Pupil Led Curriculum Development at Stuart Road Primary School
Building on last year's work around developing a pupil-led approach to curriculum planning, Stuart Road Primary School in Devonport, Plymouth, wanted to focus on sharing the success of the approach with the whole of key stage 2, paying particular attention on how to ensure the approach has a positive and measurable impact on pupil's progress and literacy.
Aim
The aim of this enquiry work was to embed personalised learning and monitoring into the pupil-led curriculum, support pupils to lead on the use of film and photography to capture and record learning and provide access and links with external organisations and practitioners outside the immediate community.
On top of this the project aimed to help Stuart Road develop classroom management within a creative curriculum, providing personalised CPD to build the independent group skills required to support a pupil-led curriculum approach.
Process
Using the pupil-led approach to the curriculum, year 5 and 6 pupils conceived, researched, planned and developed their own festival working closely with an experienced media professional and events manager.
The pupils chose the theme _The End of The Pier _to help the community learn about the past of Plymouth and developed an exciting afternoon of Victorian family entertainment for visitors to enjoy. The pupils divided their festival planning committee into teams for project management, technical, communications, design and production and everyone had a role to play. The pupils then consulted experts, bringing in artists, designers, festival organisers, a writer and a film-maker to help them get the most out of their event.
As well as planning the event from scratch, the pupils created their own games and stalls, booked the venue confirmed acts and chose charities to support, oversaw performances and completed all the promotion and PR themselves.
The Big Smile festival, which took place on the 25 March 2010, was a huge success with 150 children from local primary schools attending, followed by Devonport residents, parents, governors and other community members.
Impact
Through the Big Smile festival the students covered all aspects of the curriculum and made use of new partnerships and links the wider community, including the venue they chose for the event, the Devonport Guildhall.The pupils worked in real life situations making choices and coming up with authentic plans of action and solutions to address challenges and problems
As part of the project, Stuart Road staff also received informal CPD to develop their ability to recognise and capitalise on opportunities and support from a variety of sources.
