Blog : Learning

Why don’t children from neighbouring schools learn together more? We explored this question on a recent project with children from Hurst Hill Primary School organising a trip to their nearest neighbours, Queen Victoria Primary to see how children use digital tools to support creative learning.We are supporting the Hurst Hill children as they look to change the way they use technology exploring questions such as are ICT suites relevant anymore and why should you have to go to a designated place to use technology?

These outdated ideas are being seriously challenged by year 4 as they look to encourage everyone at their school to join the 21st Century and become digital creatives. Their visit to their neighbours, (just a short walk away) was a very successful morning and the children from Queen Victoria led workshops in film, animation, podcasting a radio broadcasting and shared their top tips for making technology mobile, accessible and inspirational. The kids really enjoyed it and were very inspired by the experience. Next big question, why don’t we do this more often?

We encourage children to be reflective and understand how they are learning and how they can maximise their opportunities to learn and become life-long learners.This little video shows Year 4 children from St Augustines Primary School reflecting on their recent experience of a Chinese Culture. The legacy of our work is difficult to quantify but we also plan carefully with teachers and teaching assistants and embed practice with them that enables our projects to be sustainable.

We all believe that supporting a child’s learning is a partnership between families and schools and we should initiate and enrich this belief at every possible opportunity. We find family art workshops on a Saturday morning a great way of bringing children, families and teachers together to develop relationships and the creative process helps develop trustful teamwork. We host one about every six weeks and they are always over subscribed and very successful.

This week we took inspiration from the emotional mood paintings of Mark Rothko. He believed that creating art should be an experience in itself and a means of expression that provokes an emotional response, if people cry listening to music, why not whilst looking at a painting? So we all got warmed up, got in touch with our emotions and got stuck in! It was great fun and the collection produced will adorn the Hurst Hill Primary Gallery in the entrance hall to the school. The work will have a profound impact and will help share and reinforce the core message of the school which is “Learning Together”.

A group of KS2 Children at George Betts Primary school were asked to become a ‘Thinktank’ to generate a list of ‘must do’ experiences for every child that attends their school. They looked at the life journey from childhood to adulthood to and tried to work out what experiences would help shape 21st Century global citizens.

The slideshow shows the  Thinktank in action using their imagination,  generating ideas and sharing concepts . They will be continuing this project by staffing a information stand at parents day and collecting ideas from children, staff, parents and the wider community. THey will collate all of these and present them as a complete set of recommended experiences.

After the recent success of our Jackson Pollock inspired Family Art Workshop at Hurst Hill Primary School where attendees created their first art collection for their new gallery, we were at it again this weekend. This time we were inspired by the emotion paintings of Mark Rothko, an artist famed for his floating rectangles of colour. The children and families really engaged with the process and let themselves ‘experience’ their creativity and produced outstanding artwork to add to the gallery. The workshops are a great way to enable families to become integrated into the life of the school and theses activities are part of a wider programme of family learning in partnership with the school.

Year 5 and 6 children from Star Academy are exploring what makes their school special with a range of cross curricular creative learning workshops we are leading. In an Art and Poetry workshop. Jacob, (pictured above) ,produced a great abstract painting and also presented as a bit of an unpolished diamond with his lyrical style. He is a very interesting character with many things to say but Literacy isn’t always considered his strong point and he is challenged by his dyslexia. However after realising several poets don’t necessarily write their poems down to start with ( like the brilliant Benjamin Zephaniah) Jacob discovered his ‘inner poet’ and was happy to record himself into a phone and bluetooth his work into class computer to share it with everyone. He also wrote his poem into his workbook and headed straight for the Head Teachers office to proudly share his creative writing.

Jacobs poem was one of 27 produced within the art and poetry workshop, we loved it and see it as hard evidence of his ability to produce writing of the highest standard. Have a listen to his poem below and see what you think: If you like it and find it inspiring please share it with someone.

Cool School by Jacob

Kingsland Primary are working with us on an innovative  radio station project that is producing some great spoken word content, cutting edge journalism and a live ‘music lounge ‘ slot. The kids are taking the creative project very seriously and have nervelessly embraced being ‘on air’ and producing Kingsland News, Book, Film and Media reviews, Thought for the Day, Teacher Interviews  (inspired by desert island discs), a comedy slot and problem solving competitions.Our first broadcasts from Kingsland Radio have been recorded today, below is the recording by our broadcasters Alex & Sydney.

Alex & Sydney

The kids at Star Academy are thinking about what it is that makes their school special as they prepare for their official academy status launch in February. They are using digital tools to explore and share their ideas and this creative news broadcast example is a little of bit of history in the making. It’s their first ever attempt at Green Screen and we hope you enjoy it.

Continuing with our MEN AT WORK campaign to showcase outstanding male teachers working in primary schools. We are committed to raising awareness of the positive impact male teachers have and try to encourage more people into the profession. There is huge opportunity to improve education by attracting men into teaching assistant and teaching roles and our observational short films will highlight how important it is to get MEN AT WORK in primaries. Our second film shows Mr Linley working in Year 6, it’s a lovely short film showing the joy of learning and teaching, we hope you enjoy it and that you will support our campaign to get blokes teaching.

Year 5 children used reflexology to develop team working skills in a positive, trustful learning experience.

More and more schools are enjoying our reflexology workshops and are commenting on the positive impact upon learning, behavior and well being. The workshops are integrated into the curriculum and are informative and very enjoyable. Tactile experiences have a resonance that reinforce all of the principles of learning and the values and attributes we are trying to encourage children to acquire.

“It was amazing to see the level of engagement and it was quite an emotional experience to see the children get so much from something that was so simple”  – Annette, Year 5 Teacher

“This was the most relaxing day I have ever had in my life” – Harvey, age 9