Cressing Primary - This is our Village
The children of Cressing Primary School, near Braintree, Essex have made a short film to give an insight of their village and local community to a partner school in France.
As part of the Enquiry School project, year 4 and 5 children gained a wide range of technical and communication skills ranging from operation of flip cameras, filming protocol, planning and organisation of filming, filming terminology, computer skills – including editing, script writing, acting, interview techniques and clear and concise communicating.
The aim of the finished film was to showcase the village of Cressing – including the children’s view of their village and what might have been of interest to their counterparts in the French partner school. It included on-location footage of the village and interviews with members of the local community.
The school believed their children succeeded when working on cross curricular projects but they wanted to develop their children’s own learning skills, resilience and independence. Lead teacher, Liz Hartley, said,
“Taking the groups out of the classroom environment gave them (the children) the opportunity to work together as a team and solve problems through discussion rather than with an adult arbitrating.”
She was also positive when analysing the results of the project:
“We have produced a DVD which is the children’s work but fulfils the intention of showing off their village to children from another culture and country."
“Our end product looks good but the process of getting there has enabled the children to acquire new knowledge, skills and understanding which hopefully they will transfer to other areas of the curriculum."
She hopes that the schools Creative Partnerships project will have a long term effect on the children at Cressing Primary and the styles of learning they use:
“I feel confident that the skills learned are sustainable and that other members of staff will use the cameras and develop filming techniques in their own classrooms.”
“This will hopefully encourage all children at Cressing to use different learning styles to enhance their learning both academically and socially.”
Film maker and animator practitioner Toby Roberts was also positive about the project commenting:
“The children were actively engaged with the project and appeared to enjoy the process. They worked collaboratively sharing ideas, swapping roles supporting each other and making positive contributions to achieve a common goal.”
The school have really seen the benefits of using film as part of cross curricular projects and will be using it more extensively in other subjects in the future.
