AN INNOVATIVE education programme bringing primary pupils and their families together to learn in different subjects has been hailed a success.

Pupils from Crossgates, Kelty, Cowdenbeath, Foulford, Hill of Beath primary schools, and Clentry Nursery, have been running family learning classes based on STEAM, an area of the curriculum encompassing science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

The classes were operated following a successful bid by the Beath High cluster schools to Education Scotland and allowed families to come together and learn in each of the STEAM subject areas, culminating in a 'showcase' event to mark the end of the project at Kelty Community Centre on June 10.

Karyn Rennie, headteacher at Cowdenbeath Primary, said: "This is quite innovative and we're not aware something being done like this before. Family engagement is high on the agenda from the new national self-evaluation document for education and we've been dipping our toe in to get families to learn together. The feedback we've had has been really positive; the chair of our parent council has three children and they all did it together. I spoke to our children at assembly and they gave it a massive thumbs up and were asking if we were doing it again next year.

"We had 24 families in attendance on the challenge day where they completed different STEAM challenges and showcased what they'd learned. We kept it quite small in scale to see if we got the model right, but next year, although we're keeping it within our cluster, Lumphinnans are getting involved and we'll have more children and families taking part."