish Group Awards (SGAs).

I will be meeting with Paula (Care Manager) wb 31st October to set out the strategy for successful implementation of the (already trialled) Independent Living programme. This provides an enhancement to the school week, and leads to certification (via alternatives to written assessments).