Latest

April 07

Visit to Alexandra Infant School

Visited Alexandra Infant School Bromley to discuss animation with the headteacher Michelle Lewis. Michelle and her staff have developed some innovative practice around animation, particularly to develop spoken language. Michelle gives a great example of a teacher using video to assess a childs ability to retell the story of the three little pigs. What is so good about this is the child has multiple learning difficulties. Listen to the podcast here -

International Art Project 

We are currently working on a really exciting project – setting up an international online Art Project with schools in Australia, UK and maybe
China. The schools are all working on a set of art tutorials (‘Working with Windows Paint’ available from SSAT.). Most of the work so far has been involved with setting up an Art Blog. The children’s work will be displayed in an online gallery and pupils will be able to share their progress and post questions on the Blog. They will learn in a variety of contexts: formal lessons, after school clubs, at home. The children will eventually support and help each other through the Blog. We are hoping to gain insights into learning through exploring digital art techniques. We will keep you informed of progress

——————–

Developing Leaders Programme (NCSL-SSAT) April 19th

Day started with an inspirational presentation by Ewan McIntosh (main points here). You can also hear a podcast of the session by clicking here (please be patient whilst it loads on the page).

We ran a worksop called “Managing, Sustaining and Embedding an Innovation ( Visual Literacy) – PowerPoint from day 2 (DB & AA). The linked documents can be found here.

The activity “Spotlight” can be downloaded from here.

The comic video used at the start can be found here.

——————–

March 07

Independent Learning

We ran an Independent Learning course, in Birmingham, for classroom teachers and leadership teams. The aim of this course was to give delegates the opportunity to develop a rationale for implementing independent learning in their classroom or school. Practical strategies were given for developing activities to promote independent learning such as making time in the school day, developing the idea of peer mentoring, assessment for learning, developing group work and the role of ICT in independent learning. Examples of pupil practice demonstrating high levels of pupil independence were shown and discussed.

If you are intersted in this course, or others on offer click here or email us.

——————–

Kick Start Creativity

Ran this course along with Steve Hall in Sheffield and London. This course offered a “hands on” introduction to the basics of digital art, animation and film making, with software freely downloadable from  the web (if you are interested in free software click here). Delegates began by undertaking several activities in digital art, designed to get them up and running with the software. Next up was the opportunity to make a short animation (Wallace and Gromit style). This caused much laughter as delegates used playmobile people to bring their ideas to life. The final part of the day involved delegates in using film editing software to turn their silent animations into fully fledged films, complete with soundtrack titles and credits.

——————–

Class Blog

I have helped a year 3 teacher at Robin Hood School set up a class blog. This is updated weekly and brings the life of the classroom to the parents at home. Interestingly the blog has had over five hundred and fifty hits in the month it has been live. This is far more “hits” than the school website!. Parents report that they feel more knowledgeable about their childrens daily routine in school. They particularly like the photographic record of what takes place. The head wants to spread this to all classes in the school during the next term.

Lincoln Schools

We spent three days working with Lincoln primary schools on the theme of visual literacy. We created a school blog with pupils from William Alvey school and worked on developing whole school planning with St Lawrence school. We also worked with staff at Millfield school to develop podcasting and film editing. We also worked with some pupils at Bassingham  school for an afternoon on animation. Some year six girls produced this short animation in just two hours!

——————–