Ctl issue 4 2 full version

Creative Teaching & Learning

Volume 4.2

Creative Teaching & Learning Volume 4.2

The joy of not knowing Why is it so good not to know?

Creating bridges into the past Travel back in time with this imaginative approach to teaching the Anglo Saxons.

Poetry made easy A simple but creative way to inspire even the most reluctant of poets.

www.teachingtimes.com/zone/creative-teaching.htm

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What are the similarities and differences between blood and ketchup?

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Editorial

Editorial Language Out of Context that externally-marked tests of spelling, punctuation, grammar and vocabulary should be developed.’

As Michael Rosen points out so strongly, this is all completely untrue. Spellings vary, as does grammatical usage and punctuation (the report weirdly separates grammar from punctuation), according to context and audience.

It is quite wrong to say that punctuation can only be done one way. This is either a statement of ignorance or a lie. Publishing houses and newspapers vary over the fine points of punctuation.

To take one example of many, there are no absolute rules for whether you use a comma or a semi-colon in the middle of a sentence that has what are called two parallel or main clauses - or indeed whether you can do it with a dash or a full stop!

‘He grabbed his collar, he knew it was a crazy thing to do but he did it all same.’

‘He grabbed his collar; he knew it was a crazy thing to do but he did it all the same.’

‘He grabbed his collar - he knew it was a crazy thing to do but he did it all the same.’

‘He grabbed his collar. He knew it was a crazy thing to do but he did it all the same.’

Let’s be quite clear – these are all acceptable.

They are all OK ways to punctuate. There is no absolute single right or wrong way out of these four possibilities.

Grammar is not an absolute set of fixed rules – it’s a set of loose conventions for making meaning in a written format which helps text approximate to spoken language. Breaking down the mechanics of how language works is a complex task of linguistic analysis which codifies patterns into seemingly fixed rules called Grammar. But in a living language, it’s a very fluid and unstable system!

Asking children as young as ten and 11 to get involved in this type of practice, where language is stripped of its context and purpose of making meaning and deconstructed into simple rules, is the same sort of mentality that has over-emphasised synthetic phonics as a way of creating technical decoders rather than effective users and consumers of written language.

It is something we shall be returning to. Watch this space.

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

T

he ‘back-to-basics’ test of spelling, punctuation and grammar was first revealed almost two years ago and met with much criticism from both teachers and unions. It was sat by around 600,000 primary school students for the first time this summer. The results, published this autumn, show that one in four children are supposedly leaving primary school with poor standards of literacy.

It would be useful to know this if we are assured of the validity of the test. It would also be useful to know why the billions spent flogging synthetic phonics to death in schools has failed to improve literacy standards.

Debra Myhill, a professor of education at the University of Exeter and a member of the national curriculum review team, was among experts who originally raised concerns about the spelling and grammar (SPAG) tests when consulted by the government.

Professor Myhill warned the government that it was wrong to test children on grammar out of context and suggested that it would give a false impression of their literacy skills.

She said: “I did a very detailed analysis of the test and I had major reservations about it. I think it’s a really flawed test. The grammar test is totally decontextualised. It just asks children to do particular things, such as identifying a noun.”

In fact, she points out, 50 years of research have consistently shown that there is no relationship between doing the kind of work demanded in the test and what pupils do in their writing. It does not ask students to use grammar in context, which means they are not able to apply rules more generally. In other words, it’s a poor test of literacy, Part of the ‘logic’ backing the legitimacy of the test is this statement from Lord Bew’s final report on educational assessment and accountability: ‘We recognise that there are some elements of writing – spelling, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary – where there are clear ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers, which lend themselves to externally-marked testing. A spelling test currently forms 14 per cent of the writing test.

Internationally, a number of jurisdictions conduct externally-marked tests of spelling, punctuation and grammar (sometimes termed ‘English language arts’). These are essential skills and we recommend

Contents

Contents

Volume 4.2

08 01 Editorial

26 Language Out of Context 05

News

08 Cognitive tools across the curriculum

Staff at Clyst Vale Community College describe how they incorporated cognitive tools into their everyday practice to develop students’ thinking skills.

17 Can you picture the music?

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

When it comes to being creative, do your students ever lament, ‘I can’t do it – I haven’t got any ideas’?

Philip Davis uses images and sounds to make that claim impossible.

The latest in creative teaching

36 Poetry made easy

Inspire even the most unenthusiastic of poets with this straightforward but inventive idea, presented by David Harrison and Judith Dalton-Morris.

45 The joy of not knowing

Students at Hertford Infant and Nursery School love not knowing… but why? Headteacher Marcelo Staricoff explains.

26 Using synaesthetic principles to develop extended writing

Marcella McCarthy uses aural, visual and tactile strategies to bring language to life and encourage her young students to be more adventurous in their creative writing.

45

Contents

Cross

61

curriculum project pLAN

Investigating local history 54 Exploring the scope of mathematics David Pratt examines the limitations of mathematics, and how in real-world situations, it’s more than just the numbers that count.

61 Creating bridges into the past

Tim Taylor takes an imaginative approach to teaching the Anglo Saxons, which will feature heavily in the new Key Stage 2 history curriculum.

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68 Our place in history

Websites and online resources to assist you and your students in exploring your local area and its historical significance.

Editorial Office EDITOR Howard Sharron PRODUCTION EDITOR Maisie Gould MARKETING Gay Hardicker ADVERTISING 0121 224 7599 EDITORIAL BOARD Vivienne Baumfield, Roger Sutcliffe Bob Burden, Robert Fisher Graham Handscomb, Patrick Costello, Karin Murris, Alan Edmiston

Steve Higgins, Sue Eagle Creative Teaching & Learning is published by Imaginative Minds, 309 Scott House, Gibb Street, Digbeth Birmingham, B9 4DT

No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express permission of the publisher.

Tel: 0121 224 7599 Fax: 0121 224 7598 Email: howard@imaginativeminds.co.uk

Creative Teaching & Learning is an independent magazine. The views expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent those of the magazine. The magazine cannot accept any responsibility for products and services advertised within it.

Š Imaginative Minds 2013 ISSN 2043-7277

Printed in the UK by Advent Print Group

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

How has your town developed over the years?

Who lived on the local high street? What job did they do? Answer these questions and more with this in-depth investigation into your hometown and its history.

WIGT

What is Good Teaching?

A framework for observing and improving teaching and Availab learning, fully aligned NOW to le order Price to the Ofsted inspection £1 25 + process VAT Going beyond Ofsted!

Why WIGT?

If you are striving towards being

At least 25 per cent of Ofsted’s judgement on your school will officially be about your quality of teaching and learning. In fact this is an underestimate. The inspectors’ view of teaching and learning in your school, and as importantly, what systems you have in place to monitor and improve it, will colour the whole Ofsted report.

The WIGT (What is Good Teaching?) Toolkit is more than just a lesson observation tool, it’s a system for monitoring and mentoring for improved teacher performance and can be used at classroom, department or whole school level. The WIGT has been developed over many years and used in schools and local authorities across the country.

outstanding you need, in Sir Michael Wilshaw’s own words: “...a clear and demanding criteria for a school to be judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’. A good school should have at least good teaching, and an outstanding school should have outstanding teaching.”

“We recommend the What is Good Teaching? Toolkit to all of our schools. It has become a key tool in helping schools to look more closely at learning in the classroom and to identify next steps for improvement. It is a rigorous and versatile framework which can be used to support teacher self evaluation or for leaders to identify whole school areas to work on.”

Principal Adviser for School Improvement – West Berkshire This is precisely what WIGT is! A unique quality standard for teaching and learning that models what teaching will look like if it is outstanding, good or requires improvement.

Uniquely however, it manages to make the implicit qualities of excellent teaching and learning explicit (what outstanding teachers do, often without realising or being able to relate to others) and enables observers and the observed to recognise strengths and areas for development. The skills of these teachers can then be used to inform other teachers in the school.

Used consistently it enables everyone to have a clear understanding of Ofsted’s expectations and support the drive towards outstanding teaching and learning for every child.

What is in WIGT?

The toolkit includes a series of formats which allow for easy recording of insightful ‘judgements’ about the observed teacher/s’ performance. The system is based on what teachers can do rather than what they can’t do and is therefore very unthreatening. However, it makes very clear how far they have to travel to reach the next standard level. In detail the Toolkit includes: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Teaching quality standards for all Key Stages including the Foundation Stage Formats for teacher self evaluation Formats to enable pupils to evaluate their own learning A framework to support student/pupil support work scrutiny Materials to support the development of a whole school policy for teaching and learning A manual to guide the lesson observer A pen drive/USB with all the pages so that they can be easily photocopied and a Powerpoint explaining how WIGT should be used

The toolkit will ensure that the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) are confident to make judgements on the quality of teaching and learning. It will enable paired observations to moderate judgements, ensuring the school achieves the consistency that Ofsted expects, leading to sustained and embedded good practice.

Please send orders to: Imaginative Minds Ltd, 309 Scott House, Gibb Street, Digbeth, Birmingham B9 4DT T: 0121 224 7599 or F: 0121 224 7598 E: enquiries@imaginativeminds.co.uk

News

N e w s www.teachingtimes.com

Not enough bedtime stories for children Only 13 per cent of parents read their child a bedtime story every night of the week, a survey has found.

The study, conducted by Littlewoods, investigated the shared reading habits of 2,000 mothers with children aged nought to seven. Only 64 per cent of respondents said they read their children bedtime stories.

The survey also found that in previous generations, parents read bedtime stories more regularly than their modern counterparts. Only 13 per cent of respondents read a story to their children every night, but 75 per cent recall being read to every night when they were kids. On average, today’s parents read bedtime stories to their children three times a week.

The findings are all the more surprising since 87 per cent of those polled believe that bedtime reading is vital to children’s education and development.

The poll discovered that nine per cent feel ‘too stressed’ to read bedtime stories while 13 per cent admit that they don’t have enough time.

One of the major challenges appears to lie in getting children to pay attention to books. Nearly half of those surveyed said their children found television, computer games and other toys more diverting, while four per cent said their children do not own any books at all.

Meanwhile, in a separate survey by Oxford University

Press, some 44 per cent of 1,000 parents of six to 11-yearolds polled said they rarely or never read with their child after their seventh birthday.

The report draws on research from the National Literacy Trust which suggested that young people who read outside class are 13 times more likely to read above the expected level for their age. It also follows a study from London’s Institute of Education which suggested that children who read for pleasure are likely to be better at both maths and English than those who rarely read in their free time.

Clare Bolton of the National Literacy Trust said: ‘We know from our work with parents and children in communities across the UK that fostering a love of reading at home is crucial to children’s future happiness and success.

‘Parents are really important reading role models and our research shows that children’s attitudes to reading improve the more they see their parents read, so we’d encourage all parents to make time for enjoying a good book themselves.’

From 2014, schools where students take dance and drama at GCSE will see them listed as one qualification in league tables, which risks marginalising performing arts, say headteachers.

Duncan Baldwin of the headteachers’ union ASCL, said: ‘Some schools may be tempted to say, “If we can’t count both, we won’t let pupils do both.”’ He added that the changes would also affect some other pairs of related subjects such as art and photography or music and music technology – which will no longer count as separate subjects for performance tables from next summer.

The government says it has taken this step because the subject matter is too similar in subjects like dance and drama. The principle behind ‘discounting’ very similar qualifications is to prevent some schools manipulating the performance tables by entering pupils for the same subject twice and having both grades count.

Mr Baldwin argued that some of the pairs of subjects which

will now cancel each other out are definitely distinct disciplines, and this is a debate about where you draw the line.

He added that the changes are concentrated disproportionately on arts subjects rather than on the humanities or sciences: ‘History and ancient history will continue to be counted as separate subjects and there is maths in science subjects.

‘The question is – at what point is there sufficient overlap for them to be ruled effectively the same?’

In a statement, the DfE said: ‘We use discounting to discourage schools from entering their pupils into a number of similar qualifications. As there are overlapping elements in the syllabuses for dance and drama and for art and photography, they will discount each other in the 2014 performance tables.’

The union has asked the DfE to reconsider some of its decisions, particularly on dance and drama, and is gathering evidence from subject specialists.

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

League table plans could marginalise the arts

News

N e w s www.teachingtimes.com

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

www.teachingtimes.com Making music improves behaviour

Making music can improve a young child’s behaviour and problem-solving skills, recent research has revealed.

The study, conducted by the University of West London, built on existing research from 2012, which found that encouraging a young child to make music can significantly improve their pro-social behaviour (voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another), and aimed to investigate not only the effects of music making (singing or playing an instrument) on pro-sociability, but also its effects on problem-solving and whether there was a difference between boys and girls.

The investigators studied the pro-sociability, cooperation and problem-solving abilities of 24 girls and 24 boys, all aged four. The children were randomly assigned to either a ‘Music group’ or a ‘No Music’ group. Children in the ‘Music’ group sang and played the percussion bullfrog, while children in the ‘No Music’ group listened to a story.

Following this, the children played two games requiring them to solve problems, cooperate, and help each other.

Music improved the helpfulness of both boys and girls, with the children in the ‘Music’ group over thirty times more likely to help than those in the ‘No Music’ group. Making music was also shown to improve cooperation – all children in the ‘Music’ group were six times more likely to cooperate than those in the other group.

Girls were over twenty times more likely to help after making music than boys, investigators discovered. They were also more likely to cooperate after making music.

However, boys in the ‘Music’ group were four times more likely to problem-solve than girls.

Rie Davies, one of the study’s three authors, said: ‘This study…highlights the need for schools and parents to understand the important role music making has in children’s lives in terms of social bonding and helping behaviours.

‘Music making in class, particularly singing, may encourage pupils with learning differences and emotional difficulties to feel less alienated in the school environment.’

Teenagers’ creative idea is going global

learn about, get involved in and discuss how to create the apps of tomorrow.

‘The areas will be unlike any classroom you have seen before, it will be more like walking into the headquarters of Google or Twitter.

‘As well as desks and chairs, there will be beanbags and giant television screens – we want a space that inspires and allows creativity.’

Devonport High School for Boys has ploughed £10,000 into creating the world’s first Thinkspace, an area at the school completely converted into a creative environment to learn to code.

Ollie, 14, said: ‘A Thinkspace could take as little as £500 to create. We are deliberately coming up with systems that will allow schools across the world to create areas like this with as little equipment, money and resources as possible.’

Stephen Fry said: ‘Plenty of kids play with and use their smartphones or other devices but never think of looking “under the bonnet” or considering whether they actually have it in them to be a coder, designer or developer themselves.

“James’ idea can so simply be copied in all schools. It’s the students themselves helping each other, teaching each other, learning from each other, so it doesn’t have the taint of the class area or the national syllabus about it, though I’m sure it’ll be very, very useful academically too.

‘It’s one of the smartest, simplest yet potentially powerful ideas that I’ve encountered in 20 years of being asked to look at the Next Big Thing. The school should be really proud of James and his team.’

Three teenage pupils are about to launch a global project backed by the world’s biggest online names which aims to inspire, create and teach the next generation of Zuckerbergs.

James Anderson, Ollie Bredemeyer and Kamran Malik have created Thinkspace – an organisation which combines real-world classrooms with an online resource and social network with the aim of teaching people as young as 11 to create apps, games, websites and even social networks.

The project will be launched internationally this week, and is being backed by some of the biggest names in the technology industry, including Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, Apple and Microsoft. Stephen Fry, comedian and presenter credited with sparking the UK’s interest in Twitter, is also lending his support to the project, as is business tycoon, Sir Richard Branson.

The three behind the scheme are all students at Devonport High School for Boys in Plymouth.

James Anderson, 16, said: ‘A Thinkspace is an area within a school where people as young as Year 7 can come to

Sandwell Early Numeracy Test (SENT) Key Stages 2-3

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Identification of number Oral counting Value and computation Object counting Language from NC level P6 to 3A.

The materials are suitable for pupils in Key Stages 2 and 3.

The test can be used to identify skills and knowledge in pupils and the results can be expressed as either National Curriculum levels or Age Equivalents within the range of 4 to 11 years.

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Thinking Skills Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

Cognitive tools across the curriculum

Dave Walters and staff at Clyst Vale Community College describe how they made developing cognitive skills a priority in all subject areas, and the enthusing effect this has had on their students.

C

lyst Vale Community College (CVCC) is a medium sized secondary school in the south west of England.

It is a true comprehensive in every sense of the word and has an inclusive ethos.

However, we decided something needed to change in 2009 in response to reflections at subject and whole-college level relating to high stakes testing and its impact on the learning process experienced by our students. In short, there was a growing feeling, backed up by evidence from internal and

Thinking Skills

external evaluations, that students were not developing the cognitive skills required for independent study and that learning and teaching leant too much towards content and bare knowledge at the expense of higher-order cognitive skills. Students were passive in the learning process on the whole and were growing reliant on their teachers for much of their learning.

The predominantly traditional curriculum (GCSEs) presented a real dilemma for the college as there was evidence that some schools and colleges were pursuing alternative qualifications in response to similar pressures, not least of which was the need to improve league table performance. CVCC viewed that maintaining challenge for students meant a change of pedagogical approach rather than curriculum engineering, particularly as our curriculum was broad (albeit almost exclusively GCSE based) relative to our size and therefore should present an appropriate challenge for our students.

We perceived a need to move teaching and learning away from a content heavy model towards more cognitive approaches. As deputy principal, I had recently completed a professional doctorate in education at Exeter University Graduate School of Education under the expert supervision of Professor Bob Burden, Director of the Cognitive Education Development Unit, and so had recent high quality understanding of cognitive education, together with Exeter University’s working association with Thinking Schools International. Extensive discussions with a variety of CVCC staff and community revealed optimistic support for becoming a Thinking School and we were confident of an 80 per cent ‘buy in’ from staff as this figure reflected the percentage of staff who had positive attitudes towards innovation.

Initially, we decided to focus on Hyerle’s thinking maps, De Bono’s thinking hats and Bloom’s Taxonomy as the main cognitive tools, as we believed these struck a balance between variety and focus. Our main aim was to add a cognitive dimension to other pedagogical approaches already established, particularly those relating to formative assessment, or Assessment for Learning.

Our initial optimism of an 80 per cent ‘buy-in’ proved to be realistic, as feedback from lesson observations revealed a large majority of staff were routinely using thinking maps in particular. At least half of staff quickly soon began to extend their repertoire to other cognitive tools as appropriate.

But how did they do so? And how great an impact did this have on students’ learning? From here, I hand over to six of our teachers. With specialisms ranging right across the curriculum, they will explain how they implemented various cognitive tools into their practice and what effect their efforts have had in the classroom and on school life as a whole.

I’ll freely admit that when we first started exploring the ideas of meta-cognition and the possibility of becoming a Thinking School, I was more than a little sceptical. From the outset, these projects had many of the hallmarks I associate with the ‘yet another woolly new initiative’ school of educational programmes.

And so I joined the programme largely as a self-appointed ‘Doubting Thomas’. As it transpired, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

As a subject teacher, the most important and positive aspect of this project has been the fact that it has generated a buzz and initiated discussion about teaching and learning in a way that many previous initiatives have failed to. The inherent challenge posed by the adoption of cognitive tools to our previously assured view of ourselves as reflective practitioners has been extremely stimulating. I’m from a generation of teachers trained to believe, as immutable fact, that teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin and that driving improvement in the latter always stems from the former. As a result, so much of our focus over the last decade has been on the quality of teaching, however as a school we’ve become concerned over the last few years by a widening gap between the two.

In ICT and Read to Learn (R2L - our literacy course), we’ve introduced the use of thinking maps. The uses of maps to classify, plan sequences, compare and contrast has been repeatedly modelled by teachers and a

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

A cynic is converted

Thinking Skills

consistent message that it’s the thought process that’s key to the activity has been continually reinforced.

We’ve encouraged students to use the maps in a range of activities – describing the parts of a computer system using a tree map, planning the operation of a computer program using a flow map or comparing two characters from a book we’ve read in class with the double bubble map.

Teaching the use of thinking maps to our learners in ICT and literacy has given us a fresh view of the tools and strategies they need to succeed, and represent a concrete attempt at rebalancing the intellectual workload between teachers and students. An absolute must as we try to move our school community towards being outstanding in the broad, the civilised and the narrower Ofsted sense.

Embedding the use of these approaches is certainly not without frustration and definitely not quick. It’s been a timely reminder that whole-school change demands consistency. It’s only because of the wide scale ‘buy-in’ from staff that change has been possible here. After an initial period of constantly referring to the thinking maps, constantly gesturing to the dog-eared wall displays, constantly correcting the instinctive desire to fall back on our previous habits, we’re seeing some encouraging results. Some of our classes have moved closer to driving their own learning than they’ve ever been – they’ve become conscious of the process of their own learning. Most recently, it was delightful to witness that when faced with a new project, my students earnestly tell me in an unsolicited fashion that they’ll need to use a circle map to define the problem and then begin to plan a solution using a sequence map.

Did I mention that because of thinking maps, I’ve discovered – or perhaps remembered – that my name’s not Thomas after all?

Allen Bailey Head of ICT

Getting philosophical Since I have been using cognitive thinking tools both within my classroom and to aid my role as a Head of Green School, I feel it has created many benefits for me and the students I work with. One of the most noted improvements is the students’ ability to understand and analyse their own work which in turn, has improved grades. It is amazing to become a catalyst of learning - first triggering and then stepping back to watch the students think in order to learn, is simply wonderful and the main reason why I became a teacher.

I have felt that the thinking tools have added both a cognitive and fun dimension to my classroom.

There are many ways these tools can be implemented in learning. If we take a look at the thinking hats, these can be used to enable a student to analyse and think around a topic in order to allow them to make informed decisions. In a recent RE GCSE class of mine, I split the room into several stations which students had to work around. The theme was euthanasia. Students had to visit each station and complete a task: n Red station – students wrote down their gut reaction about euthanasia. n White station – students gathered information on euthanasia from a variety of sources including text

books, short clips, newspaper articles, journals etc. n Yellow station –students read several articles and discussed why euthanasia should be legalised in

Britain. n Black station – students used a variety of sources to discuss the negatives surrounding legalising

euthanasia in Britain.

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

n Green station – students researched alternatives to euthanasia e.g. the hospice movement and palliative

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care. n Red station – at the end of the lesson, students reviewed their beliefs about euthanasia to see if their

opinion had changed during the lesson.

