Congratulations to Claire Kerr who have been nominated in Scots Teacher o the Year sponsored by Scottish Qualifications Authority in the Scots Language Awards 2020. Vote now!
We asked Claire Kerr the following questions.
Tell us aboot yersel or yer ootfit.
I am a Primary School teacher working in beautiful Dumfries and Galloway. My aim is to involve children as best I can in their learning, and include them as active participants. I especially love to do this with literacy, and strive to bring literacy to life, making it relevant and real for the children that I teach.
Whit wis it got ye involvit wi the Scots leid?
Scots Language forms an important part of our literacy curriculum. Before Lockdown I had secured a grant from the Scottish Book Trust, and invited local author Susi Briggs, who wrote the enchanting Scots Language story Nip Nebs, to host a 3D Nip Nebs Trail in our school woodland area.
Lockdown unfortunately scuppered these plans, however I decided to try and include this Scots Language focus in our virtual learning.
When the children and I initially read the Nip Nebs story, there were a number of words that we needed to translate, to help us understand the story better. We had an idea to collaborate with Susi and create a video of the words we weren’t sure of and ask Susi to help us with their meaning. Each child in the class was given a word or phrase from the story, (every single child took part) and they created a poster with a video asking Susi what their word or phrase meant.
Susi then very kindly answered each child – and the Nip Nebs Virtual Glossary was born!
I loved exploring and learning with the children, the beautiful Scots phrases that Susi used in her story, some of which I had not heard of before.
Ony particlar career heighlichts?
This collaboration is definitely a highlight for me, as it is a positive learning experience that has come from the Lockdown situation. It has also led to further collaboration since returning to school, with a whole school and nursery art project “Huffy the Heron” – illustrating another of Susi’s Scots Language Stories .
I’m also very proud of work that I have done in previous years with the Peter Pan Moatbrae Trust, particularly an on site read aloud from the JM Barrie Peter Pan script, which was illustrated by the artist – Stephen White – ‘Stref’, as I read from the story.
Wha’s yer plans fir the days aheid?
I hope to be able to invite Susi Briggs to our school, when it is safe to do so, to allow the children to enjoy a ‘real life’ 3D Nip Nebs Trail in the school’s woodland area!
The Scots Language Awards 2020 will be online at www.scotslanguageawards.com. We will have a mixture of events on the 23rd / 24th October. Performing at the Award on Saturday 24th September will be Gerda Stevenson, Gary Robertson, Shona Donaldson and Jim Malcolm.
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