Do Questions Live Under the Sea?
'Do Questions Live Under the Sea?' took place in 2009/10 at Parson Cross Church of England Primary School as part of the Creative Partnerships Enquiry programme.
Enquiry Question
How can we develop children’s questioning skills and what impact does this have on their ability to follow their own lines of enquiry?
Project objectives
The school wanted to find out if it was possible to teach independent questioning skills through the project. The Year 2 children's questioning skills seemed to be a weakness and a barrier to them following their own lines of enquiry within the school’s new Creative Curriculum.
The children chose the theme of 'Under the Sea'. As part of the planning stage the children made three-part Question Machines with visual artist Carmel Page to model the process of creating questions:
Part 1: Use a spinner to select a 'question' word;
Part 2: Throw a ball into a selection box to choose an 'Under the Sea' theme word;
Part 3: Throw a dice on a board game to select an 'action' word.
An open-ended project was designed. Questions generated by the pupils guided and prompted a range of activities. The project began by making props and costumes which allowed the children to get into character for an under the sea experience. Other creative and child-led activities followed, including: costume making, creating sea monsters, an undersea scene in the playground, storytelling, drama and dance to explore mermaids and what it would be like to play football under the sea.
Children's reflection skills were developed by using the TASC (Thinking Actively in a Social Context) wheel and reflecting on the learning at the end of each session.
Parson Cross staff took part in a CPD (Continuing Professional Development) session ran by the lead teacher and Carmel, the aim being to share the project and look at how the impact of teaching and learning in this way can influence the development, within school, of the Creative Curriculum. The project became a model for the rest of the teaching staff; having seen the work in Year 2, Year 4 decided to build their own question machine - staff planned together to develop questioning skills and the Creative Curriculum for Year 4 pupils.
Useful Sources:
Impact
"Since the project, we have followed the work up with another creative project on nocturnal animals. Without being asked children went home and started to research the project and brought things in to share - this has never happened before! The children were more willing to start the project on their own. They got on with things without support and used questions to guide their research." -Teacher
"The pupil’s curiosity improved as the project progressed, by the end of the project when pupils were presented with an unusual object, the amount and variety of questions had greatly increased." -Practitioner
"Children are now quite able to use the TASC Wheel - they are able to identify where they are on the wheel and reflect on their work to see if they are ready to move forward." -Teacher
Results
- Improved questioning skills;
- Increased curiosity;
- Improved attitude to learning;
- Improved teaching and learning of the creative curriculum by using the TASC wheel.