I have also used the thinking hats to help AS and A2 level students plan their philosophy essays, and this has really helped to focus them and make sure they are analysing and evaluating in each question.

The use of hats has also been valuable within my role as a Head of School. Often I find I spend time dealing with incidents that have happened between students. Using the thinking hats has been a brilliant way of asking the students to evaluate the incident and move on:

Thinking Skills n n n n

Red hat – What was my reaction, what did I do in the heat of the moment?

Black Hat – What was negative about my behaviour?

Green hat – How could I have changed my behaviour? What could I have done differently?

Yellow hat – What would be a positive learning opportunity out of this situation?

The use of the maps has also been a wonderful learning tool in the classroom. I have used many of them in a variety of ways, for instance: n Circle map – I often use this to gather what students know about a topic before we have begun. For

instance, if we were looking at abortion, this would allow me to see what the students know, allowing me to effectively plan my teaching to the ability of the group in front of me. The circle map can also be used at the end of the unit to assess how much the students have learnt. n Bubble map – I have used these frequently to describe feelings of a person towards a particular moral issue. In this circumstance, I would use a frame of reference in order to stipulate the particular point of view. n Double bubble map – This is a wonderful tool to help students in my classroom compare and contrast religious points of view towards any contemporary issue. n Tree map – This map is very useful when I want students to break down a topic into categories. I have recently used this when teaching the main reasons why people commit crimes. (See figure 1) Figure 1

Why do people commit crimes?

Environment

Social

Psychological

I would certainly advise trying a few thinking hats and maps in your own classroom. Activate the learning and watch the benefits unfold in front of you.

Chen Battishill Head of Green School, Beliefs and Values, and Child Protection

Cognitive tools in geography

Thinking maps When I introduced thinking maps to my classes, I introduced a different map each week. I emphasised that the students must identify the thought process and the name of the map they would be using before physically drawing it. I believe this is important as it gets them thinking independently about what they need to do and develop an awareness of the learning processes.

In geography, we use the flow and the circle maps quite often. When students are required to understand the formation of a feature, a sea stack for example, they must think about the events that lead to its formation. When the students have identified the thought process (sequencing), they need to identify the appropriate map. When this has been done, they then physically put the sequence together. I have found that when the students, especially the more able students, become confident with the different maps, they can automatically identify the thought process and map for certain activities. I have found that these maps enhance thinking and encourage the student to be independent and proactive in their learning. My

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

As a teacher of geography who is new to the profession, I have found the use of cognitive tools to be an essential part of the learning. They are tools that enhance the students’ thinking as well as their ability to solve problems. These tools have become personally meaningful for the learner as they can identify certain thought processes with specific tools, giving them the confidence to challenge themselves. The cognitive tools I have used are Bloom’s Taxonomy, Edward de Bono’s thinking hats and thinking maps.

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Thinking Skills

students have responded very positively to thinking maps and when doing independent project work, they will automatically include thinking maps that are appropriate for the task in hand.

Thinking hats I use Edward de Bono’s thinking hats in most of my lessons for group discussion or independent thinking.

They encourage students to think in ways outside their usual approach and consider ideas from a number of different viewpoints. I encourage the students to think about what they are trying to achieve and pick the appropriate hat that will support their thinking.

When introducing the hats, it is important to introduce them individually, outlining in detail when each is appropriate. I find the hats very useful when putting together an extended piece of writing as students can break it down into paragraphs that correspond with the different hats, therefore including a number of perspectives and making their final piece more rounded. I have found that KS3 students have responded very positively to the hats as visual aids and enjoy wearing a different colour as they consider different perspectives on a topic.

Bloom’s Taxonomy When I am setting my learning objectives for lessons, I use Bloom’s Taxonomy and believe it is fundamental to doing so effectively. It encourages students to think critically about their ideas and the ideas of those around them. I also use it to differentiate the outcomes of the lesson. Bloom’s Taxonomy is particularly effective for me at GCSE level where my students have responded very positively to it.

Edel Keaney Teacher of Geography

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A thoughtful approach to scientific enquiries

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In 2010, I began a project to improve the quantity of dialogical talk in the classroom. I wanted to introduce and provide an environment and a set of conventions to allow children to participate in enquiry – both through talking and reflecting. I intended to give my students the opportunity to learn from each other, as opposed to solely from the teacher, and perform their own Philosophical Enquiry. This was closely linked to our college’s move towards Thinking School status and provided my teaching with guilt-free flexibility to experiment with Philosophical Enquiry as well as begin to implement some thinking tools.

As well as Philosophical Enquiry, I’ve introduced a number of other thinking tools that have greatly enhanced my practice and subsequently, the pupils’ learning. My favourite and most useful within a science context are the thinking maps, purely as a means of extending, differentiating, creating and yet providing structure to students’ work. They have become an intuitive part of many lesson segments and provided they are not overused, are embraced by the pupils. Their implementation was gradual and, as there are a number of conventions for each thinking map, I concentrated on Key Stage 3 so that we could create the expectation that they would be used throughout their school experience. The children’s feedback has, for the most part, been positive and the promotion of more analysis and reasoning with content means that a deeper and richer understanding seems to have been reached.

We are certainly working towards a time where students will be expected to select an appropriate map for analysis and synthesis of content.

Hints and tips: n Using thinking maps will not take up any extra time, merely a few moments of thought. Think about

the content that you wish students to learn, then try and ‘fit’ thinking maps to the task. If it’s not appropriate, don’t use one. n You won’t use them all, some subjects don’t use certain ways of analysis. A bridge map is used for seeing analogies – perfect for comparing the metaphorical aspect of scientific models, but not so for other subjects. n Allow children to share their ideas and help complete each other’s maps. Learning is not an individual pursuit.

Thinking Skills n Thinking maps will afford reflection, creativity and analysis of content. This is difficult to assess in the

immediacy – it is the process that’s important, not the outcome. n Have posters of thinking maps clearly displayed and incorporate their language into your practice.

The wider role of Philosophical Enquiry and thinking tools in creating a thoughtful and considered approach to the world needs to be recognised by the educational community and not merely as a ‘bolt-on’ activity to broaden the curriculum.

Carl Hubbard Teacher of Science and Literacy Coordinator

Extending thinking in science I have used many thinking tools with my science groups and feel that one of the most beneficial towards student progress and individual learning are the thinking maps. I introduced the thinking maps with classes in each year group and have found that they are generally accepted more at KS3 than KS4. However, where KS4 students have taken them on board and used them, they have realised their benefits. In some circumstances, they have found them to be a useful revision tool.

I have now been using thinking maps for a couple of years and can see the development of the use of maps throughout early KS3. As these students progress, they will continue to come into contact with the maps, which should provide them with very useful skills when it comes to revision for GCSEs. By using these maps and understanding the thinking processes behind them, they are also likely to become more independent learners, which will obviously benefit them in their examination years.

I introduced each mind map to the class by first talking through the type of processing that they are using with certain pieces of information. I then introduced the map as a method of getting the thinking onto paper.

After using the thinking maps a couple of times in this way, I am now able to present students with the information and they are generally able to derive and complete the correct thinking map. I am confident that with further use, the students will choose to use the correct maps without any guidance, and in some instances this has already been the case. More capable Year 7 students are already asking to put information into the thinking maps without prompting.

The next step and one that I am currently working on is the use of the ‘frame of reference’ which extends the thinking and can be used to increase complexity of the task. Where this has been used, students have been very keen and the process has clearly increased their thinking skills. It can be used to differentiate work and provide extension tasks for higher ability students.

When using thinking maps, I’ve found it essential to plan the lesson objectives first and then choose the correct maps to suit the processing skills needed for each lesson. The use of thinking maps just for the sake of using them is likely to do more harm than good. As a whole school measure, they are most effective when introduced to KS3 as I have found them to be more receptive. The skills will then be taken up through KS4 and beyond by the students.

Maps in the maths room I have found that the easiest thinking map to introduce into the maths classroom is the circle map, representing defining in context. I use it regularly at the start of a new topic. The students are given the topic in the centre circle and then as a starter activity, asked to fill in everything they know about it. There are no restrictions given and students can use words, comments, examples, pictures and of course, numbers.

This activity encourages them to access the lowest rung on Bloom’s revised taxonomy – ‘remembering’ – upon which all new learning is built.

While the students are working, I circulate the room, asking questions, offering praise and returning to

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Kelly Knight Transition Coordinator and Teacher of Science

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Thinking Skills

A circle map on indices

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A circle map on algebra

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A flow map on multiplying and dividing mixed numbers

the board to put up the students’ ideas.

Class discussion follows, and the board is further updated during the discussion.

Misconceptions can be addressed here if appropriate, or if not, at a later time. The questioning is crucial at this stage as it moves students up another level in Bloom’s taxonomy to ‘understanding’, and can even inch into the next level, ‘applying’. This third level is more usually addressed in the main body of the lesson though.

Personally, I find the use of the circle map incredibly useful as it informs me of what the students can actually recall independently or through nudges from their peers, and lets me know where I initially need to pitch the topic. The frame of reference in this map is unused in this type of activity, as the ‘How do I know what I know?’ is all too often answered with ‘Because my teacher told me…’ or ‘I learnt it from Mr so-and-so last year’!

Some teachers in the department get the students to return to their circle map to add their new learning to it in different colours once the topic is finished, while others use other tools to reinforce and consolidate learning.

Often in the main body of the lesson, I will use the flow map to identify a strategy that students need to follow for a particular process, such as adding/subtracting fractions. The flow map should be written from left to right, but since maths moves down the page, it makes more sense for the flow map to be written downwards. This is very useful as it ties up nicely with board work showing an example.

Having the strategy as a sequence of events provides the students with the opportunity to become more independent.

All too often, we finish the teaching part and students put their hands up and say ‘Miss, I don’t get it’. If the strategy in their books is clear, concise and can be directly linked to an appropriate example, they have no excuse and I invoke the ‘C3B4ME’ rule.

This is where the students need to try three things to help get themselves unstuck before asking me for help. It does take a little patience and training, but the students do get there and begin to develop the skills of looking back in their notebooks to remind themselves of earlier learning when they get stuck.

Thinking Skills Encouraging creative thinking B l o o m ’s t a x o n o m y coupled with Costa’s questioning has been a fantastic vehicle to deliver differentiation. It brings a subtlety to questioning A bridge map wall display on fractions, decimals and percentages and through this, creates challenge for all students within a class. Like most schools, we set in maths, but there is always a range of abilities and the key verbs allow for a more personalised learning experience.

Crucially, in my opinion, it leads to students accessing the two highest levels of thinking, ‘evaluating’ and ‘creating’. I believe in secondary school maths, we have a tendency to shy away from these, especially

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In the maths department at Clyst Vale, we operate a policy of each student having three books – an A4 book for taking notes, a work book and a homework book. The students are responsible for copying down notes accurately. If notes are poor we give oral feedback (I write OFG– Oral Feedback Given – in their book and expect the student to respond with a written comment about what they are going to do about it). I have found that as students progress through the school, they will often add their own additions to the notes, taking more responsibility for their learning which helps to prepare them for independent note taking at A level.

When summarising learning, I have found the tree map (for classification) very useful as it clearly identifies key learning points. My KS4 students and higher ability KS3 students are now beginning to develop the skills to produce their own as homework. I do also give some marks for presentation.

The bubble map (for describing using adjectives) can be a tricky one to use in maths. However, we have cross-bred it with the spider diagram and it is used by many in the department for the teaching of mental A tree map on transformation methods to find percentages of amounts.

The students enjoy producing posters and they do make a good wall display.

For younger students and those who find maths more challenging, I have found that they respond enthusiastically to the production of a whole class thinking map for a wall display. Particularly successful so far have been a giant tree map, headed with ‘data’, with ‘qualitative data’ and ‘quantitative data’ as the next level down, and bridge maps showing connections between fractions, decimals and percentages or the connections between integers, square numbers and cube numbers. These do have the added advantage of not only being a reference point for that particular class but for all your classes and the students do use A bubble map on percentages them as such.

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Thinking Skills

creating. But the benefits reaped from providing the opportunity for creativity are wide ranging. Activities that I have used to begin to foster creative thinking include creating your own treasure hunt using bearings for directions, drawing a picture using specified constructions and following angle facts, and writing your own journey story ending with a question, using at least three forms of transport and mixed numbers only. Students also need to provide the solution.

Unsurprisingly, the quality of the work that is produced varies tremendously. Peer assessment and evaluation, with teacher input and a whole class involvement does help to lift effort and achievement, particularly at the bottom end, and this offers a great opportunity for praise. It can also result in students making connections with other aspects of maths and offering up some interesting thinking.

Finally, I believe the best way to get students to think is to let them get stuck and not allow them to give up – give them hints and then leave them. Keep doing that until they get unstuck. If they can’t get unstuck at all, then you have picked the wrong task. Lessons like that require a high level of interaction even though you don’t need to reinvent the wheel with the planning (Websites such as Bowland Maths, NRICH, GAIM, UKMT and more are a great help) and the students need to be given the skills. The balance needs to be between teaching, drill and practice, and thinking. As for the results? Well, we are seeing a new generation of learners emerge.

Mel Prance Teacher of Mathematics and Key Stage 3 Coordinator

So has it worked?

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We used the then Year 8 cohort at the start of implementation as our mechanism for monitoring impact, and student achievement outcomes for this cohort are high. In fact, the internal college data for these students, currently in Year 10, indicate that they are poised to achieve well above the national attainment and progress figures, such that they would set an all time college record. Furthermore, their attitude to learning in terms of enthusiasm and enjoyment is excellent compared to previous cohorts.

The following quote from our Thinking Schools accreditation visit in September 2012 confirms that we have been successful in our initial aim set out at the beginning of this initiative: ‘Clyst Vale Community College provides a good example of how the cognitive approach to learning can complement other pedagogical approaches in seeking to meet the educational needs of students, while at the same time enhancing a values-led approach to education. In doing so, it fully warrants accreditation as a Thinking School and is afforded that status by Exeter University’s Cognitive Education Development Unit.’

Ultimately though, I must say that I believe becoming a ‘Thinking School’ is somewhat of a myth… The journey never ends and one can only lay claim to continuing to develop as a thinking school.

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Dave Walters is Deputy Principal at Clyst Vale Community College, Exeter.

Knowledge trails

1) Strategies for thinking – How do we encourage reluctant thinkers to progress beyond the basics and develop their higher-level thinking skills? Paul Fleming reports. library.teachingtimes.com/articles/strategiesforthinking.htm 2) How we became a Thinking School – Kevin Steel explains the important role thinking maps played in his school’s journey towards becoming an accredited Thinking School. library.teachingtimes.com/articles/ctlhowwebecameathinkingschool.htm

Creative Approaches

Can you picture the music?

Every teacher is familiar with students claiming to lack inspiration. Here, Philip Davis presents an infallible way to make that claim impossible – using images and sounds to generate ideas and inspire creativity.

Observe and imagine Using images is a great way to inspire ideas – all we need do is observe it. It’s worth remembering however, that there are two types of observation. The first is when we look at something that is really there – such as an image on the

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T

o be creative, you need ideas. Ideas are the food of the creative mind.

It’s a simple concept, but ask any class to write creatively and more often than not, you will hear cries of ‘I can’t do it – I haven’t got any ideas’. The blank page lies in front of them and with no ideas, it is a frightening prospect.

With the aim of eradicating this fear of creative writing, I have developed a methodology that uses images and sound to help generate ideas – it is fun, effective and simple and, having worked with more than 20,000 pupils of all ages over the years, I know they love it. As well as sharing what I believe are the simple skills required to implement this methodology in any classroom, I also want to provide you with some practical activities you can try for yourselves.

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Creative Approaches

wall, or an object in front of us. The second is when we observe something we can’t see – something that is inside our heads, using our imagination. Both direct observation and imagination come into play when using images. The trick is to catch ideas quickly and efficiently.

Let’s look at a great way to generate ideas using imagination and demonstrate something truly remarkable about the human mind. Ask everyone in the room to think of a dragon (an image of this dragon will appear in every mind). Then give them 30 seconds to ‘look’ at the dragon and notice one detail about what they can see. It can be anything – what the dragon is doing, its colour, the texture of its skin, its mood, anything. I always say that the easiest way to do this is for those doing the ‘looking’ to be still and for them to have their eyes closed.

After the 30 seconds have passed, ask the ‘lookers’ to share what they have seen. While there may be similarities, it is highly likely that everyone will say something different. This truth that we all think differently is very powerful and it is important to remind people of this. Being faithful to your own ideas brings out more originality.

Now let’s look at something we can all see in front of us – the observed rather than the imagined. Look at the picture to the right for a few seconds.

Start by gathering ideas about things that you can actually see.

Then move on to gathering ideas about things that you imagine you see. All these ideas will now need to be organised and without some sort of method, we will get confused and muddled. Thought maps are a brilliant way to do this. As shown in Figure 1, the central oval of this map is the main idea (the picture), the main branches include more detail about this and the smaller branches comprise of the finer details – the imagery, the metaphors and so on. Dots can be placed on any branch to represent further ideas – more detail. It is quick and simple and helps pupils to develop their own thoughts.

What is amazingly liberating about this whole process is that you can use words or symbols to note the ideas. It doesn’t matter what these are, as long as the map makes sense to you. Remember, YOU are the creator!

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Figure 1

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©Mick Armson

Creative Approaches Listen and feel Sound is remarkable and profound. It changes the way we perceive things, changes the way we feel and it has an enormous effect on the mind. All too often though, sound is used superficially – played in the background and that’s about it. There is so much more to sound than that.

Having a basic understanding about how sound gives us ideas is important.

With this understanding will come more confidence in trying a wider variety of activities.

There are three main ways that sound inspires. Often all three will work together, but by explaining these three ways to the pupils, we will avoid the response of ‘it isn’t giving me any ideas!’ They are as follows:

The visual link to the sound When you hear a sound, your mind may well conjure up an image of what that sound means to you. However, it is not ‘guess the sound’.

Recently, I was working in a rural school and played the sound of a busy street. The pupils picked out sounds like lorries, footsteps, talking and so on, but I also included the sound of a sheep eating. They all knew it was some sort of farm animal and told me so. In a London school, the same sounds initiated different responses. While the pupils here recognised bus engines, taxis, tube train sounds and escalators like their rural counterparts, the sheep became a troll having dinner. The visual response will be governed by the experiences you have had, but there will always be a response!

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The direct link to the sound I often say to the pupils that this is the first port of call. Ask yourself, what is the volume of the sound? What is the tempo? What material is the sound – metallic, wooded, woolly, soft, hard? Are there words that describe the sound?

You can demonstrate this by doing the following and asking for the descriptive word – clap, sneeze, whistle, click, stamp, tap and so on. It is often forgotten that a sound may well have a word that describes it – rumbling, thunderous, cavernous, echoing, reverberating, for example. It is worth collecting lots of sound words and making a sonic dictionary. These words can be used to give a sonic sheen to writing!

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Creative Approaches

The paper scrunch Here are some visual responses I’ve had from pupils to the sound of a piece of paper being scrunched up.

The sound lasts about five seconds, but look at the variety and ingenuity of these Year 4 students. Among the numerous explanations of what the sound might be, we had: Someone walking on a beach, standing on delicate shells as they begin to crackle A monster eating a burger A man in an orange suit collecting rubbish Someone reading a newspaper in the rain A hedgehog scrambling in the leaves An artist scrunching up his artwork ‘cos he didn’t like it People scrunching up paper… and then the paper comes alive!

A big squirrel rustling about in a big forest A big hairy man on a grey sledge People paying ten million pounds A pebble path People riding their ponies A big fat rat rummaging around in the rubbish n A fire burning while horses are being rode in Autumn n A person looking for a note n An old granny eating crisps n Ice cracking on top of a very old house n Santa landing his sleigh n A piglet in welly boots n Pink panther making origami but not doing it right n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Think of all the things you could do with these ideas – artwork, storytelling, story writing, mime. The diversity and ingenuity is fabulous and I am sure the list could be endless.

Download the sound from the link at the end of this article and try it yourself with any age group.

The emotional link to the sound Sounds make us feel things. The key parts of a sound that affect us emotionally are pitch, tempo, melody and dynamic. A very low pitch makes us feel uneasy – think of Jaws! Very loud sounds make us think things are closer and very quiet sounds make us think of distance and space. Melody is also very powerful.

When you think about these three key responses to sound – direct, visual and emotional – you can see the massive potential for ideas.

Figure 2

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Organising your ideas

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After students have noted down the ideas inspired by various sounds and images onto their thought maps, they will need some way of organising them. To help them with this, I have developed a number of narrative templates.

These templates are based around a default narrative map and there are 36 different templates to choose from (see Figure 2).

Using our Picture The Music software, students can drag and drop pictures and sounds

Figure 3

Creative Approaches

onto a template of their choosing (see Figure 3). This resource has been designed to help teachers create an experience that inspires pupils to come up with their own original ideas.

The pupils draw the maps of their ideas and use them to create stories, poems or in fact, anything that requires creativity as a starting point.

Practical activities to try Below are three activities you might like to try out in your own classroom. All are easily adaptable to any topic and will work with students of any age group. All resources cited can be downloaded from the link at the end of the article.

Figure 4

Activity 2: The very short story This activity is very popular and can have many outcomes. Each pupil draws three boxes for their ideas. These are labelled as shown in Figure 4. There are three sounds and as each is played, pupils write down or draw what ideas come to mind – these may be visual, emotional or words that describe the sounds. They can, of course, be all three. They might see settings, characters, objects, emotions – in fact, anything! All are valid.

Once the sounds have been played, the task is to link these ideas together

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Activity 1: What’s behind the door?

Images of doors are fantastic to use – they ignite the imagination. Put a sound with this and the results are stunning.

Put the image of the door on the screen. You are now going to play two sounds. Tell the pupils that the first sound represents a setting behind the door. Ask the pupils (you can do this with any age – even adults love it!) to write down or draw what settings they ‘see’ behind the door. As sound affects us all differently, it is very possible that each individual will have many, unconnected ideas – this is fine and should be encouraged. Get them to write down everything that comes into their heads.

After the sound has been played, give the pupils a few minutes to gather their thoughts and then share the ideas. Encourage as much detail as possible. Rather than saying ‘there is a forest behind the door’, ensure that the atmosphere, colours and all the small details are described.

