That could be a product that kids could make, right? Feel many tabs open. Is this a story of all of your lives, isn't it? To be a child in your brain? Yeah, it was so new. A lot of people don't even know about this elementary migration. Like there's really just a ton of people, like even in my own town, that were like, we didn't know this happened. This gorgeous creature we didn't know actually was out ever. So raising awareness with websites and working in conjunction with local nature centers or naturalists could be really powerful for raising that awareness. They can do interviews with local scientists. Jim Andrews, who is our state herpetologist, was incredibly generous. I met him down in Middlebury. He came with me to a school visit. I'm sure he'd do a podcast that a student, or an interview with a student. People are open to this. They just need the call. And it's the best if the student can make the call. Infographics are a really neat tool that's cropped up now. There's a great site called Canva. It's just canva.com that I've been making infographics with students. And there's just templates that's easy to use and it's a great way to communicate a lot of information in one visual. So maybe they create, for this time that they share this migration time. Or maybe it's the fall and it's the migration of another species you wanna feature or whatever. A guidebook to the amphibians because a lot of people don't even know about the Spotted Salamanders. I was thinking about a mural, a community art because the illustrations. I'm amazed by the illustrator on a regular basis. And one of the things that I really love is this particular spread is the threats, the human-caused threats to the Salamanders. And it took me a little bit to see that she did the empty space that they're missing. The power in that as an art teacher or an integrated study to say what is a threat in your local habitat, in your state? Could you do a public mural that had the empty space featuring us considering what would happen if they were gone? So that was just an emerging idea about her artwork. There's another place like the intentional choice of the illustrator to put yellow spots. Because in the text it says, the school day crawls on slowly like a Salamander, minutes into long hours, staring at the clock. All I can see is rain and bright yellow spots. So then the illustrator put yellow spots over the whole scene. That never would have occurred to me. So how could a student create a piece of work and then use what's in the text to guide the design of the illustration? You know, there's so much potential there just on the illustrations. Magazines. I don't know if you guys have seen Thingwinks before. They're so neat. I don't know what I linked here. Okay, well, that's not what I wanted, but. So basically, if that's the website that you can create a Thingwink through, but it's an image that you can sync in links into. So there's a lot of applications here. We have a couple posts on the Tarant Blog about this. So like let's say I had a map of middle steps where I live and I'm a student, I can replicate that map, put it up and then sync in spots where the Salamander crossing sites are and put up my data for what I found at those sites or information or websites or whatever. So it's rich as an activity. Is it actually text on the image? Or it can be anything? Or like a symbol? Or you can do whatever. You can do whatever. Okay, it can be text, video, pictures. It's cool. And then you can also, what happens next in the story? If it's a literacy type lesson, a skit of it. So there's just a book trailer. The author, excuse me, the illustrator made a really nice book trailer, but what if the student created ones? I thought those would be pretty cool. Just to add in for the infographics, Vengage is an excellent site that works better than Canva for Infographics. V-I-N-N-G-A-G-E. And they have all sorts of templates and then you can look at those templates and then create your own. Ken, could you say anything else? Vengage, V-E-N-N-G-A-G-E. At Canva works really well for if you need logos and awards and things, but Vengage is infographics pretty much only. Is it similar to what Gloucester was? Gloucester was an online poster, but they got ninth to pay for it. Now it's not for you. No, Vengage is it, maybe a little bit. Yeah, I've used Gloucester before, but Vengage is really like, these are infographics. And so I did a whole, you want to go through it, like how do you read an infographic and what's going on with the text and what do you highlight and things like that. And it's interactive. You can sync links into it as well or not. Yeah, you more than likely aren't going to though in your infographic because you're explaining or it's your visual literacy of that information. And it allows you to, for free, the free part, allows you to make like four. And then you just have them delete the old ones that they don't need. I run into trouble with the free thing. That thing link is like that. You can do a little bit for free a little bit. Canva so far has not, there's little visual parts that they charge you for. But that's always a trick. I start to love something. And then they're like, no, it costs money. Yeah, like, no. So there's other, all the other parts of PDL are listed here with some sample learning scales, sample reflection, questions and ideas, front loading and transferable scales. So there's a lot of just resources here for you. And let's see, oh, it's some of my favorite. Oh, some of these websites that I was referring to about project-based learning are linked at the end of this as well. So there's hopefully, hopefully you won't keep track of them. And then these are just some ideas for that culminating event, right? So habitat tours, film festivals, skits and performances, you know, interestingly towns have made decisions about this. Like Monkdon built a wildlife tunnel because their salamander migration took place over, oh, what is that? I can't remember, but it's just super busy and there's tons of mortality. So that town made that decision. They had to do some fundraising and they funded it with town funds and they made a tunnel. I found it. It's not like published where it is. I felt so excited and stealthy pullover like ran over to it. I was, somebody asked me if there was a tunnel cam and I said, I didn't think so. There is, okay, good. If you want, we'll get it later. I'm so excited about that. I have night video of them crossing. It's the coolest thing. It's, yeah, it's the night cam. And it's also used by all sorts of wildlife. So it's not just the salamanders that survive from it. So what I'm saying is that if a student group wants to explore the mortality rates and what their own town can do and then present to the town representatives and really just say, what are we going to do? Keen, New Hampshire closes down the intersection or two because of the migration. What's your town going to do? You know, it's a question the kids can bring up. And then just a salamander party and learning fair because a lot of people don't even know about these fine creatures. So this is here for you. I know we're running out of time so I want to hustle. I want to just show you two, I mentioned it earlier. I'll show you this one. I don't know if you've seen this book. It's a wonderful book about sort of this albatross of regular news, the news cycle that kids are experiencing. If you see this first page, I'll just read it to you. It says, all over the world, the news told and told and retold of anger and hatred, people against people and little girl was frightened by everything she heard and saw and felt. And so I'm doing some think-alouds with this and thinking might say to my students, do you ever feel like this? What has made you feel this way? And she's asking her parents about it and she said, is there something we could do to make the world a better place? And her papa said, come with me. And you could just with your class or do this in advance to get your own thinking down. Every kid wants a chance to improve a condition. Her father says, yes. Her father says, yes, come with me, let's do something about it. He doesn't say, no, you're too little. You should wait till you're older. You shouldn't talk about X, Y, or Z. And so asking kids, like they just went out and they took public transport. So to get kids to notice, like what do you notice in the picture? What act of kindness are they doing? And there's representation of all sorts of folks in this. So they're doing public transportation, right? And then she goes off and the author says that they want a tiny battle over fear. And then same thing plays out with the mom and they end up going to sort of an international section of the city to get their ingredients for their food. And at this food counter, it says, because one person doesn't represent a family or race or the people of the land, what might this mean, right? So basically leading the students to say, you don't have to be afraid in this world, you can make decisions every day that can help improve the world. And so then that might lead your class to a guiding question, right? So in the end, they're creating this public art and you'll see all the doors are opening because all sorts of other kids are coming out and noticing, hey, I want to be part of that. I want to do something good. And it says, what will you do to be brave and gentle and strong? What can you do to create a better world and to fight fear? So a book like this could certainly ignite a whole class set of projects around that. And similarly, this book Love by Matt Topena and More and Long, it's these glorious different representations of what love sounds, feels, and looks like. So I love it in so many ways because it just busts through all sorts of different stereotypes and biases that may exist and represents, like here's something that's not usually represented. Little boy here, while his parents are arguing, how many kids don't ever get to see themselves represented in a book? There's another picture of a family that lives in a trailer and the mother and daughter are dancing. I just, I love that all sorts of love and all sorts of lifestyles are represented. And it makes me ask guiding questions like, what love do you see and feel here on a regular basis? What, how could you tell the story of what love looks like, sounds like, smells like, feels like in your area? And maybe if somebody's not experiencing that at home, maybe it's them, it's gonna be about their school or about, you know, so there's just so much opportunity after reading, what does love sound like to you? And then project idea, your version of this book, is it a book, is it a song, is it a play, is it a website, is it artwork? So you might come at this, not using the template, right? You might come at it from the book itself, from your ideas with students, that might be your gateway. And then lastly I have, I have a guide that's a little, it's not project-based learning focused entirely. That's not the right link at all. Let's see, there's such, pardon me for one moment. Actually, I'm not just worried about it. Is that it run me that picture that is on your website? Yeah, that's where they order the trees. Okay, so here's the guide, and this is a Google doc, and that's not the one. Just wanted to straight up there to keep this guide. There we go. Okay, no, sorry, you guys, I'm just gonna say that. So I have this copy of it, and I know I have it digitally as well, so that's something I need to correct. But it basically has information just about the book, and then it has a letter of why, like my first interaction with Salamanders, and sort of like it's one from the illustrator, one from me that's very personal. And then it has science themes and topics linked to the NGSS standards. It has, the NGSS standards are here, okay? And these are things like ecosystem, social interactions and group behavior, adaptation, biodiversity. And then it has discussion questions, pre-reading, during-reading and after-reading, and then also extension activities for each one. So like a question that you might ask in the middle of it would be where do Spotted Salamanders live all year, right? And that answer is in the book and worthy of discussion, but then you might