CRE8US PROJECT
TAKING LEARNING OUTDOORS
This is Miss Mason's and Mrs Choonpicharn's
Learning Log.
TAKING LEARNING OUTDOORS
This is Miss Mason's and Mrs Choonpicharn's
Learning Log.
..............................................................................................................................................
February 12th 2010
The children have now had three sessions with Campbell and the story for their outdoor adventure is starting to develop. Although I have only popped in and out of sessions I know that the children and their teachers are all having great fun and are really enjoying their time with Campbell.
I watched some of the very first session when one group was asked to work in groups to create a see-saw with their bodies. The responses were interesting to watch but it was more fascinating to watch the group interaction and the preference of two boys at this point to work completely on their own.
By the time I watched another session later in the week the children were getting used to working within a range of groups and had even got past the point of all boy or all girl groups! Nobody was choosing to work alone.
Both classes are fully engaged in the work and all the children particularly enjoyed taking their learning outdoors even if they did bring half the mud from the Mount back into school with them. Every child remembered a change of clothes which in itself gives an indication of the enthusiasm for the project.
I am now looking forward to finding the time to watch some of the outdoor work which is taking place and the development of the story as the two groups develop their tribes and their background stories.
We are also considering applying for another Enquiry School programme for 2010 - 2011. Developing an outdoor curriculum remains a priority so we would like to explore other ways of linking the teaching and experiencing the arts outdoors with our upper junior pupils. We will though wait and see how the remainder of this project develops before we make our final decisions.
January 27th 2010
It is now a week since our planning meeting with Campbell and I finally have enough time to add to this journal. The meeting went really well and we all now have a clear vision of how the project will move forward. It was particularly good to see how all the ideas and thoughts for the project from the different people pulled together.
As the children have little experience of drama their first session with Campbell will involve them in learning some basic drama techniques and getting to know Campbell. This will take place very soon.
We have been able to book Campbell for whole days so he can work with both groups of children for long uninterrupted sessions. I am sure that once the children get more actively involved they will make their contributions to shaping the development of this work.
Parents will be notified of the details of the project very soon as we need their permission for their child to leave the school site to work on the Mount. Although the Mount could not be nearer to the school, the children will be leaving the perimeter of our grounds. We would also like permission for us to be able to publish photographs and movies on the website so parents are able to join in the fun and see their child learning.
All the staff are very interested and excited about the project and are really looking forward to getting started.
January 18th 2010
It is our first big planning meeting with Campbell on Wednesday so we have been putting some thought into moving the project forward. We had hoped that we would have started to create the Saxon settlement for the role play by now but the weather has made us realise that this may not be possible in time for this project. We are now therefore hoping we can make use of an existing area we have in the school grounds which is already slabbed and fully accessible no matter what the weather is doing. It also has four shelters which could be adapted for this project. The weather is something we should have considered in greater detail especially as our project is about taking learning outdoors!
Carol Mason
January 8th 2010
Work on our project started nearly a year ago when we applied to Cre8us be an 'Enquiry School'. We knew that the support from Cre8us would enable us to further develop creativity within our school. Cheswick Green Primary School is a creative school and our pupils get lots of opportunities in dance, art, writing and music so we wanted to develop this even further. We had to complete quite a long form and then had to wait to see if we were successful. As we had not been successful in 2008 we had tried even harder to make our form put over our ideas for creative development in our school.
We really wanted to extend our curriculum throughout the school to include more outdoor learning. The Forest School work completed in Key Stage 1 last school year had been really successful so we knew that learning outdoors was going to be our next big curriculum development. We wanted all of our pupils to regularly learning outdoors.
After a lot of thought we decided that our Year 3 and Year 4 pupils should be involved with the project during Spring 2010 along with their teachers, Marnie Chana and Emma Baxter. One of the main reason for this choice was to enable the pupils who had experienced Forest School last year to develop their experiences of outdoor learning. We thought they would have the knowledge to help us with the project.
We were delighted that the project was accepted because it was such a brilliant opportunity to develop creativity within the school with the full support of expert practitioners and the guidance offered by Cre8us.
We attended lots of excellent training in Coventry which was delivered by Cre8us and they attached Oliver, a Creative Agent to our school. Oliver guides us through the Enquiry School process to make sure we complete all the right forms and attend all the right meetings. After discussing our ideas and thoughts in detail with Oliver, we were able to advertise for a Creative Practitioner to work with us and support us through the project. This was an exciting and very different experience to appointing a teacher.
We wanted to link the work directly with the Year 3 and Year 4 integrated curriculum for the spring term. This meant the main study theme would be Invaders and Settlers. It did not take long for us to have the idea of completing an outdoor Living History project. We also decided that we should link the project to the study of the Saxons as this has direct links with the history of Cheswick Green. We felt we needed to appoint a Creative Practitioner with skills in drama and a strong interest in history.
Campbell's knowledge and enthusiasm for our project meant he was our natural choice. He has lots of experience of teaching in a primary school in addition to a love of drama. We are now waiting to meet with him to start the detailed planning of the next part of the project. Unfortunately the snow has meant a slight delay!