The second sound represents a character. It is important to mention here that you do not want your students to come up with a character from fiction, but an idea of their own. It is quite common for people to imagine a well-known character from a film when using sound like this – it is a very cinematic process after all – but encourage descriptions of characters that they make up. It is much more liberating for them.

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Creative Approaches

to make a story. If possible, ask them to tell their story in six words – say two words per box. You can do it in the order the sounds were played or mix them up to make something different.

Another exciting outcome of this exercise is to create a Haiku poem – three lines, five syllables for line one, seven syllables for line two and five syllables for line three. This is guaranteed to fascinate.

You can also build on this and use more sounds. I have done it with six sounds.

The pupils then pick any three from the six that can be linked and make a sixword story or Haiku. This combination gives many variations as well.

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Activity 3: Year 1 storytelling This simple activity involves two sounds and two pictures. Although this particular example session is aimed at Year 1 students, the activity can be used with students of any age – the older the pupil, the more they can do themselves!

The first part of the session uses an image of a cave and a sound of dripping water. Tell the pupils that they are going to enter the cave and walk around.

They imagine what they see inside the cave as well as observe things they see outside. Get them walking around as if they are actors using a green screen in a film studio. As they are walking, ask every pupil what they imagine they see, what they hear (words to describe the sound, images the sound conjures up or how the sound makes them feel). As the pupils are young, you will collect their ideas and responses on a blank template map. Do this while they are walking round – they will see their ideas being organised in real time!

The picture below illustrates the sort of ideas you will get from this exercise – rocks, bumpy, grey, darkness, scary, frightening, pond and so on.

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The next image is of a fairy. It’s black and white so the pupils will have to imagine colours. Start by gathering details about the fairy through observation.

Ask lots of questions and put the responses on the map. Ask the pupils to stand and walk around with the sound, imagining how the fairy feels and what sort of expressions she may have.

Creative Approaches Once the ideas are gathered, get everyone together in a circle. Now you are going to take the individual ideas from the maps and create sentences. This can be quite tricky so I would advise having a go yourself to give them examples. You might need to rehearse the ability to ad lib from the simple words your pupils have given you, but when you do it in the lesson, believe me, your pupils will be enthralled. When they hear their idea used, expect them lean to their friends and say ‘that’s my idea, that one!’

Here’s an example of what I mean. Three ideas on the map shown above – stamping, bang, loudly – can become ‘I saw deep inside the cave a fairy, stamping and banging her feet loudly against the surface of the rocks.’

Once you have done this, ask if anyone would like to have a go at using the idea map to put together some sentences – every time I ask this, there are many volunteers. Some manage one sentence, others get further. This is what story telling is about – performance and audience. Giving the very young this experience is empowering.

I have been lucky to work in schools all over the UK and abroad and have run many projects using the techniques I have developed.

The ‘Whole New World’ project in Netherfield school, Nottingham, aimed to raise achievement and motivation in communication and literacy skills across the school. Every class, from Reception to Year 6, was part of an imaginary land – oceans, caves, grassland, forests, rivers, lakes and mountains. I used sounds and images to immerse the pupils into their worlds – for example, a bubble machine and the sounds of

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Picture The Music projects

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Creative Approaches Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

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waves and water were used with Reception.

Once the pupils had decided what their part of the land was like, they all developed a character. Their characters then became part of stories, and the students organised their thoughts on map templates using their own images, software stock images, and sounds.

As well as developing stories, we made books and models of the characters – Year 6 even gave them Latin names. Each year group voted one character to represent their part of the land. These were then made into amazing sculptures using Sherwood oak. They are now in the playground as inspiration for more storytelling and poetry. Structures representing the areas of the land were also built around the playground and the pupils took an active role in doing this.

Another interesting project I have undertaken with many schools is called ‘Element’, a week-long project based on the four elements – fire, water, earth and air. The starting point of the whole week is poetry. I put together a collection of images and sounds to inspire ideas. Each pupil writes a poem based on what they experience from those images and sounds. I then collect all the poems and combine individual lines to create four songs – one for each element. Each class learns their song and the enthusiasm shown is wonderful when they realise it is their words being used with the music.

As part of the ongoing development of the methodology used in the Elements project, I have also designed sounds to inspire characters that represent the elements. I do this through something I call Sonic Moulding – creating a three-dimensional model from sound. The diversity and imagination shown in this activity is stunning. This year (2013) I have run the project in four schools and not one model has been the same. It is an activity that both adults and children love.

These models are then used as the basis for character descriptions.

The engagement of the pupils is fantastic – they just love talking about their models, even giving them voices. Some pupils have even gone on to make short, stop-frame animation films with their models. There are so many possibilities. The Elements project continues with sonic painting, drawing from sounds, poetry performance, expressive dance, song and sound design. Everything is put together for a special performance for parents and other invited guests. The pupils are encouraged to take an active role in all the preparations of this show.

One parent said to me about his son in Year 4: ‘He usually doesn’t talk about school but this week he hasn’t stopped. He’s loved every minute.’ You can find videos of these projects and further brilliant examples of students’ work inspired by pictures and sounds at the website cited below.

Using sound and image to inspire creativity excites and engages. The blank page need not be frightening anymore.

Philip Davis is the creator of Picture the Music. For more information on inset, courses and workshops, and for free resources, please visit www. picturethemusic.com or call 01732 447 909. All resources mentioned in this article can be freely downloaded at www.picturethemusic.com/ files/ctlresources.zip.

Knowledge trails 1) The 100 word challenge – Julia Skinner describes her innovative project, designed to allow young creative writers to flourish in a safe online environment. library.teachingtimes.com/articles/ctl24_100wordchallenge 2) Small steps to creative thinking ­– Louise Tondeur provides a range of ideas and activities to stimulate creative writing. library.teachingtimes.com/articles/ctl32p3438smallstepstocreativethinking

develop creativity and reward achievement now open to Key Stage 1 Schools report that Arts Award has a positive impact on children’s literacy, engagement and attendance. Arts Award’s unique qualifications develop creativity and communication skills.

Arts Award Discover and Explore are available for children at Key Stages 1 and 2. Use the flexible framework to support curriculum activity.

Book training to get started www.artsaward.org.uk/training 020 7820 6178

artsawardenquiries@trinitycollege.co.uk

St George’s Great Yarmouth photo JMA Photography

Professional Development Today CTL quarter page Sept 2013 (88 x 135).indd 1

09/09/2013 15:45:39

Professional Development Today, the sister publication to School Leadership Today, is designed for those involved in the personal and professional development of all teaching staff. The aim of the publication is to improve school practice of CPD, which is all too often an ad hoc affair, by supporting the CPD Co-ordinator and school leadership team with articles, research and ‘how to’ guides on what works.

Recent Professional Development Today articles have included: Professional learning leaving its mark!

Jane Jones recalls a professional and leadership development experience which has influenced her approach to leadership and teaching ever since.

What next for school leadership development Raphael Wilkins explores the changing contribution of school leaders to shaping future school systems, and the implications for professional development of the next generation of school leaders.

Growing your own evidence!

Chris Brown emphasises the importance of evidenced-based practice and argues that because individual context matters, practitioners should ‘grow their own’ evidence.

How to… lead change In this issue’s ‘how to’ section, Graham Handscomb provides a range of material and professional learning exercises on the challenge of leading change. Includes: * How to… take the long view * How to… deal with complexity of change * How to… learn from change models and theories

To subscribe to Professional Development Today:

Call the Subscriptions Orderline 0121 224 7578 or email sandie@imaginativeminds.co.uk

Subscribe online at: http://www.teachingtimes.com/publications/professional-development-today.htm

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Using synaesthetic

principles to develop extended writing

Hesitancy about new words, sentence structure and paragraphing often prevents students being adventurous in their creative writing. Marcella McCarthy explains how the use of aural, visual and tactile strategies can bring language to life, increasing student confidence and reinforcing complex writing skills along the way.

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hildren who struggle with literacy can find themselves profoundly disadvantaged in imaginative terms in comparison with their peers.

Where literacy difficulties are enhanced by parental problems with literacy, children may not be read to at home, miss out on early contact with literacy, and so do not see reading as a route to imaginative discovery1. On the other hand, increased urbanisation and fears for child safety can mean that these children also have less freedom to explore the natural world.

Teaching Approaches

In these circumstances, watching TV and playing computer games can become a preferred mode of learning simply because these providers are easy of access, and the child is unable to draw in other forms of stimulation. Teachers who are eager to engage students who struggle with conventional literacy will often unconsciously reinforce these preferences by using computer games or DVDs as a way to engage them, thus accommodating their ‘learned style’ rather than truly enhancing different learning styles.

However, research suggests that students who are attuned to the quick-fire sensory stimulus of the computer screen may find it harder and harder to pay attention in an ordinary classroom situation, because it seems to be utterly opposed, in terms of learning strategy, to their favoured medium2. As Douglas Gentile observes: ‘The brain becomes what the brain does. If we train the brain to require constant stimulation and constant flickering lights, changes in sound and camera angle, then when the child lands in the classroom where the teacher doesn’t have a million-dollar-per-episode budget, it may be hard to get children to sustain their attention.’3 The problem is not just a budgetary one though. It is in no one’s interests, least of all the students’, to encourage a monoculture in schools. Instead, it is necessary to try and encourage them to adapt that style and embrace different ways of accessing information. The principles of synaesthetic learning mean that everyday stimuli of a variety of types are used to bring the outside world more into the classroom, so as to enrich the concrete imagination a little, and start to redress this potential imbalance.

The ‘Thesaurus Island’ project involved a half-day workshop with a class of Year 5 students, using a range of synaesthetic strategies which focused on word, sentence level and text level skills. A stratified sample of the students’ writing prior to the workshop was obtained, and this was compared with similar samples of work produced during and as a result of the session. The primary class teacher evaluated both sets of work, and we then discussed the details of individual students’ work and the differences observed.

Having already obtained good evidence of the effect of synaesthetic cognitive learning strategies on student commitment and interest in weaker Key Stage 3 students, this project was designed to evaluate if the same methods could produce a similar improvement in writing skills in Key Stage 2 students, who were just starting to develop their extended writing skills. Due to the increasing pressures on teacher time away from the classroom, I was also keen to evaluate if a single-session workshop was able to have any measureable impact on student writing.

In discussion with the class teacher, I created a workshop session that concentrated on developing vocabulary choices, consolidating children’s existing awareness of the importance of word order, and enhancing the use of more advanced syntactical structures, such as complex sentences and paragraphing, in their descriptive writing. Enhancing vocabulary through the use of a shared text was a method that had already been used with success by the class teacher—spellings for earlier work being focused on words the class had discovered through the reading of ‘Treasure Island’. However, although this strategy provided a lot of specialist vocabulary, it did not always develop a range of word choices for similar concepts.

Another obvious route into developing vocabulary for older students is to use a thesaurus. However, with Year 5 students this can be problematic. The format of the thesaurus can be challenging to less able and less literate students. For more able students, the thesaurus provides another challenge – they need to know the kind of word they want to find in order to find it. The session was designed

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Thesaurus Island

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to introduce the children to the idea of a thesaurus in a simple, unthreatening context, and make it something that they would see as exciting rather than just another big book that they couldn’t all read.

The creative session was therefore based upon the idea of a thesaurus, taking as a starting point the etymology of the word – from the Latin Thesaurus, meaning treasure or collection. The intention was to let the children associate the idea of treasure - as in ‘Treasure Island’ - with the idea of enriching vocabulary.

The aim of the session was to work on descriptive writing, and link this to the work that the students were doing on ‘Treasure Island’. As the students would be doing some creative writing about the story at a later date, I was asked to restrict myself to non-plot-driven writing as far as possible.

Making it synaesthetic One of the major principles of synaesthetic learning is that students can learn more readily if they are given a variety of routes into a topic. Their senses are stimulated by giving them more than simply verbal cues. The challenge in this project was not just to employ synaesthetic methods to make the experience as memorable as possible, but to see if the strategies could measurably enhance the students’ writing outcomes.

To this end, aural, tactile and visual cues were prepared to introduce the topic, with word cards and discussion work developing the initial impact. A scheme was designed to differentiate work for a mixed ability class, with a high proportion of students for whom English was an additional language.

One aim of the session was to show the class teacher how to reproduce the style of the session on another occasion, so it was important not to make resourcing a potential problem.

The materials needed to be inexpensive and readily available. They consisted of: Six sets of laminated word cards in different colours Blank word cards in appropriate colours A small, decorated box for word cards A larger box to act as a treasure chest Items for the treasure chest, of various colours and types. We used beads, broken jewellery, Christmas decorations, velvet and other materials, and a selection of items contributed by staff members. n A recording of sea sounds n An extract from ‘The Hobbit’ n A writing frame of six sections

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So how did it go?

The session began with an aural resource, a tape of seaside noise – waves crashing on the beach, gulls crying and so on – designed to calm the children and focus them on the session. The children were asked to sit quietly with their eyes shut to listen to this, and to think about the place they imagined they could be hearing those noises. All the children talked about being at the seaside, and then quickly associated this with their recent reading of ‘Treasure Island’. They were asked to imagine being on the island. What sort of treasure might they be looking for? They came up with a range of ideas for the treasure chest.

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We then moved on to text and storytelling, maintaining the aural focus by reading a passage from ‘The Hobbit’ about the treasure of Smaug the dragon.

This was a familiar text for the children, and we were able to discuss the details of the way in which the treasure is presented. The children picked up on the idea that the description was composed both of details about the physical appearance of the treasure, and details recording Bilbo’s feelings about the treasure. In this way, the idea of drawing in all kinds of experiences to descriptive writing was introduced.

After this, the tape of sea sounds was played again, and the children sat with closed eyes while the treasure chest was brought out. This was a large box filled with tapestries, sequinned fabrics, gold coins, fake jewels, ropes of pearls and beads, silver goblets and other beautiful things. When the children opened their eyes, they were speechless initially, and then eager to look closely at all the things in the box. The children wanted to touch and look at the treasure, and we did this for a while, as they asked questions about what was in there (mainly of the ‘is it real?’ variety). This activity introduced a tactile focus, which reinforced learning by strongly linking words and mental images with physical objects.

Students then began to talk about finding words to describe the treasure they were examining. Going for a visual approach this time, I picked up a fake ruby and asked if there was a better word than ‘red’ to describe its colour. Some children were silent, while others came up with various suggestions. They were encouraged to ask each other and share ideas. All suggestions were praised and discussed. We did the same with some other objects, and then I asked what we could do if we didn’t have friends to ask – how would we find a different word for ‘red’ or ‘green’? Some of the children already knew about dictionaries, and suggested these, but others pointed out that dictionaries might not help if you wanted to find synonyms. Eventually, they came up with the idea of a thesaurus, and I found that, as expected, there was a divide in the class between those children who were happy to use a thesaurus, and those who were intimidated by the idea of it.

At this point, we introduced the etymology of ‘thesaurus’, discussing the idea of treasure-hoards and word-hoards with examples of how you could find, for instance, different words that meant ‘shiny’. An old-fashioned brass-bound chest full of different coloured word cards was then produced. Each set of word cards contained a large range of words designed to intrigue and challenge the children. They were told that this chest was their thesaurus for today. Inside it were words that would allow them to describe the big treasure chest more vividly. Words were deliberately included that even the highest-ability child would be unlikely to know (e.g. coruscating), mixed in with more familiar words. A central sheet was provided with the words and brief definitions, so that all the children would be encouraged to find out what different words meant.

The children were fascinated by the word cards. Students were divided into mixed-ability groups and each group was assigned a colour. The children then had to take all the words of that colour out of the chest and bring them back to their group table. Even before they’d all got their cards, the first groups were using them to make up phrases. All the children were encouraged to do likewise, and then they wrote down the phrases in their draft books.

The next step was to give the children ownership of the cards. Each group was given blank cards with which to add their own words, so as to transform the words and phrases into sentences. As the children worked, we went around the groups and read out particularly interesting and inventive combinations. They recorded these sentences in their draft books too.

The children were, at this stage, all active and engaged. Some of them were already eager to move on to the extended writing task, and make their sentences into a longer text. Those who had literacy problems seemed to find the provision of ready-spelt words helpful, because they could concentrate on

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sentence and phrase forming. All the children enjoyed the ability to physically manipulate the word cards so as to try out a variety of combinations. One group linked every word to form a hugely long sentence train around the edge of the table, which led to an interesting discussion about how to structure a complex sentence. Another group focused on rhyme and alliteration, and another talked about onomatopoeia.

After some feedback and sharing of ideas, we moved on to the next stage, which involved a writing frame. This frame provided the students with a structure for paragraphing their description, and was an example of how they might structure description chronologically, using words such as ‘first’, ‘next’ and so on. The structure of the writing frame was designed to allow them to recall their first look at the treasure chest, following the movement of the eye, and some animated discussion took place as to what each child had noticed first.

The phrases and sentences in the draft book were looked at again to provide students with ideas for the frame, and some children reused them, whereas others invented afresh.

After the session, the children worked independently on an extended writing task based on the descriptive writing that they had practised. The students were enthusiastic.

One child couldn’t wait for the story-writing class sessions, and started writing at home, producing a lengthy piece of work over a short period of time.

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Did it work?

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The initial feedback about this session from both teachers and pupils was very positive. All the students were active and engaged throughout, and children whose first language was not English mentioned that they found the word cards particularly helpful. Children with less defined literacy skills were enthusiastic about the way in which the word cards increased their ability to form sentences that sounded beautiful, and were proud of the ways in which these were shared with the rest of the class. The use of word cards enabled these students to quickly move on to forming whole sentences, and allowed them to experiment with different forms of sentence construction without having to rewrite. Nonrepeating word cards created a fluid dynamic within each group, with children assisting each other and sharing words.

Many of the children commented on how much they enjoyed the new, challenging vocabulary, and although the session was designed to last for a morning, some students asked to stay in over break time to continue the work.

The teacher reported that the children asked if they could continue revising and redrafting their descriptions in the afternoon.

A sample of the students’ creative writing was taken both before and after the workshop to analyse the effect the synaesthetic strategies session had on their work. For each student, I was given a sample of their writing before the session, together with the records of their work throughout the session, and

Teaching Approaches

an example of writing done some time after. As you will see, an improvement is evident between the first sample of work and the final sample, and it can be seen how the transitionary work has helped to develop these skills. All names have been changed.

Michael In the sample of writing done before the session, it is clear that Michael favours simple sentence structures: ‘Got up then went down stairs. Told my mum what I wanted for breakfast’. The work is only seven lines long although the task was intended to encourage extended writing, and ends mid-sentence: ‘so it was a bit of a’.

In his use of the word cards though, we can see straightaway that Michael is enjoying the way words sound. He frequently uses alliteration: ‘engraved emeralds’, ‘wonderful golden gilded coin gleams’ and also seems to enjoy the potential to form more complex phrases and sentences: ‘enchanting glows tumbled above the translucent gleam’.

In his use of the writing frame, it is possible to see a growing confidence in developing complex sentences. The frame has here provided a jumpingpoint for his own creativity. The frame words are in bold: ‘Then I noticed how cold it was in the sunlight. I lay on the floor with the gemstones in my hand, thinking how extraordinarily lucky I had been to find this treasure on this island, which had been buried for thousands of years.’

Although Michael is not using the new vocabulary in this section, he is using the new and complex sentence structures he explored during the lesson. What is perhaps more striking is the interest and engagement that he now shows. Instead of less than seven lines, he has produced an extended, neat piece of writing with six defined paragraphs.

Jack

Jack’s first sample of writing reflects some of his literacy problems. It is a very short piece of descriptive writing about a teacher: ‘Miss McDonald is very generous. She was very nice. And today she is wearing a pink top and a navy skirt.’

‘Precious stones glow splendidly Sparkling glimmering shines fantastically.

Emerald, all sorts, enchanting finest Golden piled beads of enchanted fire.’

Despite his normal slight reluctance to write, he filled up the frame sheet, eagerly using help from the teacher as well as shared ideas. Initially in the frame, it is possible to see the way in which he is drawing in the word cards. However, this soon leads on to a development of the narrative. The descriptive passages also add complexity to his writing: ‘Looking more closely, I could see a brace of pistols. Deep within

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The short sentences and unadventurous vocabulary are characteristic of a lack of confidence about extended writing. However, Jack enjoyed the ‘wordplay’ session, even creating rhymes, and arranging his phrases poetically:

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the chest there were plates lying at the very bottom, their lustrous copper surface touched by light for the first time in years.’

Here, it is possible to see how the format of the frame—that recalls the physical process of looking at the chest—is being imitated by his own phrase: ‘Deep within the chest’.

Jack was so enthused by the session that he went home and decided to write his own pirate story, without waiting for the further teacher session. This was seen by his teacher as a real step forward in terms of his interest in and engagement with literacy. The story covers three closely written pages, and in it, it is possible to see Jack using more confident sentence structures, as well as experimenting with direct speech and bolder paragraphing: ‘A long time ago, in the 1800s, there was a boy and his mother. Their names were Mrs Wood and Jack Wood. Jack’s mum was an archaeologist and Jack helped his mother. One day, they went out to dig down by the beach, four or five metres away from the water. Suddenly— “Mum, Mum!” “What?”

“I’ve found a map. Come quick.”’

The class teacher was very pleased with the fact that Jack had gone off by himself to work on this story, and attributed his new enthusiasm to the synaesthetic session, in that it had made the story of ‘Treasure Island’ more real to him.

Alice Alice is a very high-ability student who has English as a second language. Although she is quite fluent in English now, it is possible to see at times how her sentence structures reflect the idiom of her first language. Here is her creative writing sample from before the session - a diary extract: ‘Was tired, got up anyway. Went down to breakfast. Mum gave me lots of milk. Yuck! Loaded the luggage onto the car. Got in the car. Felt excited, and set off.

‘Mark made racket in the car. Mum told him off. Ate sandwiches. Went to sleep.

‘Finally got there. Got out of the car. Stepped on the soil. Looked to sea, and saw Mrs. Baker on the sand. Got back in the car, and started to smile.’

It is unclear here whether the abbreviated style is a deliberate attempt to imitate diary format, but the omission of the indefinite article in ‘Mark made racket’ suggests a degree of uncertainty about more complex sentence structures.

