Over the last half term I have been running a project with one of our feeder primary schools. I initially contacted the school early in the autumn term. The project culminated this week with a Year 6 class giving their presentations to a gathered audience of parents, teachers and leadership.
What has really surprised me is the high level of independent learning and activity shown by the class. In addition their ICT skills are good also. It has made me think that our Year 7 units, especially in the early part of the year, need a total overhaul!
The project was based around comparing the environments of two different schools. The introduction PowerPoint can be found here. I deliberately ensured that the activity was open ended and not structured. I thought that additional structure could be put into place by teaching staff once the project was underway. I have provided a brief overview of the project here, but please feel free to contact me if you would like to know anything else. I know that a number of colleagues have found it difficult to work with primary schools. My approach was to focus on one school.
Phase 1
This involved the geography teaching staff attending the primary school to launch the project. The class was already split into 4 groups and we each took one each. This allowed subject specialists to guide some of the thinking and activity. After the introductory PowerPoint the groups had to plan how they were going to tackle the challenge. I was very pleased to see a variety of approaches adopted including primary and secondary data collection. The method of presentation was left to each group also.
Phase 2
Here the class visited my own school in order to carry out data collection. This worked really well, and I'm sure our headteacher enjoyed being doorstepped by a class of Year 6!
Phase 3
This involved the class working mainly under the guidance of their class teacher. Members of the geography department did visit the school and support was given via email.
Phase 4
The presentations! This occurred 3 weeks after Phase 2.
Finally we will all meet to evaluated this years attempts and I am pleased to report that the primary school is already really keen to repeat the project next year!
What has really surprised me is the high level of independent learning and activity shown by the class. In addition their ICT skills are good also. It has made me think that our Year 7 units, especially in the early part of the year, need a total overhaul!
The project was based around comparing the environments of two different schools. The introduction PowerPoint can be found here. I deliberately ensured that the activity was open ended and not structured. I thought that additional structure could be put into place by teaching staff once the project was underway. I have provided a brief overview of the project here, but please feel free to contact me if you would like to know anything else. I know that a number of colleagues have found it difficult to work with primary schools. My approach was to focus on one school.
Phase 1
This involved the geography teaching staff attending the primary school to launch the project. The class was already split into 4 groups and we each took one each. This allowed subject specialists to guide some of the thinking and activity. After the introductory PowerPoint the groups had to plan how they were going to tackle the challenge. I was very pleased to see a variety of approaches adopted including primary and secondary data collection. The method of presentation was left to each group also.
Phase 2
Here the class visited my own school in order to carry out data collection. This worked really well, and I'm sure our headteacher enjoyed being doorstepped by a class of Year 6!
Phase 3
This involved the class working mainly under the guidance of their class teacher. Members of the geography department did visit the school and support was given via email.
Phase 4
The presentations! This occurred 3 weeks after Phase 2.
Finally we will all meet to evaluated this years attempts and I am pleased to report that the primary school is already really keen to repeat the project next year!
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