ask, there's an extension activity underneath it that says, ask students to illustrate the tree root homes at the Spotted Salamanders based on the research, right? So you have the entry point for question, and then the activity that you can do with students after. And that's all in here for you. And then there's some links to some of the media, so some of those videos of the tunnels and things like that that kids would want to see. And I just have to figure out online where I have that. So I think that's most of what I have for you. What are your, it's a lot. What are your questions? What did I miss? Quite wonderful. I just have one piece of information on the Come With Me book, which is a wonderful book. And if people are interested in sort of using that as a launching pad, there's another book, either just came out or just coming out called The Breaking News by Sarah Will. And that is an awesome book. That's an awesome book. That starts from the same place. There's been terrible news and the child, the news is never specified, but the child sort of goes on this journey to figure out how to deal with it and how to make their parents comforted. And it's a really wonderful and moving. And it could be if you're into pairing books, it's a nice pair. What's it called again? The Breaking News. You could follow it up with, this one's an old one, but the Silent Grandmother Gathering. Where they have a grandmother, it makes a peaceful, quiet protest in the square and eventually all the women in town and kids join them for making a small difference in the world. And they reported out as like that day there was no news to report. So they made, and they had a lot of kind of ridicule. Like, why are they just standing there? That's so helpful. I think it's like activism, right? Yeah, like kind of like once you get going in one of these just to kind of follow up. Like you can make a difference any age from the first and that one's pretty old. I want to see it. I did find the Google Doc that is the edge Peter's guide and I just need to correct that link. Any questions about the book or writing? There's also things I can pass around if you're interested in looking at the think aloud. Do you see this approach working well with older students as well? Or is it predominantly elementary school students? Well, I think this would work. The ones that have more intensive science subjects, I'm thinking that this elementary sky, that would probably work for a five through eight experience as well, focused on the human threats, the migratory past, the range of the species. I think those all have power and students there are well poised to make a product that could be seen widely and be really impactful. So I think it really could be intentionally. I think we do a disservice when we stop using picture books in other kids. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you last year. And I did a couple like social behavior things and I use picture books and they actually appreciate them more because they look deeper into them than the other kids do. So the kids don't have resistance to using baby books? I use picture books. And I'm with 13-year-olds. But yeah, mentor texts. I don't use them as the source that they're going for. But I use them like for read-alouds. They're really great thinking questions and kind of a launching type of thing. I had a sacred read-aloud time for sixth graders and I would use a wide range of all sorts of things. Great. No parameters there. And they love that time. Everyone loves to be read too. I love when people read to me. So I think we just as educators you need to keep doing it no matter, especially in the upper grades, right, to make sure that that's still. Especially because a lot of families back away from reading a lot of that point as well. So they're not getting that experience a lot of times. It's also practice for those skills that you're talking about. It's that they have trouble, you know, presenting. Well, if they're reading, that's a, you know, an entry into presentation. It's also a shared experience. Like there's real value in like if your class is having trouble with maybe it's bullying or maybe it's anything that you can match whatever the text is to and then do a read-aloud where you all experience it together and dialogue together. You can push through whatever that scenario is. And it could be student-led, you know. I've read this book called Learn Like a Pirate which is all about landing the intentional student-led environment. And he talks about projecting wonder. And so everybody is accessing the text together. So you're getting all sorts of practice and engaging in the text, you know, right there. You're hearing what a fluent reader sounds like. You know, this is a group experience. We talk about how to treat each other. And it's not a threatening when you have an issue in class. If you're using a picture book for it, you know, now you're talking about the people there, but it's so easy to then relate it to what's happening. That personalized it with some things. In my class this week, we had something interesting happen with Salamander Sky in terms of, we've been sort of doing a big theme of community and home. And we're going into birds and nests and downtown Montpelier. And the kids were really kind of like, where is the Salamander's home? Right, because it's a changing home. And so sometimes you can also like integrate into a much larger scene about the community. It wasn't something I was thinking about using the book in that way. And it's just sort of happening. And it was a really good question. And even with birds, sort of, where is their home? Like, is there a nest in their home all the time? Or, so it's been really fun to think about that big idea of home. And that book I was looking at, I used to book home by Carson. Carson Elst. Carson Ellis. Yeah, Carson Ellis. I love that about what defines a home. And what homes are represented more often. You know, I just, I think that's so important that not, not thought about as much. I was at a research presentation about homelessness and they were talking about how many of our students are not homeless in that sort of like traditional sense, but they're like, how there's a good word for it. Housing and secure. Housing and secure and they're doubling up. So they're. People sleeping on other people's couches. Exactly. And what it looks like in rural Vermont is not what you might see, you know, people have this mindset of what homelessness is. And a lot of times we don't know that our students are doubling up. We don't know that they're in the RV and how that, the way that we viewed that concept has been very limited. And in my presentation, we're actually seeing quite a bit of that because you don't need a car necessarily if you can double up and live in the city. And we're seeing that in our district, quite a few families fall into that category now. Yeah. When I taught in Alaska, I didn't realize that kids would have shifts and bed. It took me a long time to learn that I'm like, that's why you're so tired. You only get to sleep in the bed until two. And then get knocked out for basically like the other family living there to sleep. Yeah, I remember recess duty talking with a student and not the student was talking about being in the RV and it was for February. And I had not considered that student as homeless, but that student was housing and secure completely. And how can we be more intentional as educators to know those things earlier than we know them? I just felt like, how am I not doing this about you until now? Anyway, sidebar. But relevant. Is that idea at all? Place. Right. Right, wrong connect. So please stay in touch as you do this work or anything. I am constantly reading, writing, thinking about all of these things. And my contact information is on my website. I have my cards up here that have all my stuff. And I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to think about what you're doing and trying to match it up with existing resources or anything. And in what period of time would you be available for that? It sounds like you're pretty busy. Everybody's busy. Are you signing books today? Oh, I can. Yeah, I'd be happy to. Thank you so much. Thank you. That would be a really good idea, actually. Yeah. Because we all need to know what Katie does. So I'm just gonna read a little bit and just bear with me. So Katie Harfarmer is an educator, teacher, coach, and writer from Vermont. We know that for her. She's the author of three books about education, why great teachers quit and how we might stop the exodus, change the world with service learning, how to create, lead, and assess service learning projects, and change the world's new edition, which is called Real and Relevant, a Guide for Service and Project-Based Learning. She also wrote a middle grade novel, which we love, The Order of the Trees. I'm sure a lot of kids in your class doesn't know this book and have read it, which is right here. Which is a lovely sort of eco-fable, but it's galvanizing children into action and kids love this book. They walk around like this with it, they know this. And her newest book, which we are just enjoying so much right now, Salamander Sky, both published by Green Writers Press. The artwork is amazing. If you haven't looked at it yet, I'm sure most of you have. It's just beautiful. It reminds me of like John Muth, I just love it. So, she, let's see, her writing has been published on CNN's School of Thought Blog, Educational Leadership, Edutopia, Hopping to Post, and the Synapse. You're also, you have a, you're working at U of M. I think you have a fellowship, possibly, at U of M, or is that such a. It's a great, funded effort, really, to personalize education, so. Yes. I'll tell you more. She's a good woman. KED works to elevate the voices of students, teachers and parents, and advocates for children's health, leadership, authentic learning, and deep powerful service for others in the natural world. But for reals, I've seen Katie in action, and what impresses me most about her is the joyous curiosity she brings to all of her endeavors. In her children's books, they inspire kids to believe in their own agency, to take action and become leaders, and not just independent thinkers, but leaders that belong to a team. They inspire kids to learn how to love their place in this world by taking responsibility for it. We are so lucky to have you on our team. So, I just want to mention one thing. We'll be learning about project-based education today, but we also have it in action this afternoon at Bear Pond. We have a U32 team coming from the middle school to talk about their project they're doing in Africa, in Malawi. Malawi? Malawi. Malawi. Malawi. And they're raising money, and they're calling for paperback picture books to donate to a library there. So, it's happening. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. So lovely. That was so nice. Let's start by crying. That's really sweet. It's so nice. Thank you for coming out on a Saturday morning on your very short amount of time off in your very, very busy lives. So that is incredibly gracious of you. So thank you for doing that. And we've put some things on your seats just so that you can keep track of what I'm gonna be sharing. So I wanted to make sure you see the one that has the Salamander Sky cover on it has all of the links to everything I'll be sharing. Because that's when I come to events I'm always like, where's the links? How can I access this later? Because what I'll do is I'll write notes down and I will lose them or not be able to find them quickly right when I need them. So whatever works for you to also just snap a photo if that's easier of the page. But they're all living Google Docs that you can then just make a copy of and modify it at your happy will. So I wanted to get that right away. So yeah, so I'm so happy to be here. I love this bookstore. In fact, on the way in, I always see like five things I wanna get immediately like this shirt. Okay. So I want to turn off the lights. Yeah, that'd be good. So we're pretty good. If it's okay just since there's so few of us to say like what grade level that you work with just so I have a sense and if your children spoke off of that's awesome. Maybe what audience you write for. Would that work for everybody? If you do that real quick. Okay. I'm Diana Costello and I had the pleasure of working with Katie one time at Romney School. I teach third and fourth grade and I've been there for about 13, 14 years. I'm Kim Scott. I teach seventh and eighth grade here at Main Street Middle School. I'm Carolus Copetoni. I'm a children's book writer. I do picture books and middle grade novels. And I also taught in the four wins and elf for a long time. So I have a great affection for this. Nice. You're welcome. Especially Salamander. Especially Salamander. I'm Chris Mahali. I also write for kids. Picture books up to white, A mostly nonfiction. And I also did four wins and elf stuff. I'm Susan Koch. And I am a primary grades teacher. Right now I'm teaching first grade in Montpellier. I'm Melissa Kimball. I also teach first grade I'm at St. Monaco, St. Michael School in Bay. Wait, we can hit that line? