Blog : School Kitchen

Reception children turn their concrete quad into a woodland to inspire creative outdoor learning.

Taking inspiration from an original story created by the children, Colin the caterpillar set off to explore the globe to research beautiful landscapes. Colin dutifully sent in video postcards from the Himalayas ( too cold) under the sea (too wet), the Sahara (too hot) before finding inspiration in a wonderful welsh woodland!

The children designed an installation and created scaled structures including models of an ambitious sculpture inspired by the life cycle of a butterfly.

We worked alongside the children and teachers in Reception at Greenacres Primary through every step of the process and together we transformed a space into a safe,  natural learning environment.

In the third week of working at Greenacres Primary School, the pupils created a fantastic story involving a hypnotic Dragon; a cycling Princess and a flying pig! All of which were made into wonderful willow sculptures for the school. The children’s story is currently going through the illustration process and will be published as a book for all to enjoy later on in the year.

See the responses of Year 3 pupils as they were given the opportunity to be involved in the designing process of a sculpture.

The resulting art installation will also be made by the pupils and placed in the school grounds for the whole school community to enjoy.

See how becoming art critics had an impact on the creative learning of year 3 children.

Year 3 learners are producing excellent outcomes in literacy and digital creativity as part of a project that involves them designing and making a sculpture for their school grounds.

The group looked at a piece of conceptual art and evaluated it as ‘art critics’ producing excellent documentation and poetry inspired by the piece.

A great graphical way to share magical memories of a recent Y3 digital creativity project.

Students reflect on the learning experience of making a promo film for their school.

Every school is full of coachable people who are also great coaches. In busy schools human resources are often over looked, yet they are the most valuable asset available to inspire, develop and support learning.

This short film summarises a recent project where a primary school have  initiated a coaching strategy that makes the most of their assets. Year 6 learners have become learning ambassadors coaching Year 5 ‘clients’, Year 5 are leading Maths lessons in early years and staff are ‘buddying up’ to develop great teaching practice.

The ‘Sensational Human Body’ project inspired accelerated learning in literacy with amazing results. In this short clip two learners reflect on their experience in their own words.

Two  year 6 classes went through a thematic immersive  learning process based on the five senses. A series of five one day sensory learning encounters inspired excellent classroom based teaching and learning throughout the half term period. The project  had a positive impact on literacy standards sending assessed levels on an upward curve and enriching the whole curriculum.

For Sight  we had a Jackson Pollack workshop exploring the relationship between the way we see colour and texture. Touch / smell, aromatherapy and reflexology, Taste, a food based tasting game show and a smoothie making workshop and for Hearing, the children made radio broadcasts that helped them reflect on their learning and create persuasive adverts to inspire their peers about learning through sensory experiences. Children used digital tools to create papercraft animation, shadow puppetry, radio broadcasts, short films and green screen presentations to demonstrate and share their learning and understanding. This integrated approach uses digital creativity with great results and helps makes the whole process enjoyable and gives the learners the opportunity to actively lead their learning.

The children also organised a sharing event for parents and families where they prepared a senses workshop and shared their various films and podcasts.

Reception children become heroic learners by saving a stranded Teddy Bear and doing amazing phonics! Ted Bear hit’s a rock, the boat sinks and he is stranded on the pond, can the reception children save him?

Over two days the adventures of Ted, the classroom bear inspired creative learning with great results in phonics and design /construction and everything else!. The children were planning a teddy bears picnic when Ted went missing!

Using simple a green screen film the children were set a challenge by Ted, could they rescue him in time for the teddy bears picnic? Part 1 of the film was a great stimulus with children exploring solutions and deciding to make boats, rafts, canoes etc and discovering lots of new simple words in the process.

The design challenge involved testing their craft in the water play area and lots of science about floating, sinking etc. Part 2 of the film concluded the session with a great resolution, worth watching for inspiration and of course the epic drama!

Follow Chef Tara as she makes her very simple, delicious and healthy ‘Berry Cherry’ smoothie.