Scots and Social Studies at Secondary School
© Jamie Fairbairn
8. Community Links
5.A Oor Hoose - A Scots Language project with Duff House, Banff
© Jamie Fairbairn Duff House Banff
In a partnership with Education Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland and Banff Academy, Scots Language students undertook a creative cross-curricular project based at Duff House. Learners researched the pictures, furniture and objects in the house, using their favourite objects as a stimulus for creative output involving Scots language. The work culminated in a sharing event at Duff House, inviting parents and friends to view the output. Learners then introduced themselves to the assembled gathering with a short biography in Scots, and then acted as tour guides, explaining their chosen objects to guests. Outputs ranged from mosaics and pictures to a Doric Duff House quiz, riddles and stories in Doric. The Doric quiz was printed and used by Duff House for use by the public.
Examples of Oor Hoose project learner output
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As my objeck I chose the soup tureen shaped lik a gaut’s heed. Gaut is the Scots name for boar. Oft times it is cried a grumphie. The soup pot wis made wi twa hales for the nostrils, so fan there’s a fine hot pot o broth, steam comes reekin oot o the nostrils, which is a bonny effect. The tureen wis made in Strasbourg roon aboot the seventeen hunners. |
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© Jamie Fairbairn
There are many benefits from local community
partnerships and ongoing opportunities for learning experiences for
learners. Once the school partnership with Duff House was established
there were numerous additional benefits for learning in different
year groups and different parts of the curriculum. For example
following a few years of the Oor Hoose project with seniors, a Picts
exhibition provided the opportunity for cohorts of juniors to explore
art and history at Duff House. Scots language provides a learning
focus around which many themes across different curricular areas can
be explored.
5.B Partnership with the Elphinstone Institute
© Jamie Fairbairn
The Elphinstone Institute is a centre for the study of Ethnology, Folklore, and Ethnomusicology at the University of Aberdeen. The research interests of the Elphinstone Institute fit very well with Social Studies, Scottish Studies and Scots Language courses and outcomes. They focus on the on-going traditions and customs of the North East of Scotland, including a recent project on Lockdown Lore. They were instrumental in the setting up of the Board for North East Scots or the Doric Board. Public engagement is an important part of their work, and they are delighted to work with learners and teachers. As an example of partnership, Banff Academy have been working with the Elphinstone Institute for several years, within which time learners have benefited from: workshops about folklore as a stimulus for projects; learning research techniques and how to interview people (Fair Trickit!); a boost in self-esteem (Banff Academy pupils are fair trickit) through transformative methods of learning, in which learners explore attitudes to language. Learners have found themselves engaging with development, debate and research about status, recognition and learning benefits of engagement with Scots and its dialects in research reports, articles and film.