Alice really enjoyed the word cards session, particularly being able to play with words without worrying about spelling them. She produced a range of creative and complex sentences in her group, for example:

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‘Silvery vivid diamonds tumbled glimmering to the floor, like fire, glowing delicate gleams of golden sparkles.’

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Her writing frame was crammed with similar descriptions: ‘The first thing that caught my eye was the beautiful and ancient goblet of pure silver, enlaced with swirling patters encrusted and ablaze on its glittering surface. Entwined in its handle, the slim body of a dragon is released.’

After the session, Alice wrote a seven-page story of considerable sophistication about a girl who is a pirate, sustaining a complex narrative with assured confidence. Again, her teacher felt that the session had sparked in her an increased interest in the pirate story.

Dan’s pre-session sample of writing was a piece of recount text: ‘One day my uncle Dave was getting ready to go to work he got dressed he brushed his teeth. And went out he got on the back of the lorry. When it was on the way to London. The doors were not closed properly.

‘Uncle Dave was hanging the back and the door flung open and he fell on his back and started to laugh, and he ran back and jumped back on then my uncle Neil said to my uncle Dave and said are all right.’

Teaching Approaches

Dan

It’s noticeable here how there is an uncertainty about sentence structure in what is otherwise an engaging text. Paragraphing is present though, and this gives the impression of an able child who has specific literacy issues.

During the session, Dan enjoyed playing with the word cards, and exploring the possibilities of word choice. He showed a particular fondness for alliteration and colour words, using expressions such as ‘golden glimmer fire’, ‘the crimson gleam of rubies’ and ‘delicate viridian crystals glimmering’: ‘I opened the chest and I saw lovely golden rubies, diamonds and precious silver coins.’

‘The first thing that caught my eye was all the silver necklaces and shiny enchanting glowing rubies, glittering gold diamonds, some golden glimmer of shiny gemstones.’

Dan also seemed to enjoy the built-in redrafting facility offered by the writing frame. Because they had already worked on the phrases and filled in the frame before copying the work into their books, the children found themselves revising and correcting throughout this process. Dan’s final description contained many small improvements in fluency and accuracy (for instance, he changed ‘golden rubies’ to ‘crimson rubies’ after carefully examining a fake stone).

Dan’s extended writing after the session was an adventure story, and showed an increasing mastery of paragraphing and direct speech. His sentences were carefully constructed, and although they were not very complex, they were more confident and accurate in syntax than in the previous sample. Compare, for instance, ‘And went out he got on the back of the lorry. When it was on the way to London.’ from the pre-session sample, to ‘Captain Alex shot another cannonball right through the schooner and the schooner sank. My crew were so happy and glad that our crew did not sink.’ from the post-session sample.

In synaesthetic practice, pictures or concrete objects are used to reinforce what may initially seem rather dry teaching objectives to do with syntax and vocabulary. Bringing treasures into the classroom is a way of making real the language that the children are learning about. It is much easier to explain what ‘iridescence’ is if you can hold up something iridescent, talk about its rainbow colours, mention that Iris was the goddess of the rainbow.

Conversely, children can more easily ask about words to explain concepts if they have solid props before them. ‘What word could you use to describe…?’ was a frequent question during the session. The teacher commented on how the ‘treasures’ were actually not items that were difficult to get hold of - it was the presentation that made them appear so special.

Strategies such as using word cards (and introducing them through the treasure box) make new vocabulary exciting and unthreatening. The use of word cards facilitates exploration of word combinations, and reduces the spelling pressure that often causes children to ‘play safe’ with word choices. Ensuring that the word cards worked syntactically together also helped the children explore the relationships between words, and the connective words that they could use in order to give their sentences added sophistication.

The use of writing frames was also very successful. The sequencing of the description to imitate the movement of the eye proved very helpful in assisting the children to think of ways of completing the sentences, as they simply

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The benefits of synaesthetic practice

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reflected on their own experience when looking at the treasure chest. Again, the synaesthetic link here suggested to them ways of structuring narrative that some of them used in later work.

Overall, feedback from the session was very positive. It was easy to prepare and teach, resources were produced which could be used again (indeed, I used the word cards in a Year 9 class immediately afterwards), and, perhaps most importantly, the children felt that they were having a treat - so much so, that they wanted to stay working in the session rather than go out to break!

The class teacher commented on the effectiveness of the session for those students with language difficulties, and those whose literacy was below average. She was especially interested in the implications of the strategies for teaching children with special educational needs, and asked to have more training on how she might develop her own synaesthetic learning strategies.

The improvement in the children’s written work was measurable and sustained, and the ideas and concepts introduced during the workshop had implications for their confidence and ability beyond the immediate, suggesting that the impact of synaesthetic learning techniques in a lesson lasts long after the individual session. The study also suggests that as synaesthetic techniques work well with children at all points on the ability range, they can be used as an effective and ‘invisible’ means of differentiation. The strategies seem to work equally well at primary and secondary level, and provide an easily resourced enhancement to lessons that has positive repercussions for issues such as ESL students, behaviour management, special needs, and differentiation across the curriculum.

Dr Marcella McCarthy is SSAT Senior Lead Practitioner for English, and Assistant Headteacher and Strategy Lead for English at The Oxford Academy.

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References

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1 Bus, AG, van Ljzendoorn, MH and Pellegrini, AD (1995) Joint book reading makes for success in learning to read: A meta-analysis of intergenerational transmission of literacy. Review of Educational Research, 65, 1-21.

2 Swing, EL, Gentile, DA, Anderson, CA, and Walsh, DA. (2010) ‘Television and video game exposure and the development of attention problems’. Pediatrics. 126(2):214-21.

3 Science Daily (2010) Press release from the University of Iowa, July 7th 2010, available online at www. sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706161759.htm (Accessed 15/08/2013) Knowledge trails 1) How to make every lesson outstanding – How can teachers make their teaching more creative and inspiring?

Marcella McCarthy introduces the idea of synaesthetic learning. library.teachingtimes.com/articles/lesson-outstanding 2) Resisting the red pen – Alison Wilcox describes how experimentation with language turned her class of reluctant linguists into enthusiastic, creative writers. library.teachingtimes.com/articles/ctlresistingtheredpen.htm

“Lessons in philosophy encourage pupils to reflect and think more deeply. This has a direct and positive impact on the curriculum.” – Ofsted The Philosophy Foundation is an award winning charity.

We run sessions that will stretch and challenge your students, helping them develop critical and autonomous thinking, while building an environment of collaboration and creative thinking.

We deliver programmes at primary and secondary level such as: ●

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Weekly philosophical enquiries or one off workshops led by a trained and accredited philosopher.

Curriculum based enquiry developing conceptual understanding of subjects including specific programmes on mathematical reasoning and poetry for thinking.

An interactive exploration of Homer’s Odyssey, accompanied by our book, The If Odyssey (Shortlisted for Best Educational Book 2013).

One-to-one teacher training within the classroom and INSET in questioning and enquiry skills.

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everychild

Journal

Securing the future of vulnerable children

The need to co-ordinate the service response to vulnerable children has never been greater. Every Child Journal is a unique practice journal for professionals working in this field, providing solutions across the education, health and care sectors, to help practitioners improve the life outcomes of disadvantaged and vulnerable children.

In our upcoming issue: Daniel Pelka: A brief life Violence, neglect and cruelty was all Daniel Pelka experienced during his short life. Why were the signs unrecognised?

The impact of addiction Maggie Swann’s son had a glittering future ahead of him… And then he discovered skunk.

Here she tells her story.

Can nature nurture?

Can the healing powers of nature help schools tackle children’s mental health problems?

Carl Dutton and Jaya Chandna make the case.

The drugs don’t work Dave Traxon explains how the use of prescription drugs for children’s behavioural problems is spiralling out of control, and what we must do about it.

Faith in the family Parenting programmes are all the rage at the moment, but they often fail to take into account the cultural reality of life in Britain today. Kathleen Roche-Nagi describes a new approach to parenting support aimed to help Muslim families.

To subscribe to Every Child Journal: Call the Subscriptions Orderline 0121 224 7578 or email sandie@imaginativeminds.co.uk Subscribe online at: www.teachingtimes.com/publications/every-child-journal_1.htm

Creative Approaches

Poetry made easy

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Writing poetry is a great way to develop language and literacy skills, but not all your students will be so keen.

David Harrison and Judith Dalton-Morris introduce a simple idea to engage even the most reluctant of poets in composing their own poem and presenting it in a creative, visual way.

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N

ot everyone enjoys composing their own poem, but what if, in a matter of minutes, any student or teacher could produce elegant five line poems about any chosen theme or subject, and use ICT to turn this poem into an imaginative visual display, with images and sound if required?

Following some flexible rules and making effective use of presentation software such as Microsoft PowerPoint™, Apple Keynote™, Prezi™ and OpenOffice Impress™, learners of all ages and abilities can create and take pride in an illustrated poem. The whole concept is cross-curricular, as the topic of the poem could be related to geography, history, religious education, physical education, language, music and so on. Composing the poem will develop skills in language and literacy, creating the presentation poem will develop pupils’ skills in ICT, design and technology and art, and the final poem as presented has links to maths (number and symmetry). Teachers and other educators could also use these ideas to produce a short memorable introductory or summative slide poem in any presentation on almost any topic.

Within this idea, presentation software will be used not to give a presentation, but to creatively enhance a poem visually and possibly sonically, as an example of digital literacy. At the end of the exercise, students will have taken on new ideas about poetry and risen to the challenge of writing a poem. There is no ‘wrong answer’ so no fear of ‘getting it wrong’ and even those learners who claim not to be creative or artistic and who are reluctant to write a poem can succeed and celebrate their success.

Teacher trainees who have explored the techniques have taken great pleasure in not only what they have achieved but also in sharing their achievement with others. Not every trainee followed the instructions below ‘to the letter’, but every trainee produced and presented a poem that we could all enjoy, and those poems often gave us insight into the poet and artist that might not otherwise be apparent to us in an essay or examination.

We have taken the idea into local school, Victoria Community Primary School, Wrexham, and we must thank the headteacher, Mr John Hughes, the Year 4 class teacher, Ms Lisa Sherriff, the Teaching Assistants and the pupils of Year 4, with whom we spent two mornings disassembling, composing and illustrating presentation poems.

Getting started

Cloud, white, fluffy, Line three of the poem features three ‘doing’ words – present participles of verbs which again describe the actions of the subject of the poem. In this case, we could choose floating, flattening, raining, flying, growing, darkening, billowing, blowing or covering. The three line poem is now: Cloud, white, fluffy, floating, flying, flattening,

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Remember this poem can be about anything. The starting point is a single word – a noun, either a common, proper, collective or abstract noun. For example, as a keen observer of the sky, one of the authors chose ‘cloud’. So the poem is entitled ‘Cloud’ and the first single word line of the poem is the same.

The second line of the poem comprises two words, which by our arbitrary rules, are describing words (adjectives) that relate to, in this case, a cloud. A restriction is that you cannot use the present participle, so no ‘-ing’ words. To describe the cloud, we might choose white, bright, light, fluffy, flighty or watery, but your guide chose ‘white’ and ‘fluffy’. Thus the poem now comprises two lines:

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Notice the choice of alliteration. The poem has now reached its ‘widest’ extent and the next line contracts to two words, back to adjectives. The result might be: Cloud, white, fluffy, floating, flying, flattening, misty, mysterious, The final line is a single word which might return us to our original noun, cloud, or more creatively, a synonym or example of our original. In this case, the final noun is an example of a cloud, cumulus, and our final five word poem is completed as: Cloud, white, fluffy, floating, flying, flattening, misty, mysterious, cumulus.

There we have it – a simple five line poem that grows and shrinks to give a pleasing diamond-like symmetry of 1:2:3:2:1 word lines. The basic concept is very simple and almost every learner can, possibly with the aid of teacher or learning assistant, create their own poem or rhyme in minutes. Classes of 25 teacher trainees all managed to compose simple attractive poems by just following my verbal instructions and seeing examples of my self-composed poems, and pairs of Year 4 pupils all produced competent poems in less than 20 minutes.

Visual enhancement

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The brevity and shape of the poem lends itself to a single slide display on a screen or whiteboard using presentational software. The next step is to enter the poem as it is, into the software. Next, using the font size command, increase the font size so that the poem makes best use of the screen area while ensuring that the third line of the poem remains on one line. If using Microsoft PowerPoint, the initial slide would perhaps look something like this:

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The next task involves skills in art and design. The aim is to give our poem visual appeal with a background and for a cumulus cloud, a suitable background might be an image of a cloud.

The choices of font, colour, size and positioning are down to personal choice.

There’s no absolute right and wrong, but in designing the slide layout, the learner can creatively explore the huge range of options available within the software to

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Next we have to consider what font to use. What font might be sufficiently cloud-like, fluffy or floating? The chosen font is Snap ITC and it was necessary to reduce the font size to ensure the third line is not split over two lines. A change of font colour is now required to finish the presentation poem. A slightly off-white ‘cloudy’ text colour was chosen and ‘text shadow’ format applied to the font to make it appear as clearly as possible against the background. The final presentation poem:

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produce a pleasing effect. More experienced learners can further develop the slide by making use of the animation effects within the presentational software, perhaps with the lines of the poem revealed one at a time using a wide range of animation effects – fast or slow, from left, right, top, bottom and so on. The options of background sound or music or even synchronised reading of the poem are also a further possibility to enhance the poem. There is a wide range of presentational ICT skills that can be developed and the options are there to use more contemporary online presentational software, for example, Prezi, which may be favoured by more experienced learners.

The limit of this technique is the limit of the ‘poet’s’ imagination and his/ her skills with ICT. Neither of the authors are poets or an ICT expert but the presentation poem featured below, ‘Teddy’, was created using background templates from within the software.

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Teacher training students at Glyndr University have produced presentation poems on all manner of subjects over the years. Favourite topics have included pets, festivals, friends even university life:

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Poem by Amy Sagar (Year 3 student on BA Primary Education Course).

We spent two mornings in Victoria Community Primary School, Wrexham, working with 18 Year 4 pupils. In the first session, we introduced the learners to the ‘Cloud’ poem above and asked the pupils to identify the language features and the text organisation of the poem. The children were enthusiastic in their responses and soon told us about the number of words on the line, the different types of words (nouns, adjectives, verbs), the background picture matching the words, and so on. During the whole class discussion, we recorded what they

Creative Approaches

Classroom work

had noted on a whiteboard and these became the success criteria for their poetry writing. We then distributed various examples of different poems (as laminated A4 slides on paper) to the pairs of pupils and asked them to identify again the key features in these other poems by writing their findings on self-adhesive notes and applying them to the laminated poem.

We modelled the writing process by taking the children line by line through a poem entitled ‘Wrexham’. Following a discussion of current themes in their school curriculum, the pupils were set the task, in pairs, of writing a poem on the topic of ‘Space’,‘Tudors’ or ‘The Locality’ using our agreed success criteria for the structure of the poem. At the end of the first session, nine pairs of pupils had successfully drafted a poem and some had written two poems.

The following week we visited the school again with the aim of converting the handwritten poems into presentation slides. The pupils were already familiar with using Microsoft PowerPoint, so the introduction focused on which features they could use within the software.

Using open ended questions, we encouraged the pupils to tell us what they would have to think about when designing the slide. The pupils decided that

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Example of poem, composed by Hayley Mees (Third year student on BA Primary Education Course), as analysed by children.

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the choice of font, size of font, colour of text, justification of the text and the illustrations on the slide were all important. They acknowledged that the choice of font should somehow reflect the topic – for example, an ‘olde worlde’ font might be suitable for a poem about Tudors.

Having agreed success criteria with the pupils, they were set the task of preparing an illustrated slide of their poem, with help in using the ICT if required from the class teacher, the teaching assistant, ourselves and a good deal of peer help between pupils. During both sessions, the pupils used the agreed success criteria to self and peer assess their work and suggest improvements.

After approximately an hour, we had over twelve illustrated poem slides from our poets, of which some examples appear below.

Within the two sessions, we believe we addressed in some way the curricula for English, ICT, D&T, art and design and mathematics, and the children wanted to know when we were to visit the school again. All the examples of the children’s work can be accessed online at www.goo.gl/tMNj9.

The basics of the presentation poem have been outlined above, but the whole idea can be extended within any practitioner’s own creative bounds.

How difficult or easy the composition of the poem is can be controlled by the teacher, who is free to vary the rules. The poem could easily be extended to seven lines of 1:2:3:4:3:2:1 words. The rule on line two might be that the words end in ‘-y’, or the third line might feature adverbs ending ‘-ly’. The rules are up to you. You might want to maximise alliteration and insist that all the words begin with the same latter of the alphabet. For example:

Creative Approaches

Developing ideas

Cats, clowder, crafty, catching, clawing, cuddling, Cheshire, cheetah, calico.

The poem can be used rather like Wordle (www.worldle.net) to give a pictorial representation of key words related to a topic. For example, creating a poem about Diwali while looking at religions of the world: Diwali, festival, fireworks, cleaning, lighting, sharing, Lakshmi, Hindu, Deepavali.

Wordle could also be used to identify keywords from some text on the topic which could then be used as vocabulary for a poem. The rules on the sorts of words to be included on each line can be relaxed and the poem can simply be nine words arranged in the 1:2:3:2:1 pattern. In geography, while looking at places, children could each take a country and present information about that country in a simple poem. For example: Country, Capital, Principal River, Three States/Divisions, Currency, Language Alternate Name Wales, Caerdydd, Usk, Powys, Conwy, Gwynedd, Punt, Cymraeg, Cymru.

All of these poems can then be included within a colourful pictorial slide presentation. Likewise a historical poem can creatively encapsulate key features of past people or events: Henry, eighth, king, jousting, beheading, annulling, absolute, tyrant, Tudor.

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Germany, Berlin, Rhine, Bavaria, Hesse, Saxony, Euro, Deutsche, Deutschland.

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The poems can be more abstract in nature: Sad, blue, lonely, crying, weeping, wailing, cheerless, dejected, alone.

By contrast, they can be instructional or act as an aide-memoire: Science, how? why? observing, measuring, recording, prediction, hypothesis, nature.

There is nothing to stop you, the reader of this article, taking any of the un-illustrated poems above, inputting them into some presentational software and creating appropriate illustrative backgrounds. How do you creatively illustrate the ‘Sad’ poem? What makes a sad font?

Web resources Be creative too in how you include the ICT content. Presentations can now be written on Android and iPod handsets and tablets using a www.prezi.com range of cut-down portable applications which offer more than what is www.openoffice.fm/open-office necessary. The poems can now be stored in the cloud either iCloud or www.apple.com/iwork/keynote the facilities offered by Microsoft Office 365™ or Dropbox™, of which www.wordle.net the latter I have used to share files with classes of learners. www.office.microsoft.com/en-gb/ All the poems herein presented are not copyrighted material – all were powerpoint created in minutes on scraps of paper or on screen so feel free to use www.microsoft.com/office365 them or change them. But above all, be creative. Write and illustrate your www.dropbox.com own poems, share your poems and encourage every learner in your class, www.icloud.com whatever their age, to become a presentation poet. Over to you!

David Harrison and Judith Dalton-Morris are Senior Lecturers in Education at Glyndwr University, Wrexham.

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Troubleshooting

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There are a variety of problems that can occur when displaying presentations on computers on which they were not edited, mainly down to differences within different versions of presentation software.

I recommend that when the ‘perfect’ version of the presentation poem is achieved that you ‘save as’ a filename in portable document format (pdf) file which is then ‘fixed’. This means you will not experience problems of changed fonts, text and images moving, and of course, the final poem can then be viewed directly in most browsers equipped with a portable document file viewer plug-in or a suitable stand-alone reader, including Adobe or Foxit readers.

An additional advantage is that pdf versions of the poems have much smaller file sizes than the original .ppt or .pptx files and with classes of 30 pupils all producing presentation poems, this may be an important factor.

Knowledge trails 1) Children, poetry and thinking – Anthony Wilson offers some insights into wordplay to encourage different kinds of thinking in children’s approach to writing poetry. library.teachingtimes.com/articles/children-poetry-ttc4 2) Prompting poetic thinking – Dr Jude Brigley discovers the educational and emotional benefits of triggering poetic writing through a series of creative thinking strategies. library.teachingtimes.com/articles/ctlp5054promptingpoeticthinkingweb

Curriculum Innovation

The joy of

Children and staff at Hertford Infant and Nursery School love ‘not knowing’… but why?

In the first of a two-part series on the pedagogic tools and strategies that have proved successful in his school, headteacher Marcelo Staricoff explains how the philosophy of enjoying not knowing has helped turn his students into confident, enthusiastic learners and skilled critical thinkers.

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have always been fascinated by the ability to present learning to children in a way that is perceived by them as being fun and playful, while still maintaining all the required academic content, rigour, depth and progression.

I suppose that the closest one comes to this approach in our education system is in the pedagogy that underpins the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. When I was appointed to my first headship at Hertford Infant and Nursery School in January 2009, I was very keen to develop a whole-school approach to teaching and learning based on

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not knowing

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Curriculum Innovation

what I now to refer to as ‘The Joy of Not Knowing’ approach, or the JONK Model™. I wanted to see if we could exploit the pedagogical principles and philosophy of the Early Years throughout the school1.

When we started to move towards the JONK Model four years ago, the school’s combined Average Point Score (APS) was 14.6. Since then, this has risen year on year to 15.6, then to 15.9, then 16.2 and now, as calculated in July 2013, it stands at 16.6. In 2013, the school achieved a score of 17.0+ for the first time – 17.3 in reading. Individually, the standards in reading, writing and maths also show similar increasing upwards trends since 2009. As a significant proportion of our intake traditionally join the school below national expectations, these standards also demonstrate that the children are making excellent progress.

In this time, the school has also become more popular within our local community. The school is now oversubscribed and the 2013-2014 academic year welcomes a new cohort of 60 Reception children made up of first choice preferences for the first time. Attendance has also increased from 91.4 per cent four years ago to 94.1 per cent in 2013.

When Ofsted inspected the school in May 2012, it was judged to be outstanding overall and in each of the four areas. The inspectors spoke very positively not just of the rising standards but also of the children’s engagement in and enthusiasm for learning and of their high level of self-esteem, which for me are the key components of the JONK approach.