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Nice to see you. Thanks again for coming. So I taught at Twinfield and at Romney School for about the past 17 years in various configurations of fifth grade and sixth grade. And sometimes with a focus on math and science, sometimes everything just depending. And then for the last two years, I've been at the University of Vermont at the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education. And that's a unique incredible opportunity, I think, to engage with schools on a three-year grant cycle when they're trying to personalize learning or launch something like project-based learning or personalized learning plans. And so we enter into this relationship where we co-construct professional development with teacher leaders and help them pretty much take on what they wanna take on but really with the goal of engaging. Welcome, with engaging, hi. With engaging students, primarily in middle grades but I work with a K-5 down in Montecuiche. We don't really have parameters on the work. It's just, how do we engage kids in meaningful, authentic learning? And that's what we partner with schools to do. And so I feel pretty lucky in that job that I get to tell the amazing stories of what's happening in schools. And one thing that my colleagues and I always used to say is we used to say, teachers need their own PR department. Like there's so many awesome things happening and teachers are far too busy to tell the stories of the good things happening in their classes. And it's so frustrating, right? That more positive attention isn't brought. So that's one thing that I get to do in this role and I feel really happy and excited to do that. So if you're interested in, and also this blog is a really dynamic place where practices from the field are shared, reflected on and they're often very dynamic, community-based, project-based learning. So it's taking what's happening in the field and then in a matter of weeks or days writing about it, sometimes teachers come to us with a problem and then we try to find the resources and solve it. So it's a really responsive space for Vermont educators as a platform for them but to also problem-solve and help find resources. So I wanted to make sure I showed that to you. What is the name of this? Yeah, so the link is on here. Oh, except it's not exactly, it's not fully linked on there. So what I would do, sometimes I often do just to find it quick is put in Terrent Institute Blog and it'll come right up. A couple really interesting things to find here is a project-based learning page here, okay? And that has what we'll talk about in a minute, sort of a definition that we've worked up, but then all the posts that go through all the parts of project-based learning. So I wrote a post for every aspect of PBL and then what does it look like out in Vermont school? So reports from the field and stuff and then how to go further with it. So there's like different levels of entry points to get into with that. So I do a lot of writing here as well as partnering with schools. So I wanted to point you right that to you right away. And before we, so this book, I feel like I feel very lucky that it came out recently. It came out about a month ago and now it's Salamander Week. Oh my gosh, it's so awesome. So you'll see this shirt I'm wearing was designed by the illustrator and I carry around, this is Skye. And I've been doing a lot of events at schools and things and Skye's very popular. I just as a side note, the illustrator sent me Skye. Skye had a forked tongue sticking out in the claws. Which is like, you don't even know the difference between the lizard and the salamander. This is why this is important. So the illustrator clipped the tongue off in the claws and so Skye's a little bit more representative. But if you haven't seen the spotted, this guy is approximately the size of an actual spotted salamander, a touch larger. So when I would just held one two nights ago, its tail came to right about here when my bracelet is a nice wrapped around. And I have some photos if you wanna see. Anyway, that's a sidebar. So Salamander Skye came out and this week we've been super active with it. And I was thinking when Jane and I were talking, how could teachers use these kind of books to be a springboard into problem solving in their own communities and action and making a difference. And so we're gonna talk about two different ways that you might have approached that work depending on what your orientation is and where you're coming from. But before we do that, oh yeah, jump in. I talk fast and my brain's a very busy place. So stop it at any point and jump in. Katie, I'm gonna jump in for a second. Because when we were reading Salamander Skye with the first graders, they're totally smitten with the fact that her name is April. Like they're obsessed with it. And it's so awesome that the rain actually came in April. It was still April this week. But that was really thoughtful and helpful. I'm so glad. I can add to that because third and fourth graders were talking about office intentionality. And I said, do you think she intended to call her April because the Salamander's come out in April? And I love that you did that. I mean, everything that I teach was modeled beautifully in your book. And so it was besides, and that's why I wanna see, how do we take this now to becoming project based for learning whether we're saving Salamanders or whatever we're using our picture books for. But it was just a really well-written book for supporting what we do in schools as well. I originally named her May. And then I was just really glad I'd have to call her February. So part of my job at UVM is a lot of work around what is project based learning? How do you implement it? How do you do different aspects of it? And I've just got, if you're interested, I've just got a thousand resources about that. And, but just as a super quick snapshot of it, I like to think about it. Oh, and people define it in many, many different ways, right? I like to think about it in a straightforward kind of way. That it's taking a real world problem or issue, exploring it in teams, now that's certainly debatable, right? Sometimes you have kind of students working individually develop a product or a solution. And I maybe would say that differently now, not a solution, a contribution, right? You're not gonna solve global poverty, but you could make a contribution. And creating something that you present to an authentic audience, an engaged audience that cares, that matters, that it feels important to both parties. So how do you do that? These are the parts that have sort of distilled out from different resources. A driving question. This is that inquiry question that everybody can sink their teeth into for a long period of time. There's lots of information about how to write a really strong one that promotes prolonged engagement and I have a post about that. So that's part of it. Now, interestingly, the kids can come up with those or you can come up with those to meet a certain proficiency or standard that you need to meet. So that's what we're gonna talk about sort of the ways to get at it, right? Like there's a couple of different ways. You can decide on that yourself, how that part be sort of teacher directed or informed, but then what they create is their student choice and voice and creativity. So a driving question, an entry event. This is what teachers do all the time, right? Like snazzy, exciting entry event. The picture books can be the entry event, right? So if you have what you think is a really high, hopefully high quality picture book that you're bringing to the table, you can read this aloud in conjunction with something else or on its own and have that be the entry point for everybody. But it also includes things like field trips.  That could be your entry event. Your entry event could be a trip to the North Branch Nature Center. If you're thinking salamanders, it can be any way to sort of shake kids out of their regular existence and get them thinking in a new direction. So there's some really great lists out there about different kinds of entry events. I used to do one where I would take a tarp in the classroom and I would just dump the day's trash out. And it was kind of gross and awesome. And they would pick through and be like, hi, gosh, people don't, they don't, there's foil in here. Why is foil in here, the bagels are happy foil, remember? And people just weren't, they weren't putting together that the foil is recyclable from the everyday school snack. So there's all sorts of things you can discover just by looking around the actual school campus. And then teams are researching and developing a product or presentation. So this is where, there's some teaching that happens the whole time. Part of my other, one aspect of my job that I do is as a, we work as a research team with the professors at UVM and we are researching the shifts in practice of teachers as they're personalizing learning. And sometimes a misnomer is like, well, where's the direct instruction? Like, we're not doing direct instruction, but we are, it's just right when the kids need it. And I like to use example of like, if I don't really care about commas, like I'm an over-coma person, okay? Jewish smart knows I'm like an overly, I just, I love them and I use them profusely. But if I'm writing Senator Leahy a letter and I want him to change something, I'm gonna really need to be, I'm gonna need to learn about commas. It's a right when I need to know it moment. And that's when we jump in and we teach kids right when they have that motivation and relevance. So there really is direct instruction, right? It's just right when they need it. So it looks a little different. There's frequent reflection. I did my research for my doctorate about service learning which is a little bit different which we can talk about. But one of the things that came up in it is that the reflection is the learning in a lot of these learning environments. So if there's not mindfully planned regular reflection, we miss out on so many of the benefits of this work. And for me as a fast thinker, I had to put it on the calendar. I had to be intentional about planning it or I just skipped it. So that's just one of the things I always like to point out. And then an authentic culminating event where students share their work to a relevant audience. And that can be anything from, if you're entering into the work, another class, it can be parents on the school board. It can be a focused group of people that are connected to what you're doing. So like for an example, I had some high school students that were doing Shakespeare plays that they had written. And after one that they were studying and they were in touch with a college Shakespeare theater club to give them feedback on their scripts and their performance, right? So it can be during the creation of the project. It can be at the end of the project. I kind of used to think it had to be at the end, but you can get feedback from and work with people on an authentic audience during, even before as you're ideating. So it's just that you have lots of touch points that make it real and matter. So that's a quick and summarizing splash of PDL. You can get back into any more of that as you guys want to. So