We Learn Together Though Making Together
How far has Werneth’s creative project helped to promote Family Learning and Community cohesion, whilst ensuring that pupils have an understanding and appreciation of the importance of creativity?
33 Year 8 students, made up of 22 girls and 11 boys, 6 Gifted and Talented students, 4 Free School meal students, 1 SEN student, 2 Teachers, 1 School Librarian and 1 Creative Practitioner all took part in this project at Werneth School in Stockport.
The pupils participated in storytelling to different age groups, book-making, creating stories with props for primary students, video skills and voice thread, producing a community performance piece. This resulted in scrapbooks, puppet making, backdrop making, photography and a DVD of the final production.
Impact
Pupils are now far more confident in working with staff, their peers and with outsiders. They are much happier to present and perform in front of a variety of audiences and are able to accept constructive criticism and evaluate their own work and performances. They are more willing to collaborate with people who they would not have considered working with before the project began. The majority of pupils actually think projects through at the very start and consider the impact things might make at a later date. Their organisational skills have developed especially in catching up on work missed and organising their homework.
Staff bfeel that they have developed their cross curricular planning and skills in order to facilitate what the pupils want to do. They have also learnt a great deal from working with the creative agent, which is outside their normal experience.
The school’s English specialist has transferred the puppetry skills for work in Key Stage 4 in her classroom to aid her lower ability students with their understanding of Shakespeare coursework. The ideas have been shared with the departments who have engaged a number of groups of differing abilities across the school. The participating librarian has developed not only her story telling skills but has also developed her mediating skills and is working on a long-term project with a number of students.
Moving forward, the school will explore a common theme through several different disciplines in order to create a cross-curricular project to span English, Technology, Science, Geography and Maths.
