Please look at the Literacy section of the website for details on the How, What and Why of Literacy at Mile End.

Children are asked to evaluate their own progress in writing tasks and are now beginning to set their own targets so that they are focused on their next steps in learning.  This self-evaluation begins in Nursery and is gradually developed so that the children have a clear understanding of what they must work on.

The collaborative nature of the curriculum provides many opportunities for the children to learn new skills and become confident listeners and talkers.  Most of the listening and talking tasks involve the children working on other areas of the curriculum, indeed the curriculum is now very rarely taught in subject isolation.

All our children learn French and from Primary 4 pupils also learn German.  Continuous assessment is integral to teaching at Mile End and ensures that the children are receiving an appropriate challenge.

This area has recently been reviewed.  The children are now being encouraged to suggest areas to study and we are building pupil voice and choice into our approach.  We achieved a Gold Award Primary Science Quality Mark, which evidences our commitment to delivering quality science. 

We make use of interactive whiteboards, PCs, laptops and handheld technology to help us deliver IT.  The children follow a planned curriculum to help them develop basic skills but will also make use of IT in all areas of the curriculum, an area we hope to continue to develop.  We are currently involved in achieving our Digital Schools Award

All children are given opportunities to develop their understanding of world religions.  We believe this is important to help create a tolerant society.  Children will also learn about Christianity and will occasionally be given the opportunity to visit local churches, permission is always sought for such events.  If you have any particular questions or requests regarding the teaching or RME; or would be happy to come into school and discuss your faith with a group of children, please contact the Head Teacher.

Children at all stages will develop skills for life, future learning and work through a range of enterprise activities that support our pupils to apply their learning in a range of different contexts.

Our pupils are encouraged to be creative.  We make use of a range of resources to support the children and give them the opportunity to use these skills in a variety of ways

This curricular area is organised under the following headings:

       Participation in performances and presentations

       Art and design

       Dance

       Drama

       Music

We invite travelling productions into school where appropriate and encourage classes to visit local theatres, museums and festivals to gain as broad an education as possible.

Health and wellbeing is a priority area for the Scottish Government.  They hope that this curricular area will ensure that all children are:

Active     Respected      Responsible   Included Safe

Healthy  Achieving        Nurtured

Staff work to develop some sensitive areas, such as awareness of substance misuse, relationship education and sexual health.  You will be invited to come into school and view materials that will be used to support your child and ask any questions to ensure that you are comfortable with all aspects of your child’s education.

From time to time we will invite groups such as Childline into school to work with children on understanding how to keep themselves safe from abuse and harm.  Again, we will inform you of such activity to ensure that you have an opportunity to ask questions and ensure that you are comfortable with the approaches being taken.

Health is a major focus for all schools in Scotland and we provide quality P.E. twice a week for pupils with lots of opportunities available for the children to further their knowledge of how to stay healthy.  One of the biggest changes within Curriculum for Excellence is the recognition that whole school communities must be more aware of mental health issues to be able to support those with and address such issues.

The curriculum is organised under the following headings:

Mental and emotional, social and physical wellbeing

Planning for choices and changes

Physical education, physical activity and sport

Food and health

Substance misuse

Relationships, sexual health and parenthood

MATHEMATICS AND NUMERACY

Please see Numeracy Curriculum pages for how to support your child at home.  At Mile End School, we aim to equip out pupils with a sound grasp of numeracy and mathematics concepts, many of which they will require for life, learning and work. 

The children will learn about many aspects of mathematics, the three broad headings being:

Number, money and measure

Shape, position and movement

Information Handling

With an aim of developing fluency and confidence in numeracy and mathematics, all of our pupils participate in Number Talks as part of maths lessons. The focus during number talks is not necessarily about the correct answer but provides the teacher the opportunity to listen to and follow their pupil's thinking and therefore adapt their teaching. At the same time, pupils are deepening their understanding of mathematical processes and concepts.

Numicon is also a resource used widely across the school and nursery and supports pupil's ability to visualise numbers and number patterns.

The children make use of a vast selection of interesting resources in mathematics. Teachers vary the approach as often as possible to keep the children engaged and motivated.