okay, and I pointed out that, oh, and then I wanted to make a tool for teachers that was accessible in terms of how do you plan for project-based learning? And there's, I think you have one of these at your seats. Does everybody have one? Some of the seats may not have had one, and we don't. I would just have to do it. You have one? No? Oh, oh no. Here, here's one. And when you click through the link, oh yeah, we have paper towels. You can just make a copy of this and then modify it to your heart's content and fill it in. But I just wanted to make something that felt really usable. So let's say you're starting with a picture book or a concept, right? Let's say you're starting with, if you wanted to start with salamander migration and you were gonna get your NGSS standards of maybe life cycles, right? And you were gonna do that. You could fill this in where you are front-loading the knowledge and skills that you want them to have, right? So you would say, I really want my students to learn about the life cycle of amphibians, and I really want them to work on the transferable skill of collaboration. So if you pull those out right away and you front-load them and you put them in here, you're gonna be much more intentional about getting at those. And then it goes through those phases of PBL I was just showing you, right? You see here the driving question. It has examples of each, okay? What is the demonstration of learning that kids are gonna do? What's the launch event you're gonna do? What's the culminating event? And then this one's really helpful, the timeline. Often it's best to go to the very end. Where's the learning fair or the big culminating event you're gonna wanna do? And you look at that on the calendar and you work backwards. That understanding by design, work backwards approach. And give yourself an extra week or two that you think you're gonna need because you always need it. There was some study I was reading about service learning, this one was about, but it takes 20% longer than you ever planned for. Like there's actual research to support that. And then one thing I would always forget is that really nice rehearsal and feedback time. The kids need to practice. A lot of times they're not used to all of this public presentation and they're anxious, right? So if you give them a chance for peer feedback and a chance for some teacher one-on-one feedback, that's important. So there's a blank calendar in there for you if you need that. And then what are they gonna create? So if I'm having my kids do a TED talk, right? They might be writing their persuasive piece that gets evaluated as part of the writing portfolio or their writing standards or proficiencies. So here's where you can list out the different things they're gonna create on the way. So if they're giving a TED talk, they're writing a persuasive writing piece. But then they're also using their presentation skills which is a transferable skill in the actual TED talk they're creating, right? So you can link that there. So there's just being intentional about what they're doing, what you can use for your own formative and summative assessment. Like even like the research notes, you can go in and say, does a student know how to find evidence to support their thinking, right? You can find that from their research notes in your conversations with them. Skaffold is a really big deal in PDL and that's about what supports are they going to need? What kind of note catchers, graphic organizers, one-on-one conversations, mini lessons. There's a lot of different roles that we're finding teachers engaging with this. It's curator, right, the materials. It's providing these scaffolds really clear. Like today we're working on research. Here's the four sites we're gonna visit being very intentional about it. Another role that people are doing is sort of empowering. How can we hand over control to students more deliberately? So what are you gonna do about that problem? Well, how do you think you could find the answer? How do you think you can access this information? Can you call somebody? Can you email an expert? So, being really deliberate about that. Have you heard much talk about bringing misconceptions to light and having kids? Talking about misconceptions early on and then kind of learning about them. Is that, have you thought about that in the Skaffolding and all? I'm just starting to think about it myself. Yeah, I'm thinking about it like I would kind of want them, hopefully, to find it and because it would be meaningful. And then it's not true. Everybody stops and has that reflective conversation because I feel like if we, sometimes, and I used to just, we front load the misconception and then there's, the meaning isn't there as much, right? Or we take away some of their power to discover it. Right, right. Okay, thanks. But then, but your age, I'm just pondering grade one. You know, the NDSS, part of their new process is to kind of bring misconceptions to light because they're very young. Mm-hmm, right. Just sort of put it out there and then have them discover why. But I don't know if you've heard much of that yet. But that makes me think, makes me wonder about first grade and if that isn't different. Yeah, maybe. You know, in terms of wanting to catch it early before it gets too embedded. Maybe it develops, yeah, maybe. Although, there is a lot of research about how service learning in particularly, which has that sort of added societal benefit that's deliberately planned, how that can disrupt existing biases, stereotypes and things like that. Yeah. So if we let the misconception live a little bit and then we're able to disprove it in a really meaningful way, that might be kind of awesome as well. You know, because then it might stick. And I don't want to get you off track. Anyway. Just made me think about when you talk about scaffolding. I know. I've been thinking about it a little bit. We can talk more. I think it's a super cool study though where fourth graders had preconceived notions about elderly people that they, you know, were unpredictable, that they, some various other things I won't say a lot. And those were completely disrupted by working with that population. And I just love that. Same for pre-service teachers with urban youth. So this is power in that. Okay, so regular reflection, there's a spot for that. And then there's a spot for assessment, formative and summative, and considering that. I like to make things that are usable for both. So a nice large learning scale that, and I have, I have an example here to take a look at that has what I'm, what I know I'm going to assess summatively, but that could be a check-in formative every week along the way. So that, and students can self-assess on it. So that I can have those multiple avenues, but not creating a ton of insurmountable processes. And then evaluate it. Oh, and then at the end, one of the things that I learned from experience is you finish a project and you're like, yay, that was great. And we're all tired. And we move on without capturing what was good about it. What didn't work about it? How can we improve? And so capturing that is helpful with a self-assessment, with your own reflection. That certainly helped me to improve. Can I ask you a question? And I'm not a teacher, so bear with me. But how honest are kids with themselves when they do self-reflection? It depends how practice they are. This is my quick answer. It depends how, how common the practice is. And I would open it up to you guys too. I would say that I would like to see students reflecting more, self-reflecting more regularly so that they can be more authentic and represent their true, you know, their true practice. I think it's a better word than honest, but yes. Right, right, but what do you all think? I've had students self-reflecting for years now. Pretty much every week. I've seen hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands now, self-reflections. And for the most part, I'd say 80 to 90% are very authentic and highly critical of themselves. They are so much harder on themselves than what, but I'm also in the middle school. I'm also in that my peer input is kind of controlling everything really. And then you do get, you always get a handful of just oblivious, it's duty. And they're oblivious to social cues and to input. They're just kind of like, that's just how they are and they'll figure it out eventually. But yeah, for the most part, I would say self-reflection is key to a lot of the learning and they are very authentic. They maybe not go into as much depth as you want them to but they recognize that they should. The same experience of being really hard on themselves and really, you know, just critical. Same with eight and nine year olds. They are spot on knowing what they know well and what they need to work on and we actually have them, I have them score their own writing pieces, you know, on a rubric and then peer score it and then I score it with them when we have a conference and they always score themselves so much harder than I would. So there's something to that. There's a lot of power to it too. But it's also the dialogue, you know, that I think is really helpful afterwards. Talking about why you thought that and. Speaking of that dialogue, it's like, it's a project-based learning. I feel like it's a much more in-close kind of, there's a lot of more chances to have meaningful interactions with small groups and one-on-one with students than the sort of more traditional practices. So that can allow for some of those conversations where they're more honest than they might be in a whole group. So I wanted to draw your attention to that template. It's been helpful to me, it's been helpful to me to organize my thinking with my partner, our educators and to really help us build something. It's also really great to do collaboratively. So on your teaching teams, you can build something that everybody can use together, everybody can add resources to at different times and link out to different things. If you're interested, this is a really cool app and resource, it's called Launchpad. And it's like a sort of a Pinterest board for how to organize project-based learning. And I find it very helpful and I can show you some examples there if you want. Okay, so that template's there for you. I just pointed out the blog. I also have some of my favorite books. You can tell how I feel about a book sometimes. This is just an obnoxious amount of sticky notes. But I love this book and it's by the Buck Institute for Innovative Education and it really dives into particular to project-based learning and I do highly recommend it. Various levels, all sorts of things and I could pass it around to you if anybody's if you want to take a look, you haven't seen that one. Okay. And there's also, Buck has a great website as well. And then there's another one that just emerged called High Quality Project-Based Learning. And it's a framework. I just was looking at it last night and I just heard about it at the Deeper Learning Conference in San Diego. So it's a newer initiative. But it's really focusing on how do we make sure project-based learning is high quality, right? There's a lot of people critiquing it in terms of feeling like it lacks rigor. And I sometimes wonder if rigor's not used in an interesting way to sort of replicate some traditional learning experiences. But anyway, so there's a good effort, a solid effort to make sure that the project-based learning has really high quality. So that's a good one as well. And then, so I wanted to make something that was usable to teachers using Salamander Sky specifically for project-based learning. And I wanted to take teachers through each phase of project-based learning and give some ideas that you could just replicate if you wanted to. So this is a site I made and it has, actually, it has a lot of these links on it so that this is another place if you leave and you're like, what am I, what's happening? My website is just, it's katiefarber.com. This is under the Teachers and Librarians section. It's also in the section for Salamander Sky. So it's linked in a couple places. Oop, I almost knocked on Peter. Okay, so I just started brainstorming some driving questions that might be good to go with the book. And I'm