Competent at peever: Liz Lochhead at Scotland Street

I loved this exhibition at Scotland Street School Museum! Competent at peever is the result of Liz Lochhead's year-long residency at Scotland Street and comprises poems, drawings and collages on the themes of childhood and primary school. This would be a great exhibition to take children to - while I was there, several classes passed through, all very well behaved. Student teachers would also appreciate it - I bought a collection of poetry, but even the booklet which accompanies the exhibition reproduces several of the poems and could be used in the classroom.

The highlight for me was Liz's art school project from 1968 in which she went back to her old school - it brought back so many memories since that was the year I finished primary. Not all pleasant unfortunately - I enjoyed learning "sums" with the cuisenaire rods she illustrated, and there's a real set to look at elsewhere in the museum (and also in Strathclyde University's Education Resource Centre), but my headmaster was not as benevolent as Mr Ritchie of Newarthill, and I still smart with humiliation from an undeserved punishment. You could have an interesting discussion about teaching methods then and now just based on that section.

If you're in Glasgow, hop, skip and jump over to this exhibition as soon as you can! It's on till 7th April. If you're not a Scot and you don't know what peever is, that last sentence should give you a clue - or read Poem for my sister: "I like to watch my little sister playing hopscotch.........She is competent at peever."

For more photographs of the exhibition, see my travel blog.

Celebrating Burns

It's Burns Night tomorrow! We still have resources available for you to borrow and I've done a brief document with external links. Some good ones are from:

Education Scotland
Scholastic
TES

Liz Lochhead photo by Norman McBeath

Carry on the celebrations till Thursday 26th with Scottish Book Trust. The latest in their Authors Live series is Celebrate Burns with Liz Lochhead. Liz is the Scottish Makar (like a Poet Laureate) and will be celebrating Burns' poetry and reading some of her own work. Follow the link to find out how to listen live at 11am or to download or stream the broadcast next week. Children from P6-S4 (9-16 years), or any lover of Burns' poetry, should enjoy it. There are resources about both Burns and Lochhead on the same link.