Carol Mason ( Checked by Lynda Choonpicharn)
..............................................................................................................................................
February 12th 2010
The children have now had three sessions with Campbell and the story for their outdoor adventure is starting to develop. Although I have only popped in and out of sessions I know that the children and their teachers are all having great fun and are really enjoying their time with Campbell.
I watched some of the very first session when one group was asked to work in groups to create a see-saw with their bodies. The responses were interesting to watch but it was more fascinating to watch the group interaction and the preference of two boys at this point to work completely on their own.
By the time I watched another session later in the week the children were getting used to working within a range of groups and had even got past the point of all boy or all girl groups! Nobody was choosing to work alone.
Both classes are fully engaged in the work and all the children particularly enjoyed taking their learning outdoors even if they did bring half the mud from the Mount back into school with them. Every child remembered a change of clothes which in itself gives an indication of the enthusiasm for the project.
I am now looking forward to finding the time to watch some of the outdoor work which is taking place and the development of the story as the two groups develop their tribes and their background stories.
We are also considering applying for another Enquiry School programme for 2010 - 2011. Developing an outdoor curriculum remains a priority so we would like to explore other ways of linking the teaching and experiencing the arts outdoors with our upper junior pupils. We will though wait and see how the remainder of this project develops before we make our final decisions.
January 27th 2010
It is now a week since our planning meeting with Campbell and I finally have enough time to add to this journal. The meeting went really well and we all now have a clear vision of how the project will move forward. It was particularly good to see how all the ideas and thoughts for the project from the different people pulled together.
As the children have little experience of drama their first session with Campbell will involve them in learning some basic drama techniques and getting to know Campbell. This will take place very soon.
We have been able to book Campbell for whole days so he can work with both groups of children for long uninterrupted sessions. I am sure that once the children get more actively involved they will make their contributions to shaping the development of this work.
Parents will be notified of the details of the project very soon as we need their permission for their child to leave the school site to work on the Mount. Although the Mount could not be nearer to the school, the children will be leaving the perimeter of our grounds. We would also like permission for us to be able to publish photographs and movies on the website so parents are able to join in the fun and see their child learning.
All the staff are very interested and excited about the project and are really looking forward to getting started.
January 18th 2010
It is our first big planning meeting with Campbell on Wednesday so we have been putting some thought into moving the project forward. We had hoped that we would have started to create the Saxon settlement for the role play by now but the weather has made us realise that this may not be possible in time for this project. We are now therefore hoping we can make use of an existing area we have in the school grounds which is already slabbed and fully accessible no matter what the weather is doing. It also has four shelters which could be adapted for this project. The weather is something we should have considered in greater detail especially as our project is about taking learning outdoors!
Carol Mason
January 8th 2010
Work on our project started nearly a year ago when we applied to Cre8us be an 'Enquiry School'. We knew that the support from Cre8us would enable us to further develop creativity within our school. Cheswick Green Primary School is a creative school and our pupils get lots of opportunities in dance, art, writing and music so we wanted to develop this even further. We had to complete quite a long form and then had to wait to see if we were successful. As we had not been successful in 2008 we had tried even harder to make our form put over our ideas for creative development in our school.
We really wanted to extend our curriculum throughout the school to include more outdoor learning. The Forest School work completed in Key Stage 1 last school year had been really successful so we knew that learning outdoors was going to be our next big curriculum development. We wanted all of our pupils to regularly learning outdoors.
After a lot of thought we decided that our Year 3 and Year 4 pupils should be involved with the project during Spring 2010 along with their teachers, Marnie Chana and Emma Baxter. One of the main reason for this choice was to enable the pupils who had experienced Forest School last year to develop their experiences of outdoor learning. We thought they would have the knowledge to help us with the project.
We were delighted that the project was accepted because it was such a brilliant opportunity to develop creativity within the school with the full support of expert practitioners and the guidance offered by Cre8us.
We attended lots of excellent training in Coventry which was delivered by Cre8us and they attached Oliver, a Creative Agent to our school. Oliver guides us through the Enquiry School process to make sure we complete all the right forms and attend all the right meetings. After discussing our ideas and thoughts in detail with Oliver, we were able to advertise for a Creative Practitioner to work with us and support us through the project. This was an exciting and very different experience to appointing a teacher.
We wanted to link the work directly with the Year 3 and Year 4 integrated curriculum for the spring term. This meant the main study theme would be Invaders and Settlers. It did not take long for us to have the idea of completing an outdoor Living History project. We also decided that we should link the project to the study of the Saxons as this has direct links with the history of Cheswick Green. We felt we needed to appoint a Creative Practitioner with skills in drama and a strong interest in history.
Campbell's knowledge and enthusiasm for our project meant he was our natural choice. He has lots of experience of teaching in a primary school in addition to a love of drama. We are now waiting to meet with him to start the detailed planning of the next part of the project. Unfortunately the snow has meant a slight delay!
Carol Mason ( Checked by Lynda Choonpicharn)
..............................................................................................................................................
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