gonna get this bigger for us. So what could kids have? A lot of kids are asking these, right? And we'll talk about how to enter in it that way. Like, you might read aloud this book and I'll talk about this approach, but like, it did it with love and with come away. You might emerge the questions. You might let the questions come from you as in your think-alouds and from the students. And you might, when you read it aloud, be asking them, well, what are your questions about this? Well, what are you curious about? And you can sticky note, and I'll show you these in a bit, you sticky note everything they're saying and then maybe you put them onto a chart and then decide collectively what's the question you're going to try to answer. But these are some of the questions I hear. Why does Salamander's migrate and what are the challenges? Why are all amphibians vulnerable and what can be done to help them? So you could look at this and think about where you live and where you teach and try to find the one that matches. Also, what standard are you going for, right? So maybe it's vernal pools. And maybe you want to take an integrated approach. Like, how can we use science art and storytelling to tell a science story that helps nature? I love that question. That one, we did a tell a science story workshop at Birdside Books. And the kids were really interested in thinking about what their favorite local animal is and how can I tell a science story about that animal and raising awareness, helping the animal, learning about local habitats. So there's a lot of possibility there. And we kind of lost the navigation. Now there we go. Oh yeah, okay. And then I think we talked about some of these entry event ideas, but here's a few ideas. All of it is here in a place for you. Come back to. Some product ideas for the end. What can they create? And I said, but it's always better to ask the kids what they want to create, right? A news broadcast that, did you all see the one from, there was one that was just made and shared with me two weeks ago? I'm so excited about it. I hope you can hear it. Well, you guys, sorry about the sound. Are they using a green screen or are they actually standing next to the digital green screen? I was just wondering, do you know, like is it the we video program or do you have any idea of probably the logistics for that? Like we are moving? I don't know if it was we video. I could find out. He's like, I'm done. Well, I wish she could hear her so very much. So she, so they obviously, they had to make these scripts, right? They had to, and they all had different roles. It's just amazing. And I do have this other pretty active Twitter account that I'm just sharing, whatever anybody is sharing with me. And that's where I found this one. I'm sorry that this sound isn't good here. So back to the two reporters, right? I love all the two of you. Yeah. Which is really great. Duct tape, microphone. Yeah. It says April, it's dark, it's raining. I didn't ever, I didn't see that before. Like April, they're like, and then so was the last word. So, April, I don't know if it was so or 50. I think it was 50 to 53. Okay. Thanks.


Ysbytyn nhw wedi dod o ddau cyknog gwaith, gwell ifanc, a gweithiau o unrhyw ddag Lleithgrifol Cymru. Mae cyfnod ar gael gwell i—fansfyrwyr hwnnw i—menghwym. Mae'n mynd i gwerthol i'ch hyfforddiant pobl yng Nghwm Gwansaidd gael gwaith yng nghydfyniadol. Goto'r siwr, mae'n i'ch gweithio'n mynd i gael eich parwmwysol i'ch oeddeddyllol. Mae'n i'ch gweithio iddo i'ch gweithio'n mynd i gael gwell i'ch yn fath ynghyrch. Exactly. But what was the first minister aware that an SMP run council was considering such a drastic cut in teacher numbers First minister, first singing officer, this of course is that time of year when we get lots of reports about savings options that different councils are considering and opposition parties quite understandingably make hate with that but very often Suchie is Liberty's proposal do not proceed. I think the official report of this parliament will be litterative example with examples of what I've just spoken about. In terms of such proposals, I've not seen the detail of them. Councils of course are autonomous in their areas of responsibility, something that parties across this chamber often call in the Scottish Government to respect. Felly mae'r gweithio wrth chi, ac mae'r ddaeth i'r Cymru—un maeth efoesio'r te intent, ond arall rhai dweithio, a ddaeth hyn i'r teimlo. Felly mae'r grannodau ddaeth hyn er gwrs, maeth i'n ddod yn gwneud ngoswmio. Felly mae'r grannodau ddaeth efoesio yn gwneud, a ddaeth hyn i'n ddod yn gwneud. Mae rhai ddod yn ei merydd o ddod wedi'u gwybod. yn oeddod o'r hanes yn gyfarionedd Cymru? Mae'r hunan am 8000 mwy o'r hwnnw oedd. Gwladgol Cymru ei ddiwydd ar gyfer hynny. Cyhoedd yn gweithio jechydig o'r staf o 15 per cent, ddydd o un o'r 7 mwy o'r hwnnw o'r hwnnw oedd. Felly byddwn i'n gweithwyrs SMP Cymru os oedddo coifio cy獻lidiannodol o'r hwnnw oedd. mae hyn oes ddifwng Lywodraeth yn gwyllwch unrhyw rydyn ni'n gobeithio'r gwyllwch. Mae hyn oedd y meltedrach o'i bobl i'r meddwl pythonnol. Yn ystafell hwn o ddalfon y gwasanaeth a'r fferais hefyd, a chycoff Wherever Pet Projects yw rwyf wedi mewn edrych bwysig ynghylch i'r ideaig a'r syniadol ac i gael gael ei welwch yn ei dddangasol yn gwyllwch. Felly, os ydw i'r penffordd ysgolion i gweithio iddyn nhw'n gobeithio? Will the First Minister tell us, as a result of her budget choices and costly mistakes, how many teachers are going to lose their jobs in Scotland? First Minister. I will come on to my Government's budget choices in a moment, but let me issue, with the case with respect to Douglas Ross, I will answer the questions fully. Let's hear the First Minister please, and I will answer the questions fully. First Minister, on the general issue, I know, and we've seen this week, that Douglas Ross favours riding roughshod over the decisions and powers of democratically elected institutions. I, on the other hand, thank you, respect the autonomy of democratically elected institutions. To come to budget choices, let me set out the budget choices of this Government. In this financial year 2022-23, this Government provided £145 million of additional funding to local authorities to employ up to 2,400 more teachers and 500 more classroom assistants. That funding, of course, is being protected in the budget that we have put forward for the next financial year. Overall, we are increasing the resources available to councils by more than £570 million. That is a real-terms increase of £160.6 million. There are the budget choices of this Government. Had we followed the advice of the Conservatives, we wouldn't be able to do all that because we'd have cut taxes for the very richest people in the country. First, I asked Nicola Sturgeon about 800 teacher losses potentially happening in Glasgow. No answer. The next question was, how many teachers fear losing their jobs across Scotland as a result of her Government's budget? No answer again. There are 900 fewer teachers in Scotland since Nicola Sturgeon's Government came to power. That is the reality. But let's just look at quotes about the First Minister's budget. This is from SNP councillor Shona Morrison, the leader of the council umbrella group, COSLA. SNP councillor Shona Morrison said this. The reality of this situation is that, yet again, the essential services councils deliver has not been prioritised by the Scottish Government. That is the reality that councils and councillors, including SNP councillors, are facing across Scotland. More than six years ago, Nicola Sturgeon made bold promises about education that it would be her number one priority. She claimed that her Government would close the attainment gap completely, but yesterday her own education secretary rubished Nicola Sturgeon's promise. Shirley-Anne Somerville said, and this is a quote, I think in reality that that is exceptionally difficult if not impossible to achieve, to get to the point of zero. Is the education secretary right that the First Minister's key promise is never going to happen? Our commitment to substantially eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap by 2026 still stands. I have said that in the Parliament before and I say it again today, although let me stress that phrase, poverty-related attainment gap. Of course, we are also trying to tackle child poverty through something that I think Douglas Ross might have referred to as a pet project earlier on, the Scottish child payment for example. That task of tackling child poverty and helping to reduce and substantially eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap would not be as difficult as it is if we did not have a Tory Government pushing more children into poverty every single week. The number of primary teachers in our schools is among the highest today than at any time since I was at primary school. The overall teacher-pupil ratio is the lowest in the UK. In Scotland right now, there are 7,573 teachers per 100,000 pupils. That compares to just 5,734, where the Conservatives are in government in England. Of course, as I said, we are providing £145 million to support additional teachers. That is our funding choices, that is our record, and I am proud to stand on it. Nicola Sturgeon is proud to see SNP councils considering cutting teacher numbers. You are proud of that, First Minister. You should be embarrassed if not disgraced. Nicola Sturgeon said, judge me on education. The education secretary has done exactly that and found that the First Minister makes promises that her Governments will not meet. Her failures have left teachers frustrated, disappointed and angry. Today schools in North Lanarkshire and Murray are on strike. Tomorrow it is Angus and Easton-Bartonshire. Next week schools in another 10 council areas go on strike, including here in Edinburgh. The following week another 10 are striking from borders to Aberdeenshire. After years of disrupted education because of the Covid pandemic, when the Scottish Government was too quick to shut down schools and limit teaching time, pupils are once again getting a raw deal. All of that affects young people's opportunities and causes real problems for parents. Can the First Minister tell young people and Scottish families, will education ever be her number one priority? I will let the people of Scotland continue to judge the record and the actions and the decisions of this Government. Let me repeat some of that. At a time when the Tories have been slashing budgets for local councils, this Government in the budget that we have put forward for next year is increasing council budgets by over £570 million. We are providing £145 million to councils to support the employment of additional teachers again. Let me repeat something we would not have been able to do had we followed Douglas Ross's advice and cut taxes for the highest paid. Instead, we are asking those at the top of the income spectrum in Scotland to pay a little bit more to protect our public services. In terms of pay dispute with teachers, this is a Government that continues to negotiate and to seek settlement. Again, that stands in marked contrast to where the Conservatives are in power, where the education secretary in England said this week that we did not negotiate pay with teachers because that is not what the Government is here to do. The Tories, of course, are trying to take away the right to strike of public sector workers. We will continue to seek fair pay deals in the NHS, in the teaching profession and elsewhere across our public sector. We will continue to take decisions that prioritise education, that prioritise health in stark contrast to anything and everything that the Scottish Conservatives do. Last week, we heard directly from front-line NHS staff who said that so many of the problems they are facing in acute care is because of the on-going crisis in social care. Yesterday, I met front-line social care workers and their trade unions to discuss the state of the sector here in Scotland. They told me about the burnout experience by their colleagues, their fears about the levels of care being offered and their inability to provide care to those who need it. The workers and experts were clear that this is a problem over a decade