The JONK Model Embedding the ‘Joy of Not Knowing’ approach across the school has been and continues to be a fascinating process. The Hertford JONK Model below describes how this process has evolved gradually by introducing initiatives and establishing whole school cultures ‘one layer at a time’.

I believe that the success of the JONK approach is mostly due to: n giving ourselves plenty of time for each layer to be fully embedded before

introducing next steps

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n working in multi-professional teams n working as a whole school.

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Establishing a set of core values for our school was a crucial first step towards establishing a JONK culture of learning. I was very keen to experiment with creating a school with no rules, but one that was driven through a set of mutually agreed values.

Establishing the values took us the best part of two years. During this time, the children, families, staff, governors and the local community all had the opportunity to express what was really important to them as individuals, as learners and as members of our school, local, national and global community.

The consultation process led us to finally agree on six words that encompassed all our thoughts and feelings, which are now our school values. These are: n n n n n n

Curriculum Innovation

A school with just one rule

Friendly Caring Thoughtful Respectful Enthusiastic Ambitious

We are delighted that the words and sentiments that accompany each of our values are not just confined to promoting how we are striving to be with each other, but they all encompass how we should regard and treat resources, the building and the outdoor environment.

The children in one of our Year 1 classes (Puffins) were so inspired by the

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The language that accompanies each of these values soon began to permeate the school and completely transformed the way that we communicate with each other and the way in which we are now able to deal with problems when they arise.

We really wanted the values to be very visual and very prominent in our school environment, so we set up a collaboration with a photographer from Big Art Canvas, a local business. We found photographs of our children illustrating each of the values and placed them on canvases, which now adorn all areas of the school like an art gallery! The canvases have not only become a very special component of how the school looks and feels, but they also act as great motivators for discussion, particularly with visitors and prospective families.

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idea of the values that they created a poem based on the ways they illustrate these values at home and in school. Each line of the poem began with ‘I like me because…’ and included such lines as, ‘I like me because I put my hand up’, ‘because I give my sister sweets’, ‘because I’m fast at running and long jump’, ‘because I listen to people’, ‘because I always try my best’, ‘because I let my friends go in front of me’, ‘because I never feel unlike me’. The fact that the values made the children feel good about themselves was great to see, as developing our students’ self-esteem lies at the heart at what we are always striving to do.

Starting to live through the sentiments of the values enabled us to dispel with all our school rules. I soon realised however, that in order to establish a truly successful JONK culture, we did need to have one very important rule: ‘In our school, no one is allowed to worry!’

The decision to ban worrying is linked to the fact that the principles underpinning the JONK approach are all based on removing any fears or worries that the children may have, especially if these are associated with school or with their learning.

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‘It’s really good not to know!’

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Having established our set of values, the next challenge was to see if we could get the children to start to perceive school and learning as a really enjoyable part of their daily lives and for school to represent a seamless continuation of their family and home lives, rather than something completely different.

At Hertford, we are fascinated by philosophy, and by the power that philosophy has to enable us to think about things in completely different ways. So proposing to them that in school and in life, it is ‘really good to not know’, was a great way to begin our quest for developing the love of school and of learning that we were so keen to transmit. Although at first this seemed to be a rather puzzling concept, when we started to unravel the meaning within the phrase, the children found that it actually made a lot of sense. Our reasoning with the children was that in order to learn something new, we must not know it first!

The children loved it straight away and they found it a very easy concept to understand, discuss and explain.

We now introduce the children and their families to the concepts of the ‘Joy of Not Knowing’ and how good it is to not know when they first visit the school, and then again, as soon as the children start at the school.

Although this way of referring to our learning seems a little bit perplexing to anyone hearing it for the first time, we have found that it actually acts as a great catalyst for conversations in what we believe in and in how we approach the teaching and learning at the school.

The phrase also helps us to plant the seeds of meta-cognition and enthusiasm for learning from the earliest possible moment. From a personal point of view, this approach has proved incredibly rewarding. The children love telling everyone that they enjoy not knowing, and there is nothing more wonderful than when families arrive at school and begin to share their anecdotes at the gate about how they’ve spent their evenings discussing with their children the advantages and disadvantages of not knowing!

Knowing ‘how to know’ The school values and the concept of enjoying not knowing contributed enormously towards enabling the children to feel emotionally secure, confident and successful as individuals. However, enjoying not knowing relies on being able to then know ‘how to know’! Could we now use the JONK approach to enable the children to feel successful as learners?

We chose to try to do this by introducing the children to six lifelong learning characteristics. These would hopefully affect their learning in the same way the values did their self-esteem. We started by adapting the language associated

n n n n n n

Curriculum Innovation

with the lifelong learning characteristics originally described in the Educational Lifelong Learning Inventory Research Project or ELLI2, as we wanted to make sure that the language and terminology we were using to define and explain each of the dimensions was appropriate for our school’s age group3. As with the values, we really wanted the children to be able to feel a close association to sentiments behind each one.

To promote the skills and attitudes that would help the children feel successful as learners now and in the future, we decided to focus on the following lifelong learning dimensions: Planning Creative Questioning Connecting Communicating Persevering

Learning Dimension

Animal

Planning

Bat

Creativity

Squirrel

Questioning

Mouse

Connecting

Badger

Communicating

Bee

Persevering

Snail

To our huge surprise, we found that we could acquire these animals as finger puppets all living inside a tree. As our school emblem is a tree, this could not have been more perfect! Every class and every area of the school now possesses a Hertford Learning Tree with all the animals inside, and the children love to take them out and use them to help them with their learning.

We then thought it would be a very good idea if we linked each of the lifelong learning dimensions to one of our school values. So our animals now model for us how to behave as people and how to improve as a learner: n n n n n n

The Bat, being thoughtful, is good at planning.

The Squirrel, being enthusiastic, is good at creative thinking.

The Mouse, being friendly, is good at questioning.

The Badger, being caring, is good at connecting thinking.

The Bee, being respectful, is good at communicating.

The Snail, being ambitious, is good at persevering and not giving up.

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The ELLI study also demonstrated that linking the learning dimensions to animals helps children to more easily understand the attitudes each dimension is trying to instil in them. For example, explaining that a snail is ‘persevering’ gives the message that even if it takes a lot of time and effort, it pays to keep trying to achieve your goals or to find another way to achieve them. Translated into a classroom environment, this could mean working at finding the right method to solve a problem or to structure thoughts in a coherent way.

We chose to represent each dimension through an animal that could be found in our local environment. The links are as follows:

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As you can see, each of the animals also has been given a colour based on De Bono’s Thinking Hats4, so now the animals can also model for us how to be really good at thinking!

Once all these links had been made, the teachers decided to write a story about each animal describing how they acquired their particular skills and characteristics. We then shared the stories with the children in assemblies. The stories have become a very useful tool for introducing all the concepts and for helping the children understand what we mean by each one. For an example story, see ‘The story of the snail’ at the end of this article.

Once the stories were shared with children and the concepts behind each one discussed, we asked the children to express in their own words what they understood each dimension to mean. We were absolutely delighted by what they created (see figure 1).

Figure 1

The children in one of the Year 2 classes (the Kingfishers) have now also created a set of poems for each of the animals, which were originally published in a book of poetry entitled ‘Twice Upon a Slime’5, which followed the original ‘Once Upon a Slime’6. These books of poetry are collections of poems written by our children and staff, inspired by the work we have done with our resident local poet, Roger Stevens.

Bat Perfect planner Confident thinker Organised worker Amazing reflector Insect catcher Cave dweller Nocturnal sleeper Amazing sensor

Bee Fantastic flyer Honey maker Turn taker Nice sharer Good listener Concentrating worker Respectful communicator

Mouse Best questioner Quick learner Great answer-sharer Cheese muncher House invader Information finder

Snail Persevering learner Ambitious trier Not a worrier Help asker Getting things right-er Working out-er Trail slime-er Cabbage eater

Squirrel Creative thinker Tree climber Mind maker Nut cruncher Great jumper Idea changer

Curriculum Innovation

Badger Caring badger Amazing learner Brilliant thinker Fact finder Hole digger Worm cruncher Good hider Sense maker

After four years of working towards a whole school approach to teaching and learning based on the ‘The Joy of Not Knowing’ model, we feel that we have managed to build an infrastructure and whole school philosophy that is helping us to equip the children with the foundations of how to feel successful as individuals (values), as learners (dimensions, animals) and as critical thinkers (De Bono’s hats).

We are finding that when children begin to develop such positive dispositions and open mindsets towards the challenges that life and learning brings, they also begin to become wonderfully receptive to the learning opportunities that are offered to them. They then engage in these with enormous enthusiasm, passion and enjoyment.

The challenge that this then leaves us with, as practitioners, is centred around our ability to deliver the curriculum and the learning in a way that sustains the engagement of all learners. From a headteacher’s point of view, it has been incredibly rewarding to see the JONK culture develop and grow throughout the school. Our weekly certificate assemblies are now all based on rewarding children’s efforts and success in either a value or a learning dimension, and I was thrilled last year when our end-of-year celebration assemblies recognised the achievements of every student by using the values and dimensions to describe what was special about each child.

However, enjoying not knowing has to be taught, and teaching the whole curriculum through the JONK approach requires specific time to be set aside. We now devote the first week of every academic year to what we call a ‘Learning to Learn Week’ during which we equip the children with all the tools they need to access their learning throughout the year and make them feel successful as individuals and as learners.

In the next issue of Creative Teaching and Learning, I will explain how we structure our Learning to Learn Week, detailing the rest of the tools and strategies we use to drive our teaching and learning process and the delivery of the curriculum.

Marcelo Staricoff is Headteacher at Hertford Infant and Nursery School, Brighton, and Lecturer in Education at the University of Brighton. He is also the co-author of ‘Start Thinking’.

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A curriculum full of JONK!

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The story of the snail Near the Hertford Tree there lived a family of snails. Every day, they followed their slippery trails to the vegetable patch to munch through the tasty spinach and chard that the children had planted especially for them.

And every evening, they followed the same trail back to their safe spots under the bark, roots and other crevices. Very occasionally, snails perished when a bird snatched one for its lunch or when a human stepped on one by accident. But in general, a snail’s life was a good life.

There was one snail, however, who was not happy. He was not unhappy either – he just thought there ought to be more to life.

When he told the other snails how he felt, they laughed at him and told him to enjoy what he had. If he was bored, he should just try some other leaves.

But Snail didn’t stop dreaming. While he was trying some dandelion leaves, he suddenly knew what he really wanted to achieve in his life. He wanted to go to faraway places, see new things and then come back to tell all the snails about it.

As he thought these thoughts, he looked up and saw the Hertford Tree bathed in beautiful sunlight and then he knew. He was going to try to be the first snail ever to climb to the top of the Hertford Tree. When he told the other snails about his plans though, they just laughed. They told him he would mostly likely fall out of the tree or get eaten by the birds that lived there.

This made Snail even more determined to climb the tree. He would prove to them that there was more to life if you were just willing to have a go. So he wasted no more time and set off in the direction of the tree. Snail raced up the tree trunk but after only five minutes he was out of breath, and when he reached the first bump he was so careless that he fell down.

‘Oh’ thought Snail, ‘If I am to get to the top, I must take more care.’

This time Snail made his way slowly up the trunk. After half an hour, he was already two meters up in the tree. He looked down and felt very excited about what he had achieved. He then looked up and suddenly started to worry. The top of the tree seemed so far away and he was only a little snail.

‘You know what,’ he said to himself. ‘If I don’t try, I will have to be satisfied with a life that is just about eating leaves. I think I would rather take a risk and try to fulfil my dream’.

He suddenly spotted a large grey animal running across the branches above him. Snail felt scared. What if that was a bird? Maybe the other snails were right.

The tree was no place for a snail. He was never going to make it to the top. The grey creature made it seem so easy though.

‘Hello,’ he called. ‘Are you a bird? Would you like to eat me?’ The grey creature came closer, surprised to be spoken to by a snail.

‘No, I am a squirrel and I like to eat nuts.’

‘In that case,’ said the

Curriculum Innovation Knowledge trails 1) Thinking skills approach to our days – Marcelo Staricoff and Alan Rees detail some innovative strategies for focusing the minds of their students and inspiring them to think and learn. library.teachingtimes. com/articles/ thinkingskillstourdays

References 1. Staricoff, M. (2013) The Joy of Not Knowing, Westminster Education Forum Transcripts, 25th March 2013, 40-41 2. Deakin Crick, R. (2006) Learning Power in Practice, SAGEChapman, London, UK. 3. Staricoff, M (2006) Lifelong Learning in the Primary Classroom, Chapter 7 in Powerful Learning in the Practice, Ed. Ruth Deakin-Crick, SAGEChapman, London, UK. 4. de Bono, E (1985) Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach to Business Management.

Little, Brown, & Company. ISBN 0-31617791-1 (hardback) and 0316178314 (paperback).

5. Hertford Infant and Nursery School (2012) Once a Pond of Slime, Poems by and for Under 5s, Ed. Alison Bartlett and Robb Johnson.

6. Hertford Infant and Nursery School (2013) Twice a Pond of Slime, Poems by and for Under 5s, Ed. Alison Bartlett and Robb Johnson

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snail. ‘Can you tell me how to get to the top of the tree?’

‘I can give you a lift up to my dray,’ said Squirrel. Snail was very pleased with this offer as he was quite tired. He glided onto Squirrel’s back.

Soon Squirrel arrived at the dray. Wow, what an amazing journey – Snail had never travelled so fast! He couldn’t wait to tell the other snails.

He stopped to munch on some more leaves before carrying on his journey.

It was much harder now – the branches were thinner and more flexible.

He felt a bit nauseated. Then he made the mistake of looking down. Now he felt even more sick!

‘How am I ever going to get to the top,’ he thought anxiously. ‘And how will I ever get down?’ He took a deep breath. ‘You know what,’ he thought.

‘It has been great so far and I am not about to give up. If I keep trying, I will get there… I just must make sure not to look down!’

On a branch nearby, he suddenly noticed a bird, a song thrush, looking at him.

‘I could eat you,’ Song Thrush said. ‘If I wasn’t full up already. What are you doing so high up in the tree?’ Snail told her all about his dream.

‘I will get to the top,’ he said. ‘But I’d like to get a lift back down… I don’t suppose you could give me lift back down?’ Snail could just imagine the look on the other snails’ faces when he arrived back being carried by a bird!

‘I have never met such an ambitious snail,’ chirped Song Thrush. ‘I will give you a lift back down. Call me when you are ready.’

Snail continued on his journey and slowly, he got closer and closer. He didn’t waste any more time looking down or around but kept his eye on his ultimate goal...the very top leaf of the tree. And when he finally got there, he felt like he truly had reached the top of the world. He could see so far around him. He watched the sunrays touch an amazing puddle of water on the other side of the playground, and all around him there were plants to be discovered and walls to be climbed. He felt overjoyed with this new understanding of what the world was like.

Eventually though, he felt ready to start his return journey and he called for Song Thrush. She gently picked him up in her beak – she had lots of experience picking up snails after all! – then she flew up, circling the tree at first, but then diving down at an amazing speed.

‘Wow,’ thought snail. ‘I am the luckiest snail alive!’ The other snail watched in amazement as the bird gently placed Snail down and took off again.

From that day onwards, snails started to become more adventurous. And Snail, well he had plenty more dreams that he followed, but on his next adventures, he didn’t have to travel alone!

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Exploring the scope of

mathematics

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Focus on: Maths

Focus on: Maths

In his final article on making maths phenomenal, Professor Dave Pratt explains the importance of helping students understand what maths cannot do, and why real-world mathematics and decision making is about more than just numbers.

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n the first four articles in this five-part series, I have described a project aimed at making mathematics phenomenal, through which teachers might enable students to experience the power of mathematics to ‘get stuff done’. The underlying belief is that the methods described will not only engage students but also enable them to construct meanings for key mathematical ideas. Such an achievement would stand in sharp contrast to the common perception that mathematics is a dry and meaningless set of procedures, disconnected from reality, to be learned in rote fashion.

Nevertheless, to truly appreciate mathematics, the student needs also to gain some sense of the scope of the discipline. A sense of the power to get stuff done has to be accompanied by an appreciation of where the boundaries might lie – the limitations of mathematics that signpost where other disciplines begin to inform human activity. I have found tasks that involve decision making to be especially fruitful in that they often incorporate mathematical modelling into an inter-disciplinary context, which requires decisions to be made that are informed by mathematics but also by other considerations. The overarching intention in designing such tasks continues to be focused on students engaging with mathematics as they draw on its power to inform that decisionmaking process. However, in these tasks, mathematics is insufficient to provide a solution and students can therefore begin to map out the mathematical territory. Below, I set out two such decision-making tasks.

Bowland Maths (www.bowland.org.uk) has been developing a series of case studies and supporting materials with the express aim of offering ‘KS3 pupils and their teachers a set of interesting, exciting problems built round a case study topic’. Their website argues that ‘such work involves representing a situation in mathematical terms, analysing models, interpreting, evaluating and communicating the results.’

During 2007-2010, I was involved in developing an idea that emerged from the GAIM initiative in the late 1990s, and which is now presented as one of the Bowland case studies, Highway Link Design. Students are provided with a hard copy map of a fictitious village along with an onscreen equivalent (see Figure 1). It is explained that a new road is to be built that will link two highways. The challenge for students is to design the optimal route between points X and Y marked on the map.

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Highway Link Design

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Focus on: Maths

Data are provided that set out the costs of building each metre of the road.

There are also safety considerations since the curvature of the road at any point must not exceed certain limits, creating a constraint on the bendiness of the road. The onscreen map is supplemented by various virtual tools. For example, it is possible to create different routes and then measure their lengths, which can then be converted into costs. It is also possible to measure the curvature of the road at any point where it is thought the safety limits might be transgressed.

In Figure 1, the students have drawn two routes. The red route has low cost because it is a fairly direct path from X to Y. However, there is substantial collateral damage.

If this route were to be adopted, considerable forestation would be lost, a hospital would be destroyed and require rebuilding elsewhere, and a church would need to be knocked down. Some of these issues, such as the cost of rebuilding the hospital, might be calculable. Others depend more on the values of the local community (losing the church) and wider concerns such as global warming (the loss of trees).

The grey route has relatively Figure 1: The map and associated design tools high cost as, in avoiding such damage, it takes a more meandering course. There is also a question mark about the safety of one proposed bend (near to the refinery). Accordingly, the students have drawn a circle to measure the curvature.

In this task, different groups of students are able to experiment before proposing a solution to the planning board, which takes place as a whole class activity once the students’ plans have been submitted. The planning board will need to debate issues about cost, alongside a set of thorny issues that are not so easily measurable but nevertheless important. In this way, the task makes explicit how mathematics can inform those decisions but in itself is insufficient – other types of knowledge and understanding need to be incorporated into the decision-making process.

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The second example also involves decision making and was developed as part of a project funded by the Wellcome Foundation to explore science and maths teachers’ knowledge about risk. The ongoing aim is to build on these ideas in order to develop classroom materials, though we have not yet been successful in obtaining funding for this project (potential funders note!).

In this task, Deborah is a fictitious young woman who suffers from a spinal condition. She could have an operation, which might cure the problem but, if unsuccessful, the operation could have one or more of several side-effects, ranging from trivial but common concerns through to severe but rare effects such as paralysis or even death. If Deborah does not have the operation, she will continue to suffer pain and the future could herald deterioration in her condition.

The science and maths teachers were invited to study the wealth of information about Deborah, her situation and the condition itself. This information is provided within a software package as text to read or as video to watch in

Focus on: Maths

which Deborah herself describes her dilemma. The teachers can learn about Deborah’s interests, family and working life and so begin to form a sense of how the condition constrains and impacts on her life as a whole. They can also find out about the condition and the operation by reading the views of various doctors and surgeons, and the findings from her own personal internet research.

Needless to say, these views are not always consistent.

The teachers are asked what they would do in Deborah’s situation. In order to sensitise the teachers to the various factors that might influence that decision, they are invited to build models of what might happen if she were to have the operation and of what the consequences would be if she were not to have the operation.

What if Deborah were not Figure 2: The teachers’ model of what might happen if Deborah were to have the operation to have the operation?

Of course, the teachers are not in a position to decide what they would do in Deborah’s place without considering the alternative decision of not having the operation. They can model that scenario by considering which factors in her life would be affected by the ongoing condition and assessing the severity of the pain in each case. The software uses an invented measure of pain to quantify those assessments. The pain is shown as a bar that fluctuates up and down as time passes by and as a graph which records that fluctuating level.

In Figure 3, the teachers have chosen to include three factors in their mode – kayaking, which would result in much more pain, using a computer, which she would like to do very frequently but causes some more pain, and yoga, which reduces the pain a little. The resulting level of pain is often above her threshold.

The teachers need to decide whether, if they were in Deborah’s position, they would have the operation, potentially removing the pain but at the same time

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What if Deborah were to have the operation?

The teachers are able to create a model of what might happen if Deborah were to have the operation, first by estimating the overall success rate of the operation. Then they can list which side effects they think are worth building into the model and assess their likelihood. Once the model has been built, it can be run once or many times to find out possible futures for Deborah based on the model being used.

In Figure 2, the teachers have fixed the success rate of the operation at 75 in 100 operations. They have included three side effects – impaired nerve function (yellow), infection (blue), and paralysis (cyan). They have run their model 1000 times and can eyeball Deborah’s 1000 futures by inspecting the patchwork graph.

The large array of green cells shows that the operation is often successful. The red cells indicate failure, though if the cell is solid red, there are no side effects. The striped cells show when side effects occurred. In this particular run of 1000 operations, there is in fact one occurrence of paralysis, several cases of infections and quite a few futures in which nerve function has been impaired.

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Focus on: Maths Figure 3: The teachers’ model of what might happen if Deborah were not to have the operation

perhaps risking paralysis.

Such a decision is not only about probabilities.

Assessment of the harm done by the side effects or by ongoing pain is a personal decision, based on issues that are very difficult or impossible to measure.

As in the above task on Highway Link Design, the decision rests not only on the mathematics of probability but also on Deborah’s wider context and estimating the severity of the possible consequences

to Deborah and her family.

