2020 Aberdeenshire Grant Awards

The £9,000 in outdoor education grants that the Jo Walters Trust gave to organisations in Aberdeenshire in 2020 nearly all have a very similar theme; putting in place materials and spaces for children to be able to spend more time learning outdoors. We are thrilled to see these projects taking shape, and delighted that one of the schools is Jo’s former primary school, Alford Primary.

Bracoden Primary School: £1,000 to buy the equipment for them to start a forest school in a local woodland, including fire lighting equipment, tarpaulin to provide a sheltered area, various tools, safety equipment, cooking equipment, hand washing station, first aid equipment, den building/construction equipment and nature observational equipment. Read their lovely report here.

Denis Law Legacy Trust: £2,000 to build on their existing successful Streetsport project. Streetsport provides free, outdoor, weekday/evening, sports/creative activities for young people (8-18 years) in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, resulting in a significant reduction in youth annoyance in the area. This funding will support an additional session in another community in Aberdeenshire, identified by police as in need of intervention.

Boddam Primary School: £2,000 to buy waterproof clothing and tools to equip their new outdoor classroom so the children can use it all year round

Strathburn Park Playgroup & Twos Group: £1,000 to turn a piece of derelict ground at Garioch Sports Centre into a fun outdoor space so the children at the nursery can spend more time outdoors in a stimulating environment. The grant will pay for things such as raised beds, tools, gloves, seeds and a mud kitchen.

Alford Primary Parent Council: £2,000 to improve the 'weather-resistance' and seasonal capacity of their new outdoor learning programme, opening it up to all ages throughout most of the year. Using both their playground areas and adjoining woodland, the funding will allow them to create different sheltered learning areas, suitable for all age ranges using weather proof clothing and flexible, movable shelters. As this is Jo’s former school we were particularly delighted to be able to fund something so very worthwhile in her name. The school has put together a wonderful report including some great feedback from pupils which you can read here.

Aboyne Primary School: £1,000 to build an outdoor calm space, comprising outdoor classroom, sensory trail and garden that can be used by pupils and staff alike.

Maths Grants 2020

In 2020 the Jo Watlers Trust awarded £4,700 in grants to varous organisations across the UK to help further the teaching of maths. Many of the applications this year focused on providing resources to help teach more maths outdoors.

Tullarton Primary School: £640 to set up an outdoor woodwork hub so pupils can design, measure and build their own creations. This will help to engage reluctant learners, give a real purpose for their learning and effort and provide opportunities to involve parents. All pupils from 3-12 years old will be able to access this resource

St Patrick's Primary School Lochgelly, £250 to put together equipment to set up maths areas around the outside areas of the school which are linked to their new maths packs. These can be used to consolidate learning in line with the many changes in education at present and make further connections with maths in real life.

St Agatha's RC Primary - Leven: £750 to make maths packs that can be used without sharing them, and also as home learning packs. These will include playing cards, number lines, maths strings, mini kits of numicon, small clocks and place value counters. Read their report here

Lochgelly High School Maths Department: £750 to buy concrete materials to support conceptual numeracy. In particular they will make use of algebra tiles (supports numeracy, integers, basic algebra leading into National 5 and Higher topics) and visualisers to display the use of the concrete materials by displaying them in the class for learners to view, as well as recording their lessons.

St Thomas More School, Buxton: £200 to pay for prizes for whole school maths competitions. These were hugely successful during the lockdown and saw huge engagement from the school community. The prizes should help motivate students to get even more involved.

Parkhill Primary School: £470 bought Learning Numeracy Bags for Primary 1 entrants. The aim of the bags is to support parental/carer engagement in numeracy at home. They expect this to develop pupils’ understanding of conceptual numeracy as they play games which enhance counting and addition/subtraction skills. Furthermore, concrete materials and resources will support the learning taking place in school

Bellyeoman Primary School £750.00 to create an outdoor maths shed that will help their pupils (many of who are in SIMD 1 & 2) to provide as many mathematical experiences and opportunities as possible.. The shed will be filled with a range of equipment from counting, sorting and ordering to shape and measurement resources and will allow them to maximise the outdoor space which is particularly helpful in the current climate. They expect the equipment to be a fantastic teaching aid and that it will improve mathematical investigation, encourage play and allow children to grow in confidence in numeracy and maths. Click here for a report from the school.

Fyvie Primary School £250.00 to purchase TTS maths outdoors kits for KS1, KS1 and outdoor ‘Numicon’ number frames. They plan also to purchase rope, hoop, additional stopwatches and matre sticks to make up kits for each of their 6 classes, filled with high-quality, durable, easily cleaned and practical resources.They have written about some of the ingenious ways they have used the funding and have some great photos in their report here.

Daviot School, Aberdeenshire £700.00: after refurbishing and developing their adjacent outdoor area, the infant staff really want to take maths teaching outdoors for P1-3 classes introducnig outdoor maths sessions at least once a week. The grant will pay for a range of outdoor maths activities such as giant snakes and ladders, giant dominoes, Jumbo ten frames, Outdoor Place Value counters, Giant playing cards and Outdoor Number mat