in the making, a direct result of decisions made by this Government. They told me that many of their colleagues have quit or retired early because of the pressures of the job and they say that the pay does not reward the hard work that they do or reflect the importance of the role to society. Does the First Minister agree? First Minister, I value those who work in our social care sector and agree that the work that they do has traditionally not just in Scotland but in many places has been undervalued, and that is what we are seeking to change and to address. I also agree that some of the pressures in acute and emergency care and some of the pressures in our hospitals could be alleviated by reform and increasing further the capacity in social care, which is why so much of what we speak about is directed at exactly that. That is why just last week, for example, the health secretary announced additional funding to secure additional interim care home beds. £1.7 billion has been provided for social care and integration in the past year. We are progressing our commitment to increase spend in social care by 25 per cent by the end of this Parliament, which of course will be an increase of over £840 million. We continue to take those actions. In terms of wages, we are providing £100 million of additional funding to uplift pay from April this year, having already increased it so far. We will continue to do that so that our social care workforce gets the value not just in our rhetoric but in the pay packets that they so richly deserve. Anna Sarwar It is important to note that the proposals outlined by the First Minister there have widely been criticised by front-line staff as being nowhere near enough to meet the demands of the crisis that we face. The First Minister should not ignore the facts. She will be paying £10.90 an hour to social care staff, which represents a 3.8 per cent pay increase—that is 40 per cent—at a time when inflation is running at 9 per cent and when NHS staff are being offered an average of 7.5 per cent. In the context of a First Minister, she said that she would reward social care staff who put their lives on the line to get us through the pandemic. However, 40 per cent more in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis does not feel like much of a reward to those workers, and it is not going to address the on-going workforce crisis. Why cannot the First Minister see that there is no solution to the NHS crisis without a solution to the social care crisis? 71 per cent of care at home services are reporting vacancies, and 75 per cent of care homes are reporting vacancies. We heard yesterday that the staff are leaving to work in Sainsbury's Costa and Lidl because they are getting better pay and better conditions. Will the First Minister finally commit to an immediate pay increase to £12 an hour, rising to £15, for social care workers across Scotland? Those are serious issues, and we take them seriously, but it is important that we can fund the decisions that we take. First of all, the £10.90 per hour that Anna Sarwar derived is important to point out just as an aside that that is the rate paid by the Labour Government in Wales to the social care workforce. In terms of pay increases, over the past two years, there has been a 14.7 per cent increase for social care workers. Pay has increased from £9.50 per hour in April 2021 to £10.90, which it will become in April this year. For a full-time adult social care worker, that increase represents an uplift of over £780 over the course of this financial year. I want us to go further, and we intend to go further, but we have to be able to fund that. To increase pay to £15 per hour for all social care workers, as Labour is asking us to do, and I understand why people want to see that happen, would cost up to an additional £1.75 billion. Labour has not set out how we would fund that, or what they would propose to cut as a consequence. We want to see pay increase further, but we have to do that in a properly funded way. That is responsible government. I tell the First Minister what is derisory. Derisory is giving a 3.8 per cent pay increase to workers on the front line when inflation is running at 9 per cent. That is what is derisory when causing the social care crisis. The First Minister asks where the money is coming from. This Government's failure to eliminate delayed discharge is costing at least £150 million a year, and its national care service is estimated to cost £1.3 billion. Money is spent on set-up and administration that should be spent on front-line services to address the current crisis. Organisations that, like Scottish Labour's support in national care service, are calling for the SNP to pause the bill. Organisations such as the GMB, Unison, Unite, Social Work Scotland, Scottish Care, COSLA and the STUC. That is what the GMB told this Parliament. Social care staff are broken. They are exhausted. Now we are giving them a bill that does not give them any sort of job security, any sort of value or feeling of worth. We want reform. We want to make social care better, but we feel that being offered now is nowhere near good enough. Will the First Minister finally listen to workers on the front line, pause the flawed bill and put the money where it needs to be so that we can confront the NHS and social care crisis? First of all, Parliament is currently scrutinising the bill, and that process of scrutiny is important. Fair work and sectoral bargaining are at the very heart of those reform proposals. I also say to Anna Sarwar that calling for a reform that is due to be implemented in future years in order to fund a pay increase in this financial year is just an example of the completely irresponsible and incoherent approach Labour takes to budgeting. That is not how budgeting works. By all means, let us continue to scrutinise the national care service legislation, but do not mislead people into thinking that, if we just stopped that bill, suddenly we would free up money now for pay increases. It simply does not work that way. Let me repeat the actions that we have taken. A 14.7 per cent increase for social care workers in the past two years, and we want to go further. Of course, for NHS workers, they offer this year 7.5 per cent on average compared to 4.5 per cent, where Labour is in government in these islands. Our actions demonstrate the value that we have for those workers. Within the budgets that we have, we will continue to prioritise that, but we will do that in a responsible and deliverable way, which puts us in stark contrast to Labour. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government has taken to bring the strike action by teachers to an end. As I think we have demonstrated, not least in the NHS, we will briefly suspend business. To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government has taken to bring the strike action by teachers to an end. As I think we have demonstrated, not least in the NHS, this is a Government that values public sector workers and seeks to negotiate fair pay deals. To that end, we continue to work closely with trade unions and local government partners to reach a deal that is fair and affordable. That dialogue has been constructive. There still remains a gap between the union asks and to be blunt what is affordable within our finite resources. Therefore, we look for further compromise. The education secretary in regular dialogue with the unions and with COSLA has spoken individually with each of the union general secretaries to progress things within the past week. There were two meetings of the SNC negotiators last week and another one scheduled for tomorrow. There is a shared commitment and certainly it is a commitment of this Government to reach an agreement as soon as possible. Last week, the First Minister talking about, Hamza Yousaf said something about how there hadn't been any strikes because she thinks he's so brilliant. In contrast, in education, we have surely unsunnable. The first teacher strike in 40 years. Chaos for hundreds of thousands of parents and carers and pupils. The cabinet secretary shows no energy, no urgency to get involved and to resolve the teacher strike. That's not just my view, that's the view of the unions. The First Minister used to say that education was her top priority. Will she step in and end the strike? As teacher strikes loom in England, the hypocrisy of the Tories is absolutely staggering. Shillian Somerville will continue to do everything possible to reach an agreement with COSLA and our teaching unions to deliver a fair pay increase for teachers. Over the past few years, teachers have already had a 21 per cent pay increase demonstrating the value we attach to what they do to teachers in Scotland. I think that they are the highest paid on average of any of the teaching professions across the UK. We will continue to seek a fair settlement. The hypocrisy is staggering because Stephen Kerr talks about the efforts that Shillian Somerville is making and she is making strenuous efforts. The Tory education secretary in England, just in the last few days, said that we didn't negotiate pay with teaching unions because that is not what we are here to do. In Scotland, the demand that the education secretary resolves it, in England of course, the Tories simply wash their hands and dig their heels in because they do not value public sector workers. They want to take away the right to strike of public sector workers. This Government does value all of our public sector workers. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the report Closing the Accountability Gap published by the National Autistic Society Scotland. We welcome the survey by the National Autistic Society and Scottish Autism. It adds to the diverse range of views that we have from autistic people, people with a learning disability and other neurodivergent groups on a learning disability autism and neurodiversity commissioner. The survey highlights areas where autistic people feel they need better support, including around mental health and education. We have recognised the need for additional work on mental health and have been working closely with autistic adults and adults with a learning disability on this. We are committed to bringing forward a consultation later this year on the Learning Disability Autism and Neurodiversity Bill, including the creation of a commissioner. I thank the First Minister for her answer. The National Autistic Society and Scottish Autism surveyed over 1,200 autistic people, families and professionals. 