The principles behind making maths phenomenal There are many ways to encourage students to appreciate the phenomenality of mathematics – both its power and its limitations. Examples highlighted throughout this series have included: n Programming (in languages such as Logo and Scratch) n Teaching mechanics through a microworld called Newton n Using a spreadsheet to experience scatter graphs as analytical tools through

a pedagogic technique called active graphing n Designing tasks that exploit dynamic geometry software so that young

students are able to experience geometric construction in an engaging way

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n Exploring meanings of chance and distribution through ChanceMaker.

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These examples are intended to illustrate some important design principles in making maths phenomenal so that it can be experienced as a lively, exploratory domain of activity. One key principle is that it is possible for students to use mathematics in order to come to understand it. This thread runs through every one of the examples above. The approach is to phenomenalise powerful mathematical concepts by making them accessible as objects to play with and explore onscreen. In programming for example, variable becomes a tool for making drawings smaller and larger (and much else) and, in active graphing, scatter graphs become tools for making sense of an ongoing experiment.

A second key principle is that tasks have to be designed in such a way that they are seen to be purposeful by students, but in itself, that is insufficient. The mathematics within that purposeful activity has to be seen to have utility – that is to say there is a pay-off for the mathematics witnessed in the way that the mathematics gets stuff done. For example, the struggle to design a successful task using dynamic geometry software with young children was resolved by hitting upon an idea where children created drawing kits for their younger reading partners. Within that context, geometric construction was seen as an essential requirement to avoid the components of the drawing kit being messed up as soon as their reading partners used them.

To achieve a link between purpose and utility, it was suggested that it was often effective to position powerful mathematical ideas in phenomenalised forms at the centre of investigations. For example, when using ChanceMaker, the students used the workings box to control gadgets such as the die, but this

became a representation of distribution when the students began to predict behaviour simply by inspecting the workings box. Finally, in the current article, I have argued that decision-making contexts can enable students to map out the territory of mathematics, coming to appreciate its limitations.

The project to make mathematics phenomenal puts subject knowledge at the heart of the enterprise, but not in a trivial way that places emphasis on procedures, techniques and remembering facts. Mathematicians often state that for them, mathematics makes less demand on memory than other disciplines – not a sentiment to which many, who are perhaps less enculturated in mathematics, could easily relate. Rather, making mathematics phenomenal places emphasis on why we do mathematics and how it can make things happen and inform decision making. Fluency in using representations, procedures and techniques can emerge through this enterprise but is meaningless as an objective in its own right. The alternative is that school mathematics remains trapped within a narrow interpretation of the discipline, which bears little relationship to the practice of experts.

Dave Pratt is Professor of Mathematics Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. To download the Deborah’s Dilemma software, visit www.riskatioe.org/downloads.

Focus on: Maths

Knowledge trails 1) Giving kids control – Professor Dave Pratt highlights the value of individual and group experimentation when it comes to the complex concepts of mathematics. library.teachingtimes. com/articles/ givingkidscontrol.htm 2) Connecting with maths – Explore the potential of mathematics with your students through our compilation of engaging and interactive maths websites. library.teachingtimes. com/articles/ ctl32p5964maths websites

Applications open soon.

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Achieving Artsmark is a sign of commitment to high quality arts and cultural education. If you value arts and culture through a broad and balanced curriculum and want to raise your school’s profile, apply for Artsmark.

Find out more at www.artsmark.org.uk/schools 020 7820 6178

artsmarkenquiries@trinitycollege.co.uk

Artsmark is delivered by Trinity College London on behalf of Arts Council England

Walton le Dale Arts College and High School photo Andy Bulmer

Gain national recognition with Artsmark

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MAKING MATHS CHILDREN’S FAVOURITE SUBJECT

Primary Maths is one of the key Ofsted priorities and is also one of the areas young children find most difficult. Here are two books which can help your school’s maths performance.

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Timed Maths Problems

Building on from Problem Solving Maths, the Timed Maths Problems books present a range of problem solving techniques in a gradually more complex way as each section of the book is encountered. This enables problems to be grouped according to the time intended for an activity to be completed.

They have been arranged into three time frames according to how long the problems should take to solve: five, ten or fifteen minutes. These times are arbitrary and will range widely depending on the abilities of the students, but the opportunities exist to extend students by presenting problems as a challenge to be completed within the specified time. Within the five and ten minute time frames a range of problem solving strategies are used. The fifteen minute problem section is made up of a variety of problems where students must identify the appropriate strategy to use in order to provide a solution.

The ‘task card’ layout of these books is ideally suited to a maths learning centre as the problems can be photocopied, cut, laminated and organised into appropriate boxes for students to choose, depending on the time they have available. This makes them ideal for early finishers, extension activities, and daily practice. The timing element of the task gives the opportunity to challenge students further but can be an optional component.

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Purchase both books for £25.00

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Includes a CD for easy printing of activity sheets.

Timed Maths Problems Book 1 - KS2 Year 4/5 Timed Maths Problems Book 2 - KS 2 Year 4/5

Problem Solving Maths

Problem Solving Maths represents a response to current trends and emphasis which is being placed on the development of problem solving skills in students. The activities in Book 1 are designed to stimulate children in the 6-7 year age range and those in Book 2 in the 7-8 year age range. Working through a number of problems in a structured, step by step approach allows students to become familiar with a range of problem solving strategies.

For example: ■■Simplifying the problem ■■Thinking logically ■■Identifying patterns ■■Organising information

–

Initially problem solving activities could be worked through step by step with the students. This provides a framework which individuals can use when required to work independently. It may also reduce the frustration at times encountered by mathematically able students or creative thinkers who experience difficulty with reading. During these initial sessions a teacher is able to demonstrate a plan or procedure which students can follow.

Problem Solving Maths Book 1 - KS1 Problem Solving Maths Book 2 - KS2

To Order these special book offers call 0121 224 7599

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Priced at £14.99 each

Purchase both books for £25.00 Includes a CD for easy printing of activity sheets.

Alternatively Send orders to: Imaginative Minds, 307-309 Scott House, The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Birmingham, B9 4DT

Teaching Approaches

Creating bridges

into the past In preparation for the new primary history curriculum and its increased emphasis on acquiring knowledge, Tim Taylor highlights a teaching strategy to bridge the gap between the past and present and engage students in exploring the curriculum content from within an imagined historical context.

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f all the changes in the new National Curriculum, the ones made to the programmes of study for history at Key Stage 2 are going to have the most significant effect on the way primary schools organise and plan their provision.

For one reason, the units of the history curriculum will have to be taught chronologically – from the Stone Age to the Battle of Hastings. For another, there is a substantial increase in the amount of content to be studied. Curriculum 2000 put the emphasis on developing study skills, allowing more flexibility in terms of the topics and the order in which they were covered – the new curriculum is more prescriptive and content heavy. Schools can no longer choose between the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons or the Vikings, they must now teach all three, and in order. Overall there is a 20 per cent increase in the number of units.

Furthermore, the new curriculum is more explicit in terms of what should be learnt in these units, putting more emphasis on acquiring knowledge. This is particularly true of the three units covering early British history.

In the new curriculum, the single ‘Invaders and Settlers’ unit from Curriculum 2000 has been expanded into three separate units:

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Teaching Approaches

n The Roman Empire and its impact on Britain n Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots n Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of

Edward the Confessor.

For many primary schools, this is going to represent a substantial increase in both the content and the depth that these historical periods have been planned for and studied previously.

In the spring edition of Creative Teaching and Learning (volume 3.4), I outlined a plan for teaching the Roman Empire unit through an imaginative-inquiry context.

In this article, I’m going to introduce part of a plan for teaching the two AngloSaxon units. The full plan is too extensive to cover in the required detail here, so I have restricted myself to a brief outline (see box ‘Lesson overview: The history research team).

The main purpose of this article is to explore a teaching strategy that can be used to create an imaginary context in the classroom – in particular, shifting the student’s thinking into an imagined space that creates opportunities for them to ask and answer historical questions, explore implications and meanings, and develop deeper knowledge and understanding. The term for this strategy is a ‘bridging device’, which sounds rather technical and academic, but is really – as you shall see – child’s play.

Lesson overview: The history research team

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Theme: Anglo-Saxons Age Range: KS2 Inquiry Question: What effect did the Anglo-Saxon invasion and settlement have on the culture and history of Britain?

Expert Team: History researchers Client: BBC Commission: To do the background research for a series of programmes called ‘The Really Interesting History of Britain’.

Context: This unit begins with the children looking at the notice-board of a team of successful and busy history researchers. The associated inquiry introduces the students to the work of the team and creates an opportunity for them to ‘step into’ the fiction. The first task for the children is to create the meeting room for the history team from the furniture of the classroom. The second (as the experts) is to give feedback to the BBC for their newly commissioned series ‘The Really Interesting History of Britain.’

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They then ‘visit’ a local Anglo-Saxon excavation site and talk to the archaeologists with the aim of deciding if the site would make an interesting location for filming. To begin with, the site doesn’t look promising.

However, once the team start looking a bit more closely at the background to the artefacts they realise that even the most mundane objects can tell amazing stories.

The found objects in this unit operate as ‘bridges’ into the past, creating opportunities for the children to engage in learning and experiences, both from the points of view of the history research team and the Anglo-Saxon people who lived in the settlement.

This unit works across the curriculum, giving students the chance to: n Apply their imagination, reasoning and inquiry skills. n Acquire and apply history skills and develop knowledge and understanding. n Develop knowledge, skills and understanding in areas of history, geography, science, art and design,

design technology, music, and ICT as well as skills in English and maths.

To download the full plan and the accompanying resources, visit: www.imaginative-inquiry.co.uk/2012/12/ anglo-saxons.

Moving in and out of the fiction In the context outlined on the previous page, the children imagine themselves as a team of history researchers commissioned by the BBC to research the history of Anglo-Saxon Britain for a programme called ‘The Really Interesting History of Britain’. Their task is to visit an excavation site where a team of archaeologists are uncovering the remains of an Anglo-Saxon village. The aim of their visit is to access whether the site could be used as a possible location for filming. The planning steps to establishing this scenario are quite straight-forward – here is a summary. For more details and access to all the necessary resources, please visit the imaginative-inquiry website.

Teaching Approaches

Bridging devices are objects or situations that connect two worlds – the real world of the classroom and the imagined world of the context. As an abstract idea this sounds rather complicated, but in actual fact, it is something children do all the time without being consciously aware of it.

Here is an example from a game I played with my youngest daughter, Ettie, when she was about four: Ettie liked Scooby-Doo and loved getting me, my wife and her older brother and sister to chase her about the house being the monsters from the show.

The problem was, she didn’t really want us to catch her – if we did, she would scream and the overwhelming emotion would make her cry. This was frustrating because she obviously enjoyed the game so much. The answer was to negotiate with Ettie how scary she wanted the monsters we were representing to be. At first, she didn’t understand the idea completely and she turned us into pathetic monsters that could hardly walk. This meant that when she ran away, the monsters were too far behind her to be scary.

This was boring, so we renegotiated the game again. This time, she said she wanted the monsters to be scary and quick, but not too scary or too quick. We had to get close to her, but not close enough to catch her. This was just right and we all chased her about the house, always almost, but not quite, catching her.

Ettie was using us all as ‘bridging devices’. Of course, she was completely unaware that this was what she was doing. For her, it was all a game and that’s how games work – if you don’t like something in a game, then you keep changing it until it works the way you want it to. Viewed as playing, it was all very simple and just needed our co-operation and understanding. However, viewed sociologically, it was incredibly sophisticated and involved elaborate methods of thinking and communication.

This is what makes using bridging devices so useful and effective as a classroom strategy. Children understand how they work from their experiences of playing, either alone or as part of a group. If a child picks up a toy crown, puts it on his head and imagines himself as a king, he is using the crown as a bridging device – the crown creates a ‘bridge’ between the real world of his life and the imagined world of kings, castles and knights. This process of change does not need explaining to the child. He understands it from experience and the way it makes meaning within his own real and imagined worlds. It is, for him and for us, a perfectly natural process – so much so, we almost take it for granted.

However, playing and playfulness is something many people in education frown upon after children reach a certain age, disparaging it as ‘fun’ or ‘frivolousness’.

Learning, they insist, is something hard, something serious, something that requires dedication and practice – not something to play with. Yet, playfulness and imagination when used ‘seriously’ in a learning environment can create an unlimited number of possibilities and opportunities for curriculum exploration and development. It is an ancient medium that uses both an instinctive understanding of play and the formal conventions of drama and theatre.

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Creating imaginary worlds

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Teaching Approaches

1. Share the news that the BBC wants us to visit an Anglo-Saxon excavation site.

2. Show the team the archaeologist’s map of the dig.

3. Come out of the fiction and watch the slide-show of archaeologists at work.

4. Prepare the classroom with the children as if it were the archaeological site using ropes, tape, tools and so on.

5. Move back into the fiction and interview an adult-in-role representing one of the archaeology team about what has been found.

This process of moving ‘in’ and ‘out’ of the fiction can be illustrated using the diagram shown in figure 1.

In steps one and two, the children are ‘inside’ the imagined world of the history research team. In steps three and four, they come out of the fiction into the real world of the classroom.

In step five, they move back into the fiction, to work with an adult-in-role.

The negotiation for each move into and out of the fiction is done linguistically – for example, ‘We are just going to stop our story for a short while to look at this slide show’. There is no need for any elaborate drama moves.

As we have already discussed, children find this movement in and out of imagined worlds entirely natural.

Each move into and out of the fiction has a strategic function. As with the negotiations with Ettie, stopping and starting the story creates opportunities for learning, discussion and preparation. It is a mistake to think that the story can’t be stopped once it has started for fear the fiction will somehow lose coherence or credibility. In fact, the opposite is true. As with the example above, it would be less believable and less coherent if the history research team watched the slide-show in the fiction, since they would already know a great deal about the way archaeologists work. Stopping the story and giving the students the chance to watch the slide-show and ask questions outside the fiction (as themselves) is much more coherent and can create valuable opportunities for learning. Indeed, this process of shifting into and out of the fiction, creating imagined world scenarios that generate real world reasons for study, is at the very centre of how this approach works.

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Stepping into the past

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So the imagined context of an excavation site has been established as a meaningful, coherent scenario. The children have become members of the history research team and are acquiring, applying and developing curriculum knowledge and practicing their emerging skills of historical research in the role of an ‘expert’.

However, the excavation site can also be used as a way to step ‘into’ the past, creating new scenarios where students can explore the content of the curriculum from ‘within’ the historical world of the Anglo-Saxon people.

The slideshow of archaeologists at work contains a picture of two skeletons apparently in an embrace. In this next sequence of planning, I suggest focusing an inquiry on this photo and using it as the first step in a sequence that invents a second imagined world of an Anglo-Saxon community.

Figure 1

Teaching Approaches I first used this planning sequence with my Year 4 class in 2012. The ideas and the language used in this sequence come directly from the children’s own reactions and thoughts during that session.

Step 2: Drawing the skeletons They thought they would, so we took a large sheet of sand-coloured sugar paper and drew an outline around two volunteers (one child at a time, to spare them their blushes). I then asked some of the other children to add drawings of bones – skulls, ribcages and so on.

At this point, I took the opportunity to do some direct teaching on skeletons using a computer programme, a model of a skeleton, and pictures I photocopied and laminated from a book. The class were fascinated by these images and wanted to make a number of different skeletons in different positions around the classroom. When this was done, we returned to the original ‘embrace’ drawing.

Step 3: Clues Next, I wondered out loud what had brought these two people together... There followed a short discussion, where children suggested a number of different ideas.

I continued with: ‘It might be that there were some clues on the bodies that were discovered by the archaeology team when they looked closer.’

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Step 1: Looking at the photo in the slideshow I put the image on the whiteboard for the children to look at and gave them the opportunity to ask questions, answering as many as I could (my knowledge was very limited). I reminded them that this image is from a real archaeological dig and these are real people.

‘This photo is from a real dig. I don’t know who these people are or why they seem to be cuddling. They are not from the archaeological dig in our story.

However, they could be, if we wanted to invent something like them.’

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Teaching Approaches

At this point, I asked one of the children to take a lead. I chose a student who I thought would understand the task and give the others something to think about: ‘Leon, could I give you this pen and ask you to draw a mark on one of these skeletons. This mark represents an injury, not noticed initially by the archaeology team, but discovered later when they examined the skeleton back in their lab. It might give a clue to how this person died.’

Leon drew a small crack at the back of one of the skulls.

Step 4: Inquiry I leant over to look more closely: ‘What do you think might have cause an injury of this kind?’ The aim of this question was to create an opportunity for the children to explore a range of different ideas. I was encouraging them to be playful with their thinking, not frivolous, but open-minded and divergent. I was not asking them to come up with the ‘right answer’.

After a short discussion, I decided to shift the inquiry in a different direction.

Step 5: Using drama conventions I asked the children if they would be prepared to represent their ideas as if they were images from the past – a picture of the action that caused the wound, but the moment just before it actually happened. This stopped the general discussion we were having around the picture of the skeletons, but opened up a new activity for exploring the same question. The children quickly organised themselves into smaller groups and found spaces to work around the room.

Some needed a bit of support to get started and I moved around the groups offering help and asking questions where I thought I was needed.

After some time working together, the groups were ready to share their different ideas. Each group took a turn while the other children watched and asked questions. The children answering the questions answered them as the people they were representing, rather than as themselves. Something like: Children: ‘What have you got in your hand?’

First soldier: ‘It’s a sword.’

Children: ‘Do you know the soldier is behind you?’

Second soldier: ‘No, I’m fighting. I can’t see what’s behind me.’

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And so on. My role in this exchange was to help the children asking the questions to make meaning from the image the group was making, while also protecting those in the image from frivolous, embarrassing or unnecessary interrogation.

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Teacher to the children watching: ‘It seems this was a blow from behind. Does that seem cowardly to you?’

Children: ‘No, it was during a battle. That’s what happened in a battle.’

Teacher: ‘Yes, I see. But how does this explain the way the person was buried. That is still a mystery.’ I then turned my attention to the people in the image: ‘Can we ask if there is another image we could see, that would explain how this person was later buried in an embrace? It is still a mystery to us.’

Figure 2

Knowledge trail 1) Exploring history through drama – Tim Taylor uses visual tools and dramatic conventions to transport his students back to the times of the Romans and the Celts. library.teachingtimes. com/ articles/exploringhistory throughdrama.htm 2) Virtual Vikings – Using drama to bring history to life, this innovative project allows students to converse with ‘real’ Vikings across Skype and discover what life was like as a bloodthirsty Scandinavian warrior. library.teachingtimes.com /articles/virtual-vikings

Teaching Approaches

The work continued in this way for the rest of the session, with each group offering different ideas about how the people died and why they were buried in such a strange way. Gradually we began to gather some information about their lives – what things were important to them (family, clan, ritual, beliefs) and how their lives were different to our own (threats from violence and invasion, struggles against hunger, disease and injury). This was an emergent process, involving four sequential steps – experimentation (exploring possibilities in groups), action (the creation of the images), inquiry (asking questions), and reflection (making meaning).

Later, we collected this information in various ways: n As a class on the whiteboard. n Individually through writing (a recollection written from the point of view of

someone who witnessed the event). n In groups through drawings and models.

In this way, the embracing skeletons functioned as a bridging device into the imagined (historical) world of the Anglo-Saxon community, creating a new context for the children to explore the curriculum and develop their knowledge, skills and understanding. In effect, we now had two imagined worlds – the imagined world of the expert team and the imagined world of the Anglo-Saxon community, as illustrated on the previous page (figure 2).

This created a much wider and more flexible range of opportunities for engaging the students in both the work of historical investigation and the world of the Anglo-Saxon community.

Tim Taylor is an AST working in Norwich, a Visiting Lecturer at Newcastle University and a teaching and learning consultant for Mantle of the Expert. He edits and writes for mantleoftheexpert.com and imaginative-inquiry.co.uk.

Further activities The following is a list of some of the activities we planned and used in the classroom following the creation of this context: Built a 3-D model of the Anglo-Saxon village Made maps of the site Wrote reports to the BBC Invented the artefacts found by the archaeologists and made replicas Made drawings of the objects Invented stories about the objects’ histories Recreated drawings of the Battle of Hastings for the Bayeux tapestry Researched the Christian conversion and created ‘evidence’ for the archaeological site Researched what happened to Harold’s body after the Battle of Hastings and how this news reached his wife and family n Wrote an account of these events from the point of view of various characters – soldiers who were there, family who heard the news, servants who watched and heard n Researched Anglo-Saxon history for the BBC commission n Researched Sutton Hoo and how the Anglo-Saxon invasions changed England n Researched the Staffordshire Hoard and how the Norman invasions changed Anglo-Saxon England n Wrote draft scripts for the BBC episode on Anglo-Saxon history n Read Beowulf and wrote ‘lost’ legends n Researched burial rituals and how these have changed over time n Researched Alfred the Great and the Viking Invasions n Creating drawings, writing, art work and artefacts that ‘hinted’ at or gave archaeological clues about life during these periods in history

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e-learning - Local history

Our place in history A selection of websites and online sources to get you and your students started on a journey into your hometown’s history.

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here are all sorts of reasons for investigating local history – to satiate curiosity, to gain a sense of identity, to preserve local landmarks for future generations. In a classroom environment, conducting a local history investigation is a great way to engage students in their local environment and community – history will become more relevant to them because it happened on their doorstep, to their predecessors.

Such an enquiry will also help students develop a range of vital skills.

They will have to sift carefully through sources and decide which are relevant and useful. They may need to learn how to use maps, censuses and trade directories, and will have to understand what these sources can tell us about people of the past. And the investigation can be tailored to meet many different curricular needs. Students may use local war memorials to study the effect war had on the community.

They may examine local architecture and landmarks, or explore local industries, both past and present. They may even respond creatively, perhaps writing up a local legend or photographing the places that are important to them.

The internet will prove to be an indispensable tool no matter which topic you choose. Many sources have been digitised and are now available online, searchable with a click of the mouse instead of hours and hours poring over dusty old records. In this issue’s compilation of websites, you will therefore find a range of archived documents and directories, as well as digital maps and vast image libraries full of old photos and drawings. You’ll also find resources designed specifically for teachers, including interactive activities, comprehensive ‘how to’ guides, explaining everything from dating a building to using census returns, and an extensive range of lesson plans covering topics right across the curriculum.

The resources these sites provide go hand in hand with the activities in this issue’s cross curricular project. Discover who lived and worked on your local high street with Historical Directories (Activity 10), or supplement your map work and find out just how much your local landscape has evolved with the collection of aerial photographs provided

by Britain From Above (Activity 9). Alternatively, use the resources these sites provide to inspire your own investigation, and see where the research takes you.

