Cockenzie Primary School, East Lothian
Case Study
How meta-skills are enhancing the whole school ethos of Cockenzie Primary
Cockenzie Primary School in East Lothian have been busy embedding meta-skills within their school curriculum. This case study showcases some of the inspiring work happening throughout the school, including two practitioner enquiries in this area.
In addition, Pupils voice has played a key role in how meta-skills are embedded and celebrated in the school.
Meta-skills at Cockenzie Primary
Click here to listen to Sophie Powell, Depute Head Teacher, at Cockenzie Primary, explaining why meta-skills are crucial to the school vision and improvement plan.
The school integrates meta-skills in daily learning, child led leadership groups, celebration of academic and wider achievements and crucially the vision, values and aims of the school.
Meta-skills at Cockenzie Primary
An example of how the school has integrated meta-skills with one of their school values is their Respectful Rhino Award for P1-P3 classes. Each month the school focuses on one meta-skill. When a pupil is observed demonstrating the meta-skill in focus, they will go outside their classroom to ring the Respectful Rhino bell. All classes stop what they are doing and pause to reflect upon the meta-skill. A “Respectful Rhino” award is then added to the class jar.
Hear from pupils about the ‘Respectful Rhino’ award.
The embedding meta-skills journey
Each theme of the meta-skills framework was introduced initially in year one in a phased manner to encourage deep discussion and exploration. Term one and two focused on Social Intelligence, Term three focused on Self-Management and Term four focused on Innovation. Each related meta-skill was introduced by teachers at assemblies, where personalised school success criteria was discussed for the meta-skill. This provided clarity on what success looked like and felt like for the children. Teachers develop their understanding of meta-skills through the protected time in the school CLPL calendar and within various CAT sessions. Online spaces for sharing resources were created and are well used by all staff.
To support embedding meta-skills, Cockenzie Primary ensure that they are visible for all by showcasing a large meta-skills display board at the main entrance to the school. This supports conversations with families and partners on how meta-skills link to current classwork and other activities.
As the school has been developing their work with meta-skills, two probationer teachers chose to focus on meta-skills as part of their Practitioner Enquiry.
Hear from Eilidh MacKenzie, a P3 teacher, and pupils about her practitioner enquiry ‘How could the meta-skills approach be used to support positive peer relations in a P3 classroom?’. The practitioner enquiry was informed by pupil voice, highlighting the importance of supporting the understanding and celebration of meta-skills.
Hear from Jessica Martin, a P1 teacher, about her practitioner enquiry ‘How can questioning and statements be utilised within a play pedagogy environment to encourage children’s development of meta-skills?’
Meta-skills are considered crucial to planning, learning and teaching within the school. For example, in the play pedagogy, the staff consistently pause the play or task and have a reflective conversation around what meta-skills they are using, how they are demonstrating these, what meta-skills have they observed in others and explain how they have followed the personalised steps to success. This has resulted in staff observing deepened awareness and understanding.
In their upper classrooms pupils decided to evidence their journey through wall journaling around each meta-skill of the month. These also include the learning and development within school lunch time clubs.
Pupils Voice
Pupils voice has been key to the school integrating meta-skills into the classroom. This has strengthened the value pupils put on the development of their meta-skills.
Hear from pupils across Cockenzie about their experiences developing meta-skills.
What’s next for Cockenzie Primary School?
Cockenzie Primary School will continue to evaluate their approach and celebrate their pupils’ achievements. Going forward they are keen to involve their wider community and link meta-skills to career opportunities.
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