96 per cent of them supported the creation and it would be a world first of a Scottish commissioner for autistic people and learning disabled people. Does the First Minister agree that, although we already have sound laws and strategies in place, we need that focus of a commissioner to champion, promote and protect the rights of people in those groups and to ensure that individuals are supported to reach their full potential? I agree with that. The Learning Disability Autism and Neurodiversity Bill will extend further than autism and include people with a learning disability and potentially a wider range of neurodivergent conditions. However, from our scoping work with a range of stakeholders, we understand that, even within the autism community, there are a range of views on how this is best taken forward, which is why we are establishing a lived experience panel to work closely with us to co-design key elements of the bill's development. This will include delivering a consultation paper later this year to provide an opportunity for people across Scotland to express their views, including on the potential role and duties of a commissioner. To ask the First Minister what progress the Scottish Government has made, including the reported backlog of people waiting for key diagnostic tests. There is a range of work that is being taken forward by NHS boards to increase capacity workforce and activity for diagnostics, including the use of seven mobile MRI and five mobile CT scanners to provide additional activity. I am conscious that the Conservatives claimed this weekend that there were five-year waits for diagnostic tests. They described that as, and I am quoting, scarcely believable. There is, of course, a reason for that, and that is because it was simply untrue. NHS Grampain has pointed out that the Tories have misrepresented data that they received in an FOI response. It is routine for patients who have been treated for forms of cancer or received neurosurgical care to have pre-planned and scheduled scans in future years to monitor their progress and condition after treatment. Those are not diagnostic tests prior to treatment, as the Conservatives claimed. Clearly, our NHS is wrestling with a number of very significant pressures right now, but it does no service to anyone for the Conservatives to distort figures and mislead the public. One health board has taken the decision to reduce its endoscopic capacity by 3,500 procedures over the next 12 months. That means that there are 35 people living with undiagnosed cancer. Because of those Scottish Government cuts, rather than being able to increase their diagnostic endoscopic services to meet the demand, they are being forced to cut the service. How can the backlog be cleared when the diagnostic services are being cut? There are no cuts to national health service budgets on the country. We are proposing a £1 billion increase to the budget of the national health service next year. Again, something that would not have been possible had we taken Tory advice to cut taxes for the richest people in our society. Within that capacity for diagnostic tests is being increased because everybody recognises that the earliest possible diagnosis, especially for cancer, is vital. We continue to build up capacity and continue to support the NHS to fully recover from Covid. A woman in my constituency has waited a year since her initial smear test, which reported an abnormality to receive an appointment for a follow-up culposcopy. The appointments offered to her in December and then January have now both been cancelled. She is not alone because waiting times for culposcopies are going up, not down, and women's health is at risk. Will the First Minister prioritise action on women's health and ensure that women are not put through the emotional turmoil of having to wait a minute longer than they need for urgent diagnostic tests? People who need urgent tests are seen quickly. Often, individual cases are rightly raised with me in the chamber. I am not saying that this is the case here with the incident that Jackie Baillie has narrated, but sometimes I can go into individual case details, obviously, but sometimes there is more complexity to these cases than is often put before the chamber. That is why I always say that I am happy to look into individual cases. There is significant investment in capacity for diagnostic tests and for any follow-up result. That is particularly important around a range of women's health conditions. We prioritise women's health. The report on our women's health plan will be published along with progress in appointing a women's health champion. Those issues are of priority and will continue to be so. Question 6. To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to encourage people to become foster carers following reports that only 40 or 400 children referred to Barnardo's fostering services in Glasgow and Edinburgh have been placed with families in the last year. As part of keeping the promise, we are committed to ensuring that children and young people who are looked after away from their own families and homes are provided with caring and loving foster families. Although the responsibility for recruiting sufficient foster carers lies with local authorities, we are aware that the pandemic and cost of living crisis has put additional pressure on foster carer capacity. That is compounded by some of the wider pressures that are facing the social work sector, and we are determined to address that. That is why we are working with key national and local partners, including the third sector, to identify action that we can take collectively now and in the future to improve the situation. The Scottish Government also provides £145,000 each year to the fostering network to raise the profile of foster caring and encourage the recruitment of new carers, as well as providing wider advice and support. I thank the First Minister for that response and her continued commitment to the promise. Unfortunately, 691 children and young people are waiting for foster care up from 461 in 12 months. Many Scots have welcomed Ukrainian families fleeing war over the past year, partly due to Scotland's call for volunteers campaign. Will the First Minister consider launching a renewed drive to encourage more potential foster carers to come forward and help to ensure that children and young people waiting to be fostered can be placed in safe, stable and loving homes as soon as possible? Yes, we will give consideration to that. Let me take the opportunity to thank all the people and families who have opened up their home to Ukrainian families over the past months. That is testimony to the welcoming nature of people who call Scotland home. There are, of course, very important differences between supporting Ukrainian families and fostering children who may have very complex needs and require day-to-day caregiving, including, for example, supporting contact with their birth families. However, I would encourage anyone thinking about fostering to speak to their local authority or a fostering organisation. Fostering brings great benefits to children, and that is the most important consideration, but also to foster families. We will consider all options that may have the potential to improve the lives of children with care experience. I will ask officials to work with stakeholders and caregivers to consider the possibility of a national communications campaign and its potential to help to recruit more foster carers. Thank you. We move to constituency and general supplementaries, and I call Fulton MacGregor. A report from Nourish Scotland has reportedly uncovered a dignity gap relating to the cost of living crisis for Scotland's most hard-pressed families. The research explains how many families have been compelled to select the cheapest food and drink available rather than the products that they would prefer to choose but cannot afford, which is described as a dignity gap. Does the First Minister share my view that it is disgraceful that families living in a country of such abundant wealth are forced to make such sacrifices? Yes, I share those concerns. The cost of living crisis is affecting everyone, but it is having a disproportionate effect on those who are already living in poverty. That is why the Government is taking the range of action that we are taking here, including, for example, the Scottish child payment. However, I would call on the UK Government to provide more help to those who are most in need and to do so urgently. I have been raising the case of Ellie Wilson, who became a victim of rape while studying at Glasgow University. Ellie survived the ordeal, but she was shocked to discover that the perpetrator had been allowed to transfer to another university despite being under investigation for rape at the time. It has since been discovered that there is no national guidance for how universities should deal with sexual assault cases. Will the First Minister agree to sort that urgently so that no other victim has to suffer this ordeal? Obviously, I am aware of this case and its extremely serious implications. We take all that serious and will give consideration to any further action that the Government needs to take to address some of the issues raised here. Emily's test, of course, is an important initiative that the Government worked with universities on and encouraged universities to take very seriously, but there are clearly serious issues raised here that we need to reflect further on, and I can give an assurance that the Government will do so. The publication of the Health Foundation's report this week is grim reading. It lays bare the extent of health inequalities across Scotland from a growing gap in life expectancy between the riches and the poorest to a widening gap in infant mortality between the advantaged and disadvantaged. It is a similar story across the UK, but it is one that is amplified in Scotland. Those chasms have widened while we have had 13 years of Tory government, but it is a reflection on the SNP Government that Scotland's inequalities remain greater. Can the First Minister respond to the Health Foundation's comments that understanding the causes is not enough, a radical shift in approach is needed, and without action Scotland's most deprived communities are likely to continue suffering from poor quality of life and die younger? Yes, I do agree with that and I agree with those comments of the Health Foundation. These are not new or even recent challenges in Scotland, but it is vital that we do more and as much as possible to tackle them. Tackling health inequalities is a major concern for Governments and communities right across the world, and Scotland faces the same challenges as many other countries. However, it is important that we act in a preventative way as much as possible, which is why the Government is doing so much, as much as we can, within our powers and resources to tackle poverty, because that, of course, is the route to tackling health and other inequalities, so we will continue to take a range of actions and call on the UK Government to step up as well. Last evening, I watched a social media video of one female pupil attacking another at Wade academy in my constituency. To be frank, I wish I hadn't. I can't get it out of my head.  Earlier this year, Heather Hughes, the then president of the EIS, warned about increasing violence in our schools. I am supporting staff, the council and the school locally, but what action is the Government taking across the country? Willie Rennie for raising this issue. I have not seen the video that he raises here today, although I will watch it if it is available, because I think that it is important that we do have a full understanding of issues like this. Violence is never acceptable, and the safety of pupils and staff is paramount. Obviously, I can't comment further today on the specifics of the case at Wade academy, but I am very clear that violence towards anyone is unacceptable. I asked the education secretary to meet with the COSLA spokesperson for children and young people to discuss what further support to local authorities is required and what further support we can provide. They met on 2 December and discussed a continued commitment to work in partnership with the Scottish advisory group on relationships and behaviour in schools and to use the behaviour in Scottish schools research as the national evidence base to inform future policy on relationships and behaviour in schools. We are also investing an additional £15 million this year to enhance capacity in education authorities and schools to respond effectively to the needs of children and young people. We will continue to consider fully what additional steps we can take to support councils in making it very clear that violence is unacceptable and taking action to support children, young people and teachers who may face such violence. Research from the Work Foundation at Lancaster University has found that, unless the lead is amended, the UK Government's retained EU law bill will put the rights and protection of more than 8.6 million UK workers at risk, with women accounting for around 6 million of those who will be most affected. Can the First Minister advise what assessment the Scottish Government has made of the impact that this bill will have on workers in Scotland, and in particular women in the Scottish workforce? Can she provide any information about what assessment has been made as to the impact that this bill could have on devolved responsibilities? First Minister, Natalie Dawn is right to raise the issue. The bill risks damaging a range of sectors, including protections for workers that have gained over 40 years of EU membership. Unison described it as an attack on working women. Indeed, the fact that the bill was promoted previously by Jacob Rees-Mogg when he was in government and is supported by hard-brexiteers is evidence of the race to the bottom ideology that lies behind the proposals. The Parliament has called for the bill to be scrapped. If the UK Government had any respect for devolution, which is now obvious that it does not, that is exactly what would happen. If the bill proceeds and we will continue to argue against it as hard as we can, we will do everything possible to limit the damage to Scotland. However, by giving UK ministers the power to legislate in devolved matters without the consent of the chamber, it is yet another example of the growing threat and the very, very real threat that the UK Government now poses to the Scottish Parliament. 