Of course, no two towns’ local history is the same! Check out your local council’s archives for location-based information and records. Our British readers can find out what’s available at www.nationalarchives. gov.uk/archon.

local_history Part of the BBC’s practical history section, BBC History Trails: Local History is fundamentally a compilation of ‘how to’ guides – and a useful one at that. Crammed full with expert advice on starting your research, mapping out the history of your local landscape and using old advertisements, censuses and maps to learn more about life in your community, it’s a must visit for any teacher planning on investigating local history with their students.

The main section – four case studies – shows how others have compiled the history of their village, city, landscape or a local industry, and provide some excellent models for students to follow – very useful if they’re not sure how to start.

Each case study includes a top tips section and also an activity, which eases students into their own research. For example, the activity from the city section’s case study gets students to compare three images of Upper Street in London – from

Key Stages 2-5

e-learning - Local history

BBC History Trails: Local history – www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/

1811, 1908 and 2001. It encourages them to notice the similarities and the differences, hinting at what they can look for when comparing the changes their own high street has undergone. Also useful for guiding further research is the activity in ‘Getting started’, which explains the great wealth of knowledge we can glean from censuses, and the activity from the industry case study, which illustrates the value of advertisements when it comes to researching local businesses.

Especially interesting is the Alresford Time Traveller activity from the landscape case study – an interactive animation showing the evolution of the village, along with detailed information on why such changes occurred. Students could use the information they have gathered about their own local area and create a powerpoint, or even an animation if their skills are up to the challenge, of their hometown’s growth over the years, using the Alresford animation as inspiration.

Historical directories – www.historicaldirectories.org

A searchable digital library of local and trade directories for England and Wales between the years 1750 to 1919, Historical Directories is definitely a site for older or more able students.

You can search the expansive archive by location, decade or keywords – a trade or a surname, perhaps – and each directory comes with a fact file. This includes publishing information and the directory’s main headings – especially useful considering the size of these records.

The directory itself is shown ‘as is’ – the pages have been scanned in and show as images that can be copied or saved.

This makes for a great historical source, but it also means the directories are quite difficult to read as the majority of the typeface is tiny and the words are often crammed together. It’s practically impossible to skim. Luckily, there’s a search tool, which will take you straight to ‘hits’ in the document. Students might like to search for trades in their local high street, or for their surname. If they know

Key Stages 3-5 the name of an ancestor, their trade or their address, it might be interesting to see if they are included in the local directory.

It might be worth giving students a brief introduction to using directories – many students might never have even used a modern day directory before – and for that there’s a useful section, ‘Using directories’, under History notes, which explains the history of trade directories and their many uses, along with their research possibilities and the potential pitfalls of directory research.

This is a great site for students to practice their independent research skills. It’ll also come in handy during some of the activities from this issue’s cross curricular plan, as long as students understand exactly how to use this site and how to get the most from the directories.

(NB: This site is set to be redeveloped. The link shown above will take you to a gateway, which will redirect you to the old site until the new site is released.)

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SepiaTown – www.sepiatown.com

Explore images from all over the globe with SepiaTown, an interactive world map plastered in photographs, paintings and postcards of streets, monuments, buildings and people from times gone by. Each image is represented by a thumbnail, and as you zoom in to your chosen area, more images become visible. Click on one and you’ll see a large image, accompanied by a description and a date. When you select a photograph, the thumbnail is replaced by a little orange person which faces the direction the photographer/ artist was looking in when they took/painted the picture – a nice, informative touch that. There aren’t images from everywhere of course, but there are quite a few across the UK, and lots across America and mainland Europe.

Just like Google maps, you can view the main map in map view, satellite view or hybrid (a combination of the two).

You can also search locations by name (as in the case of a landmark or a certain neighbourhood), by street, town, city, or alternatively, by coordinates. The ‘Random’ button takes you on a photographic tour of the world, randomly bouncing you from image to image.

Key Stages 2-5 SepiaTown is a fun site to explore (it’s like your own virtual time machine!) and no doubt students of all ages will take pleasure in examining buildings and streets from different time periods in countries and cities from all over the world. It’s also the perfect site for making comparisons – compare ‘then’ and ‘now’ photos, not just of local landmarks, but of some of the most famous monuments and buildings across the world.

Heritage Explorer – www.heritage-explorer.co.uk

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Bursting with educational resources, Heritage Explorer, an external learning site from the English Heritage, is a very useful site for teachers of all key stages. The image gallery, containing over 9000 photos, paintings and drawings, is searchable by key word, location or time period. You can also browse themed galleries, including bridges, castles and reconstruction drawings. There’s an amazing range of images here – for example, I was able to examine the shops on my local high street from a photo survey taken in 1949. Who knows what you’ll find?

Also worth a look is the collection of ‘how to’ guides, which explain, among other things, how to trace the history of a local building, how to trace the history of a school and how to use historical maps.

Each guide includes a selection of images and useful web links. The ‘Teaching Activities’ section is also interesting to explore, with lesson plans available for all key stages.

Some plans are more generally historical, while others can be adapted to involve your town’s

All Key Stages local history – for example, looking at local buildings, graves and memorials. All come complete with the required images, whiteboard resources or printable worksheets.

There are plenty of other resources not associated with a particular lesson available for download too. Head to the ‘Worksheets/notes’ page and you’ll find worksheets, classroom resources, teacher handbooks (resources covering general topics such as using buildings to aid a local history enquiry) and teachers’ kits (packs of practical activities and resources related to various English Heritage sites) – all ordered by key stage. Highlights include worksheets on the purpose of various castle designs, a handbook on storytelling at historic sites, and a guide to identifying and dating church windows and doors. There’s so much to explore on this site, with a whole host of resources and ideas to not only get you and your students started on your local investigation, but to assist you along the way.

Key Stages 2-5

Not the first site you may think of when initiating a local history enquiry, but actually, there are a lot of educational resources on the Royal Institute of British Architects’ website relating to (you’ve guessed it!) architecture and its history here in the UK. From the home page, head to ‘Libraries, drawings and photographs’, then to ‘Education and learning’. Finally, enter the ‘Resources’ zone. Here you’ll find a wealth of resources that will come in handy when investigating buildings and architecture in your own town.

First up, RIBApix – an online archive of over 72,00 architectural images from various time periods and countries around the world. It’s a pretty extensive collection, although inevitably, there are wider selections of images from larger cities.

Also worth a visit is the online exhibitions area. Not all are relevant, but highlights include ‘A place to call home’ which explores houses across a 250 year period.

This is structured almost like a project, and could be

e-learning - Local history

Royal Institute of British Architects – www.architecture.com

adapted as such to any area of the country. ‘How we built Britain’, an investigation into aspects of architecture from different historical periods, could also prove useful when examining old buildings in your own area.

‘SAVE Britain’s heritage’ and ‘The modern shop’ might also merit a visit, depending on the approach you or your students have chosen to take to your local history investigation.

The institute also provides an assortment of lesson plans and resources, available to download from the Teachers’ downloads page. Again, not all are relevant, but there are some interesting activities on how architectural patterns and motifs reflect cultural identity, and also a series of eight lessons investigating how your local area changed after World War II.

Britain From Above – www.britainfromabove.org.uk

Britain From Above is an online gallery of aerial photographs taken by the UK’s first aerial photography company, Aerofilms, between the years of 1919 and 1953. The site is simply laid out, and easy to navigate – you can browse the themed galleries or run a search, either by place name, year, or by zooming in on a map of Britain. There are pictures available from all over the UK, and if selected, open in a new tab, which is quite useful.

Each individual picture is clearly labelled with a brief description, including the date the picture was taken, a marker on a map of the UK showing where it was taken, and a selection of ‘nearby’ images. The pictures are, as you might have guessed, taken from the skies, which means they offer a really unique perspective of British towns and cities at the time they were taken. Students of

Key Stages 2-5 all ages will enjoy examining areas they know well, or those they have visited during their travels. You never know, there might even be an aerial image of your school from the 1920s!

Registered users can also annotate the images, and many of the landmarks shown in the photographs have already been labelled, sometimes with links to other images or the date of demolition if the building is no longer there. It’s a fantastic way to examine how your local area has changed over the years – many of your local landmarks will be unrecognisable!

The aerial nature of the photographs means the Britain From Above gallery is perfect for comparison with modern day maps, and the simplicity of the site means the majority of students will have absolutely no trouble searching and navigating the images for themselves. A really great resource, definitely worth a visit.

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Local Myths and Legends – www.localmythsandlegends.com

This issue’s cross curricular project uses the legend of Pennard Castle as an introduction to a local history investigation. It’s an interesting and magical story, but unfortunately, not all of us live in Swansea! If you’d like to grab your students’ attention with a legend from your own locality, it might be worth paying a visit to Local Myths and Legends. It’s a simple site, and by no means comprehensive, but it’s still growing, and there are a fair amount of myths and legends for you to browse. Some are well known – the beast of Bodmin and Morag of Loch Morar, for example – but others are a little more unusual. The A3 ghost car crash near Burpham, Surrey, is particularly intriguing.

The site itself is easy to navigate – the myths, legends and peculiar events are shown on an interactive map. The accompanying texts vary in length and complexity, and there are some great pictures available to view too. There’s also the option of adding your own local legend, which might be an interesting classroom activity, depending on your desired curriculum focus. Students might enjoy researching or creating their own local legends, even if they don’t ultimately upload it to the site.

Of course, there are many areas of Britain this site doesn’t

All Key Stages cover (there are no legends from any other countries either). If you’re looking for a local legend and can’t find one here, try Mysterious Britain (www.mysteriousbritain. co.uk) which is packed full of newspaper articles and spooky stories from all over the UK, or the East of England Broadband Network’s Myths and Legends site (www. myths.e2bn.org) which features animated myths from around the world. See volume 3.4 of Creative Teaching and Learning magazine for a more detailed review of both these websites, and links to other sites exploring local myths, legends and folklore.

Pictures of England – www.picturesofengland.com

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A site designed for tourists, Pictures of England is packed full of information on the most historic places in the UK and equally useful to teachers and students. Its information covers the majority of British towns, and all of its cities and counties. The site gives a brief history of each town, a few interesting or historic facts, a map, a list of attractions and a gallery of photographs. The list of attractions is especially interesting – you might ask your students to examine which sites in your locality attract the tourists and are considered ‘historic’ or ‘important’. Students might be surprised that the tumbledown church at the end of the road is deemed so valuable to their hometown’s heritage.

As the name might suggest though, this site is mostly about the photographs. In the ‘Picture Tours’ section, you’ll find a whole host of galleries to explore – from ancient monuments, English castles and haunted houses, to lighthouses, street scenes and pubs. Each photograph is accompanied with a brief description from the photographer. Anyone can register for free and upload images – could your students create a picture tour of their local area? What areas do they consider important enough to include? What makes their hometown ‘home’?

Key Stages 2-5

Also available on this site – a selection of poems about England (again, users can submit their own) and a compilation of articles on different aspects of the UK – its architecture, its history and its flora and fauna, for example.

There are also a few maps available for download, including a map of famous London attractions, one of England’s national parks, and another showing Britain’s historical counties.

A vibrant online guide to architecture around the globe, Architravel is worth a look if your local history focus is on buildings and community planning. This site has a more modern focus than the Royal Institute of British Architects’ website, and the buildings pictured are, in general, those built more recently. It’s a fantastic resource if your students are hoping to compare older buildings with more unusual modern ones.

Site visitors can search by location, by architect or by project category – residential, high rise or museum, for example. Alternatively, you can open up the interactive world map, and just browse. Selecting a building in this view will open up a small window with the name of the building and thumbnail image. ‘More info’ will take you to the building’s fact file, which generally includes detailed information about its design and history, and also its critical reception. There’s quite a bit of useful technical terminology (Selfridges in Birmingham, according to the site, is a remarkable example of ‘blobitecture’) which could come in handy when examining local architecture. It might also be worth considering what makes a building’s

Key Stages 3-5

e-learning - Local history

Architravel – www.architravel.com

architectural design ‘interesting’ or ‘ground-breaking’ enough to be worthy of inclusion. Are there any groundbreaking designs in your local area? Register for free and you can upload your own analysis of significant local buildings.

Not an extensive site, and more global than local, but there’s some really helpful information here and the site is attractive, entertaining and fairly simple to navigate.

A Vision of Britain Through Time – www.visionofbritain.org.uk

The breadth of sources available at A Vision of Britain Through Time is astounding, especially considering how easy the site is to navigate. Among its collections, you’ll find reports from censuses taken between 1801 and 1961, election results from every parliamentary election since 1833, and a wide range of old photographs from towns and cities all over the country.

Enter your postcode or town name into the search tool on the home page, and you’ll be taken to a kind of fact file, which includes historical writings about your area, maps, photographs, related websites and statistics. The statistics pages, an extensive range of graphs and charts based on census data and other reports, are especially useful.

The graphs are sorted into ten topic areas, including ‘Life and death’ (Birth, marriage and death rates), ‘Work and poverty’ (Unemployment rates), ‘Housing’ (Total number of houses, occupancy and average number of rooms) and ‘Learning and language’ (How many people went to school, distribution of graduates and so on). Despite this depth, the charts are simple to search and easy to understand.

They may also spark off some interesting discussions and research tasks – for example, why did the birth rate suddenly drop at this point in time?

Key Stages 3-5 There are also two large document libraries to explore – one of historical travel writing, and the other of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers (geographical directories used in conjunction with an atlas). The historical travel writing archives is especially interesting, as some of its documents date all the way back to the 1100s. The historical maps library is also definitely worth a visit, with its huge range of topographical, boundary and land use maps from 1805 and beyond. There’s also a useful guide to using these maps, which explains the features of each kind of map is and what they can tell us.

The learning zone, although small in comparison to the rest of the site, also contains some interesting resources.

There are five ‘e-learning tutorials’, which are interactive, illustrated guides, giving background to the data within the site and explaining how to use it. The tutorials cover such topics as defining and mapping boundaries, agricultural change and land utilisation surveys, and the history of census taking. There’s also a downloadable guide to help with searching the website for places, statistics and locations.

An expansive and practical site, the range of resources A Vision of Britain Through Time provides will make it a useful tool in almost any local history investigation.

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We Will Always Remember – www.learnaboutwarmemorials.org

All Key Stages

War memorials play a significant role in preserving local history, and there’s much we can learn from them. That’s why We Will Always Remember, an external learning site by the War Memorials Trust aimed specifically at education practitioners, is a really interesting and useful resource for any teacher hoping to carry out a local history investigation with their students – whether primary or secondary.

In the primary section, you’ll find a helpful guide to using war memorials which explains potential curriculum links among ither things. You’ll also find a selection of lesson plans and help sheets for primary teachers, including a lesson on what we can learn about people and places in the past by researching war memorials and downloadable powerpoints explaining the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the designs and materials used to build war memorials. The secondary level plans and resources are similar, but of course, higher level and more in depth.

There are also three interesting assembly templates for use with Key Stages 3 and 4.

In the youth club section, you’ll not only find resources for use with scouts, cubs, brownies and so on, but also a gallery of photographs – some modern, some historical. These are sorted into category, from photos of inscriptions and plaques, to sculptures and stained glass windows. You may wish to have your students consider which features your local memorial shares with others – is it unusual in any way? Why? Examining your local war memorial could be a thoughtprovoking introduction to a local enquiry. It could also provide an interesting starting point for a research project, as students investigate the different people listed on the memorial and the effect war had on the community. The resources provided here at We Will Always Remember will help you either way.

Maisie Gould Recent e-Learning Update articles have included:

Education update for technology and learning

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The list of requirements for schools regarding the utilisation of technology evolves each year. This monthly e-magazine helps both primary and secondary school leaders and teachers understand the issues, products, problems and the possibilities associated with technology in schools, such as VLE’s, web-based learning, white boards, video-conferencing, online assessment and mobile learning.

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To subscribe to e-Learning Update: Call the Subscriptions Orderline 0121 224 7578 or email sandie@imaginativeminds.co.uk

Using game mechanics to enhance e-learning Can educational games ever be as addictive – and therefore as engaging – as commercial games? According to Rick Raymer, it’s all in the mechanics…

Massive open online courses – A threat to traditional teaching?

Will online courses with large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web eventually replace face-to-face teaching in a traditional setting? And at what cost?

Deploying a VLE solution We summarise the essential considerations for successful deployment of a Virtual Learning Environment.

The impact of ICT on pupils’ learning in primary schools Standards of ICT teaching are only good or excellent in around half of primary schools, a recently released report has revealed. What can be done about it?

Subscribe online at: www.teachingtimes.com/publications/e-learningupdate.htm

Cross curriculum Project PlaN

Creative Teaching & Learning

Investigating local history

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Cross curriculum Project Plan

Investigating local history Join Jane Jones as she transports you and your students back in time with an in-depth investigation into your local area and its history, and discover what made your community the place it is today.

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e all want the pupils in our care to become responsible, confident, critical and informed members of society. The study of where we come from and the history of our locality makes a vital contribution to this, enabling pupils to acquire knowledge and concepts while also developing important skills and attitudes.

History is concerned with the influence of the past on the present. Pupils explore how the actions and experiences of people in the past have influenced subsequent generations. It also opens the possibilities of the future by enabling us to see our place here and now as a type of guardianship, with responsibilities for caring for ourselves, for others and for the environment.

The local area for any pupil across the country, and indeed the world, provides a rich source of information for historical investigation. The exploration of the immediate environment will reveal instances in which the people in the past have shaped elements of the present surroundings through settlement, farming, building, industrialisation and other activities. The influence of the past is not confined to the physical and material world however. History can also reveal how our sense of identity—on a personal level and as a member of family, national and other communities—has been shaped by the cultural and social experiences of many different people in the past. Perhaps most important of all, history can help our pupils to begin to explore how people’s

Investigating local history

interpretations of the past can exert a powerful influence on their attitudes, beliefs and actions today.

The actions of people in the immediate past are perhaps more easily understood than those of people further back in time, and historical enquiry is easier to develop and more relevant to pupils if it is rooted in the immediate environment. This issue’s project plan will guide you through a local history enquiry, providing a template to follow or a starting point to develop your own investigation.

As your students progress through the activities in this project, they will build a detailed, although by no means complete, picture of their local area. They will use maps, photographs, trade directories and old advertisements. They will learn how their local high

Cross curriculum Project Plan

street has changed and developed over the years.

They will discover how people – perhaps their own ancestors – lived, learned and worked.

For most of my life, I have lived on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. For the purpose of this project, I have used one of our local legends, the legend of Pennard Castle, as a ‘way in’ to developing a local history project. Local myths and legends provide a link to the history around us. They engage students with their local environment and fire up their imaginations. Of course, the legend of Pennard Castle will not be relevant to everyone – the activities associated with this text have therefore been designed to allow easy adaptation to any myth, legend or folktale from your own local area.

Pennard is situated on the Gower Peninsula, lying six miles south west of the city in Swansea. Pennard Castle is perched on the edge of the valley of Pennard Pill1, high over the magnificent Three Cliffs Bay. Three Cliffs Bay takes its name from the three sea cliffs that jut out into the bay. Pennard Pill is a large stream that flows down the middle of the bay into the sea. On the high ground above Pennard Pill is the mysterious Pennard Castle, one of the most picturesque ruins on the Gower Peninsula. Its situation is both dramatic and beautiful. There is a sheer drop to the north and west of the Castle, which gives it sweeping views out towards Three Cliffs Bay. Henry de Beaumont, first earl of Warwick, was granted the lordship of Gower early in the 12th century by King Henry I. Probably built in the 12th century, the ringwork castle was encircled by a sharp bank and deep ditch. The castle was rebuilt in the late 13th century and early 14th century using local limestone and reddish sandstone. The rebuilding was undertaken by the de Braose family who held the castle until it passed to the de Mowbray family in 1321.

Very few documents exist to tell us

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Cross curriculum Project Plan

The ruins of Pennard Castle The famous stepping stones across Pennard Pill

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much about the site, but the castle is bathed in an air of superstition, with many legends and folktales claiming the castle to be both haunted and cursed!

Many of the stories involve faeries, or the Verry Volk as they are known locally. These little faeries are believed to dress in red and green and dance in the moonlight. They are mischievous, but usually benevolent. One such legend tells the story of a bloodthirsty warrior, his gentle princess bride, and the night the Verry Volk came to Pennard Castle…

In the Dark Ages, Pennard Castle was the stronghold of a great and mighty warrior chieftain.

The chieftain spent his life taking part in battles and skirmishes. He and his men were a bloodthirsty group, feared by warriors far and wide. In fact, they were so feared that the Prince of Gwynedd asked for

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The three cliffs of Three Cliffs Bay

the chieftain and his men’s service to help protect his kingdom, which was under threat from a Prince who had a much larger army.

The Prince of Gwynedd sent his messengers to Gower and asked the warriors and their chieftain of Pennard Castle to come and help save his kingdom, with the offer of a reward of the chieftain’s choice if they were successful in the battle. The chieftain and his warriors accepted the Prince of Gwynedd’s offer and set off for the border of Gwynedd, where the king’s enemies were heading.

The warriors were heavily outnumbered, but the bravery, skill, savagery and fierceness with which the Pennard warriors fought proved too much for the enemy Prince and his allies, whose forces fled the battlefield fearing for their lives. The chieftain slew more of the King’s enemies than anyone else on the battlefield, saving the life of the Prince of Gwynedd twice.

The Prince of Gwynedd wished to bestow the chieftain with his reward for the help he had given him. The chieftain did not want gold, silver or valuable jewels of any kind. He asked for the Prince

of Gwynedd’s daughter’s hand in marriage, because he found her very beautiful. Although the princess hated violence and bloodshed and was a favourite of the faeries, she was so flattered by the chieftain’s desire to marry her that she agreed.

The chieftain and his new bride, along with his band of warriors, returned to Gower and his castle in Pennard. Throughout the journey home, the chieftain boasted of his victory in battle, his savagery and bloodlust, and the mayhem he had wreaked on the battlefield. He told his new bride of the mighty celebration and feast that would be waiting for them when they returned to Pennard Castle – not to celebrate their marriage however, but to celebrate the chieftain and his warriors’ success at the battle.

