NOVEMBER - WHERE DO PEOPLE OR THINGS GO?
Where do we go to research?
“I did, 'where do we go to research?' Our topic is the Mayans, it's the first time we've taught it in school … I think it is interesting when you start to find about them and research them and I've got the enthusiasm for it but you just need more infrastructure almost around you to be able to deliver it to inspire that writing. I started off thinking, oh, it will be interesting to see what are the preferences for research but then kind of took that other route of, well, actually there's a lot of barriers to children being able to choose what they'd like.”
Where children go to for English support?
“I decided to look at where children go to for help in terms of their English support. I wanted to look at different children and their natural go to. I spoke to them first about where they go to for help with literacy and they said it's mainly me, so that's the significance of the swirl at the front, and the whiteboard because as I teach obviously there are resources on the whiteboard. So they all said that wherever they're sitting - these are the tables in the room - wherever they're sitting their direction of gaze tends to be towards the front and that's their first seek for any help, that's where they look towards any help.”
Exploring children accessing writing resources
“Mine was where children go for support when or in writing. So it was looking at resources and similar to you I have lots of nice laminated things that can help them with their writing that they don't ever use. I sort of have envelopes on the wall hanging out looking very attractive. I've got like a plastic drawer thing now and I've got my label maker and I have those on the front so at least they're hidden if no one's using them but I was trying to get them to actually engage with them. I thought if I measured me asking them to go and use them and then saw if that would impact on them actually accessing themselves if that makes sense?”
Where does writing go outside and where do children choose to sit?
“I chose writing and specifically where does writing go outside and how do the children choose to sit? I extended it a little bit because my classroom is quite tiny and our school is on lots of levels so it's very difficult to just let the children break out unless you've got another grownup with you to supervise them. So I just thought, well, let's try and take them somewhere in to a bigger space and let's see what happens. So I did a couple of lessons outside and I mapped the lessons …
We've got a sort of covered area with tables and chairs as well. The lesson that's on top we did with laptops and it was very cold. The second lesson, it was milder and we were writing in our books instead and so in all honesty I'm not really sure what this was showing me. I think the sense I got from them was they enjoyed it a lot more than being in the classroom. They still produced a decent standard of work and as much work as I would have liked them to produce.”
Where do we go when creating poetry?
“Well I did a journey to autumn poetry and it was how we got to the final destination of a poem and physically where we went and maybe technologically where we went. So we went to the woodland in school, concentrated on the senses, touching, hearing, what you can see, what you can smell.
Well, on this one, you see there's footprints and these are all where we went, the woodland in school, looking at art, using our senses. It's like a path and some of the words we came up with. This one, this is a child's poem and I've just really, I've drawn a leaf to represent children, an acorn to represent adults as to who did what.”