18 months ago, I asked Nicola Sturgeon about the malicious prosecution of innocent men in Scotland. Taxpayers have been hit with a £24 million compensation bill. Today, that figure has risen to more than double £51 million, with every penny taken from front-line services.   The First Minister and her justice secretary have gone silent on a scandal that contaminates Scottish justice. I would like to ask Nicola Sturgeon what does it take for anyone to be held to account in SNP run Scotland? I think that Russell Finlay exposed the motive behind this question in his last few words. These are issues that flow from decisions taken independently by the Crown Office, and the Crown Office is independent on all decisions relating to prosecutions. There have been court proceedings live on those issues. Of course, ministers cannot comment while court proceedings are live, and the Tories would be among the first to criticise us if we did. There is also a commitment to a full inquiry into all of this as soon as it is possible to do that in order that there can be full scrutiny and where appropriate, full accountability. Yesterday, I met a group of people from Patec Fistle community trust's accepting activity programme in Parliament. They support homeless people, refugees, asylum seekers and people living with mental health every day. They told me that the project has been a lifeline, and to quote their late friend, they said, it is often the reason they believe in the goodness of others. They also told me that they are facing unprecedented costs for their energy costs and worried that they will no longer be able to provide the support they do without further support. I ask whether there is anything that the First Minister can do and whether she should work with me to help them. I understand that this issue was raised with the cabinet secretary earlier this week or even today at committee, and she has undertaken to look into the issue and to write to the member, so I would suggest that that is the appropriate way for now to proceed. First Minister, this month marks the 30th anniversary of Celtic Connections. Can I ask from one Glasgow MSP to another if you will welcome this landmark anniversary of a Scottish cultural gem and great contribution to Glasgow city's economy, and will you be going along yourself to enjoy it jig time? If I get the opportunity, I will certainly relish it. As a citizen of the great city of Glasgow myself, I am very pleased that Celtic Connections is back for its first full live run since 2020, showcasing 2,100 musicians from around the world at more than 300 events across multiple genres of music. I am delighted that the Scottish Government continues to support the festival through our expo fund. Let me take the opportunity to congratulate Celtic Connections on the 30th anniversary of a festival that has grown to become a cornerstone in Scotland's annual cultural calendar and that continues to raise Glasgow's profile worldwide as an exciting cosmopolitan welcoming city. I do hope that I get the opportunity to sample some of its delights this year, but I was, I believe, at some events in its founding year 30 years ago, which perhaps says something about my age that I would rather have left unsaid. Maurice Golden Thank you, Presiding Officer. Around lunchtime last Saturday, a car smashed into a property just off the A90 near Dundee. It's a road that just about every driver in Scotland will travel on at some point, and this was the 10th crash at the same spot in just six years, according to the courier. The owners of the property live in fear. Their grandchildren outplaying in the garden could be seriously injured or even killed. I raised this issue two years ago, but no remedial action has taken place, so will the First Minister now treat this as a matter of urgency? The crash last weekend was extremely serious, and my thoughts, of course, are with all who were involved in that. It's important that any appropriate investigations into that are allowed to take their course and that we reflect on the findings of any of that. When we've had the opportunity to do that, I will undertake to have the transport minister write directly to the member with any further steps that require to be taken. Thank you. That concludes First Minister's questions. Point of order, Liam Kerr. Very grateful, Presiding Officer. On Tuesday 15 November, in relation to the misleading claim that Scotland had 25% of offshore wind potential, I asked Minister Lorna Slater when did ministers first become aware that they were using a figure that hadn't been properly sourced? She responded. Ministers became aware of the issue on Tuesday 8 November. On Thursday 17 November, I raised a point of order that Minister Slater appeared to have misled Parliament in her assertion, and I reminded her of the ministerial code at section 1.3c, which requires the correcting of the record. I stated— Mr Kerr, if you could just give me a moment, can I ask members who are leaving the chamber to do so quietly? Can I ask members who are conducting a conversation in the chamber to please conduct such conversations elsewhere? Thank you, Mr Kerr. I'm very grateful, Presiding Officer. I'm slightly stunned to see the minister in question actually leaving the chamber, as I'm speaking, but I stated at the time, 17 November, that the utter disregard by certain ministers in not abiding by the processes and codes risks bringing this Parliament into disrepute and risks undermining your position as Presiding Officer. The record remains uncorrected by Minister Slater, or indeed, to the best of my knowledge, any of the other ministers who have deployed the statistic. Presiding Officer, last Monday, 16 January, Minister Michael Matheson was asked at the Scottish Affairs Committee in relation to the claim that Scotland had 25 per cent of Europe's offshore wind potential when he became aware that the figure was inaccurate. He said, If I recall correctly, sometime back in September, both statements cannot simultaneously be true. Either Ms Slater has misled this place, or Mr Matheson has misled the House of Commons. Since ignoring and disrespecting the ministerial code is clearly endemic amongst this Government and none of them feel any obligation to do anything about it, or indeed listen to points of order, I wonder if you might request that Minister Slater appear before this Parliament to give a statement as to why she apparently misled Parliament, why she and her colleagues feel it unnecessary to abide by our codes, and perhaps finally to give an honest and accurate answer to my original question. I thank the member for his point of order. As the member will be aware, I've dealt with related matters before, and I will repeat that matters in relation to the ministerial code are a matter for the Scottish Government. The Parliament, as all members know, has a corrections mechanism that enables any member to request a correction to any factual inaccuracy that may have been contained in a contribution during our proceedings, and, as a matter of courtesy and respect, I do expect that all members should be accurate in their contributions and should seek to remedy any factual inaccuracies, whether through the corrections mechanism or other methods, at the earliest possible opportunity. All members, we will suspend the meeting briefly. Thank you. We will resume. All members are aware that it's not the role of the Presiding Officer to make rulings on the accuracy of contributions. Rather, it is a matter for each member as to whether they consider their contributions to have been accurate. However, if a member is dissatisfied with information that has been provided to the minister, it remains open to them to pursue the issue through all the avenues that are available to members. Mr Kerr asked if I could call the minister to make a statement to the chamber. That is not something that is within my power, but the member, in seeking a ministerial statement, may wish to raise the matter with his business manager who can raise it in the bureau. We will now move on to the point of order, Edward Mountain. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I don't do this lightly and I realise that there have been some delay getting to this point. However, in response to my topical question on 6 December last year, the Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, Ivan McKee, assured the Parliament that the budget and completion timescales for vessels 801 and 802 were on target. I visited the shipyard just four days prior to asking that question and met with the chief executive. He was clear that the budget would be exceeded and that 802 would not be delivered on time. I have the notes of my visits available, should they be required. Ivan McKee's answers to my topical questions baffled me as it appeared that it was more than a political non-answer, which we can often expect. Subsequent FOIs reveal email exchanges between CMAL and Ferguson Marine showing that they both knew of the problems prior to my questions being asked. That begs the question, was the minister aware before he answered my topical question that there were indeed further delays and expenses relating to hulls 801 and 802? Through an FOI, I obtained Ivan McKee's briefing notes. Mr Mountain, might I ask what your point of order is? The point of order, Presiding Officer, if I can just finish this sentence and if I may then come back to it. I obtained through the FOI Ivan McKee's briefing notes that were prepared by his staff in order to allow him to answer my questions. I can only assume that he read those. It was clear in those briefing notes that he was aware of the delay to 801, 802 and the extension to the cost of the budget. I know that it is disrespectful and unacceptable to suggest that somebody has lied or misled the Parliament, so I will not. However, it is clear and unambiguous evidence that I have got here that his response was a best misrepresentation of the fact or worse, plainly untruthful. Therefore, Presiding Officer, I seek your guidance on how members of this Parliament can hold the Government to account if it takes numerous FOIs to prove that a minister has clearly been uneconomical with the truth. I think that all members will be aware that a point of order takes precedence where a member has concerns that proceedings have not taken place in a proper way. With regard to the points that the member raises, those are not points that I can rule on from the chair. I have just addressed a point of order regarding accuracy of members' contributions in the chamber. I would again have to point the member to the many avenues that exist for members to pursue one another on issues where they are dissatisfied with a response. We will now move on—oh, point of order, Alex Cole-Hamilton. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. On the basis of what you just said, I will withdraw my point of order on this occasion. Thank you. We will now move on to members' business. I will allow a moment to for the gallery to clear.


Congratulations, Teody, Dennis, Johnny, Boy and Leia.  Your teamwork and output has done us proud. You make sure Erie's rice stands out in the crowd.  There are a couple of points that I will emphasise that explain why U5 deserve this prize. First, you took delivery of some new grain quality science and this increased the value of your service to clients. Then you adopted barcoding in creative ways which saved the equivalent of 200 days. These two things significantly increased efficiency and you doubled your output with greater proficiency. Congratulations from us all in grain quality and nutrition for your valuable role in delivering Erie's mission.