The princess was beginning to regret her decision to marry the chieftain. As they approached the castle and saw the drunken warriors, she was sure of her mistake.

The warriors were drinking, brawling and spilling each other’s blood, and the women of the castle were fawning over and flirting with these vicious, drunken men. The princess was terrified, for she was a gentle person and what she was witnessing sickened her.

She searched for a place to hide from the debauchery and mayhem.

Meanwhile, one of the chieftain’s guards had heard mysterious music coming from the castle yard. It was midnight, so he called for the porter to accompany him and the two went to investigate.

Cross curriculum Project Plan

The men saw faeries dancing to the music of tiny harps right inside the castle yard, leaping and cavorting beneath the glistening moonbeams. They reported it to their chieftain who became so incensed, he called his warriors to defend their castle and drive away their enemy. The chieftain’s advisors begged him not to risk the wrath of the faeries but he took no notice. He and his warriors rushed into the yard swinging their swords in the faeries’ direction.

The princess had still been looking for a safe place to hide when the castle’s sentinel sounded the alarm and she heard the warriors leave their banquet to defend the castle. She ran to a window to see who would dare to attack such a mighty chieftain and his warriors. When she looked down, she did not see an enemy coming to attack the chieftain’s castle, but a

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band of faeries coming to dance at her wedding. She watched in horror as the chieftain and his warriors screamed their ferocious war cries and thrust their swords, slashing and slicing into the air to cut the faery folk to pieces.

The faeries were of course, impervious to the attack – they became angry and vanished into the air. The princess, the chieftain and the warriors heard a great booming voice from somewhere beyond the bay, saying: ‘Since thou hast without reason, broken in upon our innocent sport, thou shalt be without castle or feast’.

The chief and his men became afraid. Looking over the sea, they saw a growing swarm of great black clouds, obscuring the moon and darkening the bay.

Suddenly, a storm burst from the clouds whipping up the sands. The great sand storm descended from the sky towards them.

Running for their very lives, it was only moments before they all succumbed to the choking sand that roared and whipped about them.

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Cross curriculum Project Plan

The storm grew so strong that the raging cloud of sand tore down the walls of the castle.

When the sun next arose, Pennard Castle and the people within it had been buried and lost in the avalanche of sand, their fame and fortune never to be seen or heard of again.

They say that Ireland lost a mountain of sand to Wales that night, and to this day the castle ruins stand deep in sand.

1. Pill is a local name which describes a tidal stream. There are other examples of this in the Swansea area.

Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 1: Making predictions about the text Purpose

To ask questions and make sensible predictions about the text ‘The Legend of Pennard Castle’ using one of the activities described below.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, suggest a range of options as to where and how to find relevant information and ideas, consider others’ views to inform opinions and decisions, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

Materials

Activity sheets 1a, 1b or 1c, coloured strips of paper.

Fiction Prediction Chart, Before Reading Prediction Prompts, Prediction Strips, ‘What we know About’ board heading, ‘What We Think We Will Find Out’ board heading.

Four or five

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Procedure

Cross curriculum Project Plan

This range of activities encourages pupils to engage with the text prior to reading. Not all the activities outline below are undertaken – choose the one you think will most benefit your pupils.

Activity sheet 1a – Fiction Prediction Chart The fiction prediction chart is given to the pupils at the same time as the text. The pupils quickly flick through the text and place it to one side. They then proceed to answer the ‘before reading’ questions. There is no right or wrong answer to the predictions made. After reading, the pupils assess their predictions as to how accurate they were. This activity can be undertaken with pupils of the group completing their own fiction prediction chart and then discussing the outcomes as a group, or with pupils discussing it together before reading and then filling in the chart as a group.

Activity sheet 1b – Before Reading Prediction Prompts This activity can be delivered in the same way as the Fiction Prediction Chart.

Activity sheet 1c – Prediction Strips The teacher sticks up the ‘What we know about’ heading on one side of the board, and the ‘What we think we will find out’ on the other. Each pupil is given two strips of paper in different colours. The strips are approximately 3cm by 24 cm so the pupils have enough space to write on the strips. The teacher introduces the subject of the text, in this instance, ‘The Legend of Pennard Castle’. The teacher can tell the pupils the theme or main idea of the text or, as it is a legend, the pupils could explore this for themselves. The pupils are asked to activate their prior knowledge, and write on one of the coloured strips the most important thing they know about the topic. These are stuck on the ‘What we know about’ side of the board. The teacher asks the pupils to explain how they know their information, making them focus on explaining the process by which they activated their previous learning.

Pupils are then instructed to look at the front cover, the text as a whole and any images that have been used. On the second coloured strip, the pupils write an ‘I Wonder’ statement, making a prediction or asking a question about the text. These statements are stuck on the ‘What we think we will find out’ board.

The pupils read the text using their reading role (Activity 2). Having generated questions and predictions beforehand, they are more likely to stay focused on reading and engaged with the text. As they read, they use post-its to record and track their thinking. They use a code PK showing their previous knowledge and NL showing new learning. After this activity the pupils discuss what they have learned, as well as explaining the importance of activating prior knowledge. This will also help the teacher to monitor how well the pupils engage with the text.

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The activity sheets are to encourage pupils to make meaningful connections to the text. They are designed to encourage mental engagement and social interaction, and to coordinate a variety of comprehension strategies to control the reading process.

These activities can be carried out with any text or local legend.

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Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 2: Reading the text Purpose

To encourage active thinking and reading through close examination of the text ‘The Legend of Pennard Castle’.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, speaking and listening, note taking.

Thinking Skills – Form considered opinions and make informed decisions, suggest how to find relevant information and ideas, ask questions that build on responses to earlier questions.

Materials

Text ‘The Legend of Pennard Castle’, Activity sheets 2a, 2b and 2c

Groupings

Four or five (Preferably four)

Procedure

Each pupil is allocated a reading role, and they read the text from that perspective contributing to the recording sheet (Activity sheet 2a).

Teacher’s Note

Pupils need to be trained in the roles. This can be done as a class. The pupils work collaboratively and independently, and will need these notes for later activities. If there are five pupils in a group then one needs to take on the role of group director to ensure that all roles are undertaken conscientiously. The group role cards (Activity sheet 2b) need to be cut out and folded over so the cards stand like place names. The tabs on the top and bottom can be folded inwards to help the cards stand up better.

The roles are: ●

●

●

●

SUMMARISER – Think beyond what actually happens in the text. Identify the three most important events/details. Why are they important? Are they connected in any way?

QUESTIONER – Pose at least three questions which look in depth at the text. Try to ask open, challenging questions that will encourage thought and provoke discussion. Address confusions.

CLARIFIER – Make a note of any words or phrases that will need to be checked. Are there any ideas or issues that need to be clarified to make the reading clear and easy? To help to clarify, can you think of any ways that this section links with other sections and what you already know?

PREDICTOR – Identify at least three text-related predictions, based on how your response to the text is developing. This will aim to help your group to articulate what will happen next.

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

The pupils also have a WOW worksheet (Activity sheet 2c) to use as they come across new vocabulary. This helps to reinforce the meanings of words.

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Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 3: Summarising information Purpose

Retell a story in a specified number of words to improve summarising skills.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

Materials

Activity sheets 3a and 3b

Groupings

Four or five

Procedure

These are two separate activities to help pupils summarise what they have read. It is not intended that both are used – one should be selected for use.

Activity sheet 3a – Wordsplash The Wordsplash activity helps to focus the pupils while giving them the support of some of the key words from the text. The pupils write a paragraph summarising the story. They must use all the words on the Wordsplash. A limit of words can be given, a paragraph of no more than 50 words to summarise the text, for example.

Activity sheet 3b – In a nutshell…

‘In a nutshell…’ requires the pupils to summarise the story in 25 words. This may be quite difficult if the pupils have not undertaken summarising activities before. Once the pupils have summarised the text into 25 words, they need to reduce the summary to a three word headline.

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

Teacher’s Note

84

The two worksheets provide opportunities for pupils to concentrate on the main ideas of the text. They demonstrate to pupils that recording small details can prompt them to remember a good deal of information. Pupils will also see the need to ignore unimportant information, and evaluate whether they have captured the main ideas or the gist of the text.

Castle

Faeries

Music

Warriors

Princess

Storm

Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 4: Where and when am I? Purpose

To encourage pupils to think about their place and their locality in terms of time and change. To identify the reasons for change.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

ICT – Analyse, evaluate and present ideas.

History – Place people and events in chronological order.

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, suggest a range of options as to where and how to find relevant information and ideas, consider others’ views to inform opinions and decisions, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

Materials

Activity sheets 4a and 4b

Groupings

Four or five

Procedure

Discuss with pupils: ● ● ●

What are the important places in our locality (e.g. school, library, town hall, museum, park)?

How have these changed over time?

How might they change in the future?

Ask the pupils to draw a mind map showing their own connections to these places in time (Activity sheet 4b gives examples of questions students can ask themselves). What places are important to them and why? Ask the pupils to think about how the important places in their community have changed over time. Can they identify the main reasons why this might be? What have the pupils learned about their place?

From the pupil’s jottings, ask them to think about ideas and questions they could use to investigate change. Some of the pupils’ ideas could include:

● ● ● ●

Changes in the population Changes in the type of work Changes in housing and how people lived Changes in transportation and how people got around Changes in the environment

Hand out Activity sheet 4a, which guides the students through the following tasks. Pupils write explanations on the changes they have found, the reasons for those changes, what the pupils have learned about their locality and importantly what changes they think may take place in the future and the reasons for this.

Teacher’s Note

This activity can be repeated for people and artefacts. It will hopefully lead onto discussing the types of change that may have taken place in the pupils’ locality. The changes that have taken place will depend on whether the locality is rural or industrialised.

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

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Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 5: What shall we investigate?

Purpose

Decide upon possible areas of investigation and devise key questions to explore.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

ICT – Analyse, evaluate and present ideas.

History – Place people and events in chronological order.

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, suggest a range of options as to where and how to find relevant information and ideas, consider others’ views to inform opinions and decisions, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

Materials

Activity sheets 5a and 5b

Groupings

Four or five

Procedure

Ask the pupils to brainstorm the types of change that have taken place in their locality since 1800 (Activity sheet 5a). There is a wide variety of change for investigation depending upon whether pupils live in a rural or urban setting.

These include: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Work on the land (agriculture) Work in industry – iron, copper, coal, slate etc Homes – both rich and poor Transport – roads, canals, railways Health – medicine, hygiene, food Education Daily lives of men and women – family Leisure – churches, chapels, clubs, pubs, shops, pastimes Shops

After pupils have completed their brainstorm, the groups need to decide which area they would like to investigate as there may not be time for all groups to investigate all areas. A classroom display could be produced to display the pupils’ investigations.

Ask the pupils to devise key questions to focus their lines of enquiry. These could be: ●

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How did the lives of people living in ………. change during the 19th century?

What was daily life like 200 years ago in ………… and how had it changed by 1900?

How different is it to life today?

Pupils use their key questions as a base for their investigation. Students can record these questions and plan their investigation using Activity sheet 5b.

As each topic is investigated, pupils write reports or explanations on their findings. Any reports, explanations, maps, drawings or photographs produced by the pupils should be added to the class display or timeline (see Activity 7).

Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 6: Where do we start?

Purpose

Identify evidential sources available for local history investigations.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening ICT – Analyse, evaluate and present ideas History – Place people and events in chronological order

Materials

Activity sheets 6a and 6b, internet access

Groupings

Four or five

Procedure

Discuss with pupils where they will find information to investigate changes over time in their locality. Ask pupils to brainstorm any organisations or individuals who may be able to help, or hand out Activity sheet 6a which includes the list below. A variety of these are available online: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

The local library – with good access to local history collections and possibly local newspaper collections Local history societies Ministers of religion from local churches and chapels can be quite knowledgeable and helpful The National Trust National and local museums Heritage centres County Records Offices National Libraries British Library Association Official reports including the detailed report in 1842 on the employment of children National newspaper material Paintings Drawings Photographs The British Newspaper Archive Look at buildings, these can tell you about the attitudes and values of people years ago – look out for dates, names, design, size and materials used Industrial archaeology – examine remaining industrial sites or artefacts Company records and trade directories Work House Records Asylum Records School Log Books and Registers Books Census data – every ten years from 1841 onwards Old plans and maps Tithe maps Ordnance Survey maps

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, suggest a range of options as to where and how to find relevant information and ideas, consider others’ views to inform opinions and decisions, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

87

Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

The use of census data, tithe maps and Ordnance Survey maps will enable pupils to compare the daily lives of people living in the 1840s with those living later.

Tithe and Ordnance Survey maps will help to compare how towns and streets grew over a period of time. The comparison of maps will help to show how the local area grew and expanded. If the school the pupils are part of is an old Victorian school, they may see its development over time from the maps and how the streets developed around them. They may show why houses were built – for example, to house the local workforce at a foundry or mill.

Census data can be examined and a number of conclusions drawn: ● ● ● ●

The average family size can be investigated. This links to health and slum areas, the reason for large families etc.

Types of occupations Age of workers Reasons for migration

Pupils may wish to gather their information on the QuADS Grid provided (Activity sheet 6b).

Ask pupils to decide where they wish to start in preparation for the next lesson. Discuss with the pupils how they will display their findings - this could be through a timeline or a display. Wherever possible the display should be interactive.

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Teacher’s Note

88

What is to be investigated will depend very much on the type of area you live in. If your locality is rural, your focus may be on famous people who have lived in your locality and the emigration of the population during the industrialisation of Britain. If your locality is urban or industrialised however, your focus will lend itself more to changing land use and the migration of people to your locality looking for work. Whatever your focus, the possibilities are endless.

Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 7: Class timeline Purpose

To work collaboratively as a class to create a detailed, accurate timeline of change in the locality.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Art – Explore and develop ideas ICT – Analyse, evaluate and present ideas.

History – Place people and events in chronological order.

Materials

Pupils own resources, internet access, information and data of pupil’s choice

Groupings

Four or five

Procedure

Tell the pupils that this activity will be an ongoing activity as their investigations into the history of their locality progress. The timeline will be constructed and is added to as the pupils’ enquiries develop.

The timeline could be a part of the classroom display or separate to it.

Teacher’s Note

This activity is designed to help students develop a sense of chronology.

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, suggest a range of options as to where and how to find relevant information and ideas, consider others’ views to inform opinions and decisions, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

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Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 8: Using census returns Purpose

To understand how to use census returns as a source of information for investigating change over time.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

ICT – Analyse, evaluate and present ideas.

Mathematics – Collecting, interpreting and analysing data.

History – Use original sources to extract information.

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, suggest a range of options as to where and how to find relevant information and ideas, consider others’ views to inform opinions and decisions, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

Materials

Census returns obtained from local records office, Activity sheet 8

Groupings

Four or five

Procedure

Provide the pupils with copies of the census returns. Spend a short amount of time reading parts of the document to help pupils follow the writing, which can sometimes be difficult to read.

Ask the pupils to work carefully through the information given on the census return and transpose it onto Activity sheet 8 so that it can be used later.

Once they have collected enough information, pupils can examine their data.

There are a number of areas that can be focused upon here depending upon the census returns used. The later the returns, the more information they contain.

Pupils can be asked to make a number of inferences from the data. It can be as simple or as complicated as you wish to make it.

Pupils can find: ●

● ●

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The most popular male and female names. What is important here is they make assumptions as to why these are the most popular – for example, do the names link to an important event?

The average household size, again making an assumption as to why this is so.

The most common occupations of the period they are investigating. Once again, can the pupils make links as to why? Has the area being investigated become industrialised, and are the occupations reflecting this?

Is there any evidence of children working? What are the reasons for what their evidence tells them?

Is there any evidence of any migration to or emigration from the locality.

Again, ask the pupils to make suggestions as to why this is.

Once the information has been studied, ascertain whether the pupils are in a position to build up a picture of life in the locality or if they still need supporting evidence from other sources, for example, maps.

The information found from these documents can be added to the timeline.

Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 9: Using maps Purpose:

To use maps to look at changes to the locality over time and changes to the landscape due to human intervention.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Geography – Draw maps and plans, to consider how and why changes in the functions of settlements occur and how these changes affect groups of people in different ways.

History – Place people and events in chronological order.

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, suggest a range of options as to where and how to find relevant information and ideas, consider others’ views to inform opinions and decisions, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

Materials

Tithe maps, Ordnance Survey maps, old local maps, Activity Sheet 9

Groupings

Four or five

Procedure

Present pupils with the range of available maps. If the maps are drawn to the same scale, ask the pupils to make overlays of the maps. This will mean they can be placed on top of each other and pupils will be able to see the changes that have taken place over time.

Ask pupils to identify the main changes that have taken place and suggest reasons why they have occurred (human processes): ● ● ● ●

●

The locality may have been a village that expanded into a town.

The locality may have been a rural area that became industrialised.

Railways or canals may have been constructed.

Rows of back-to-back houses may have been built to accommodate the new workforce of a new industry. These very often became slum areas with a variety of problems such as the spread of cholera, typhoid, influenza, measles and whooping cough and widespread crime..

Industrialisation may have caused a variety of changes. There are a range of changes depending upon where you live in Britain – textile manufacturing, mining, iron founding, copper/tin, agriculture, brick works.

Teacher’s note

The opportunity could be taken during this activity to discuss the effects of industrialisation upon the environment. Compare the views of people who lived when industrialisation was expanding and the views of people today with our belated attempts at conservation and reclamation.

Pupils could write reports or explanations describing the effect of industrialisation upon their locality. They should be given the opportunity to express their personal opinions as to their hopes for the future and the need to create eco-friendly environments.

Newspaper reports could be written on the topic of slums and their problems with hygiene, disease and crime.

Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

Pupils record changes and the reasons for them on Activity Sheet 9 – a double entry journal. Pupils will then need to write up their findings and add these to the class timeline.

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Investigating local history

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Activity 10: The high street Purpose

To use photographs, census data and other sources to investigate change.

Curriculum Focus

Communication – Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

ICT – Analyse, evaluate and present ideas.

History – Place people and events in chronological order.

Thinking Skills – Identify the problem and set the questions to resolve it, build on existing skills, knowledge and understanding required for the task, suggest a range of options as to where and how to find relevant information and ideas, consider others’ views to inform opinions and decisions, develop and combine a variety of imaginative ideas, possibilities and alternatives.

Materials

Activity Sheets 10a – 10f, photographs of the local area both Victorian and present day, Yellow Pages, post code directory, census documents, street maps, Ordnance Survey maps form circa 1880s – 1900, internet access

Groupings

Four or five

Procedure

Present pupils with photographs, census data, and other materials.

Tell the pupils they are going to investigate changes to the town’s high street over the past 100+ years.

The pupils begin by examining photos from 1880s – 1900s and modern day photos (if photos from pre 1900 are not available, use more recent ‘old’ images of your locality). They compare the two high streets using the questions from Activity sheet 10a, some of which include: ● ● ● ●

Which buildings are still in existence?

What has replaced buildings that are no longer there?

How does what you see on the old photos differ from the high street today?

What traffic do you see?

Students record their observations on the grid provided in Activity sheet 10b.

Pupils use census returns to identify the different trades carried out, working through the tasks supplied in Activity sheet 10c. If possible, use census returns from 1881, 1891, 1901 and if available 1911, or a smaller number of the census returns. ● ●

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Which of the trades are the pupils familiar with?

Which trades does there appear to be most of? Why might this be?

Have the business trades changed or remained the same from one set of census returns to the next?

How do these trades compare to the trades carried out on the high street today?

Pupils compare a map today to one circa 1880s – 1900.

Ask the pupils to make an overlay of the street map today to place over the older map and compare the layout and extent of buildings (Activity sheet 10d). ● ●

How has the high street changed and developed over time?

What do you think might account for the changes?

Investigating local history

● ● ●

Cross curriculum Project Plan

Are there any trends you notice?

Have particular types of shop disappeared or appeared?

Are there any names common to both periods?

Give pupils Kelly’s Directory (purchasable CDs) or visit www.historicaldirectories. org and Activity sheet 10e: ● ● ●

Are there any names in the directory that are common to the pupils?

What activities were the people engaged in?

Where on the high street did they live?

Ask the pupils to look at the photos again (or provide some more) and to compare advertisements used (Activity sheet 10f): ● ● ● ●

Teacher’s Note

How have they changed?

Is the layout different?

Is the information different?

Is the layout/design different?

Once each investigation has been completed, the information can be added to the timeline.

This activity is designed to take place over a number of sessions. The time spent on each activity depends upon the available evidence and the pupils’ interest.

Jane Jones has been teaching for over twenty years with the embedded belief that to help children learn, they need to be involved in their own learning and have ownership of it. She has recently retired as a teacher, and is now pursuing more consultancy and advice work.

Download the complete series of accompanying resource sheets from the Teaching Times website: library.teachingtimes.com/publications/creative-teaching-and-learning/volume-4-issue-2.htm

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Volume 4.2 n Creative Teaching & Learning

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93

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THINK LIKE A LEARNER!

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Tom’s great interest is in the science of learning and the impact neurotransmitters have on our capacity to learn. He works in schools all over the UK helping them understand the impact of the science of learning on the quality of teaching and learning.

Diana Pardoe Diana is passionate about learning and believes that every child should be enabled to experience personal learning success. Following her role as Deputy Head teacher in a large primary school in Bristol, she worked for several years for Bristol LA leading many courses and projects focused on the development of effective Assessment for Learning. She then spent five years as a learning coach with the Excellence in Cities Action Zone in South Bristol where she did the initial research which led to the publication of her book ‘Towards Successful Learning’ (2nd edition published 2009). Diana has taught all ages from Foundation Stage to Key Stage 4. She is now an independent education consultant and trainer and continues to teach learners of all ages as this is where she continues to develop her own understanding about learning!

‘Fantastic! ...it has had a huge impact on my practise and outlook. I’m now smiling more!

Somerset Project

Plymouth Project

‘As a staff we have grown ‘Pupils really enjoy their greatly from your input learning in this good school. and the focus has shifted Their increasing understanding of from teaching to learning. how to be a succesful learner is You have been inspiring helping them to make the best of and motivational to both their lessons. As one pupil said ‘I teachers and TAs.’ don’t mind if I get anything wrong because I learn from my mistakes.’

Deputy Headteacher Somerset Junior Isle of Wight Ofsted report

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