Perry Common Super Heroes - live action and animation!
Where are all Perry Common’s (www.perrycommon.bham.sch.uk) Super Heroes? A group of 7 under motivated pupils from KS 2 created a video, combining live action and animation, with 20 children from the school’s Reception Class with the aim to explore how this kind of work can impact on their enthusiasm for learning.
Ana Rutter and James Yarker, artists from Stan’s Cafe (www.stanscafe.co.uk) worked with the KS 2 pupils and Pastoral Manager, Sandra Jones on four consecutive Tuesdays from 10th June. In these sessions they developed ideas for the video, planned how it would be shot and how they will engage the younger pupils in the shooting. On three consecutive Thursdays the directorial group worked with the Reception Class and their teacher Vicki Ewart to make things for the video as well as rehearsed and shot the video. Working in this way, they hoped to develop leadership and mentoring skills in the KS 2 pupils. Throughout the project teaching staff monitored how this form of open ended creative work, based on challenges, problem solving and group working can impact on their enthusiasm for learning.
Additional objectives were to engage Reading and Writing skills, boost self-esteem and engage parents with their children’s development. It was hoped that the project will leave video and animation making skills within the school.
The key stage 2 pupils were given extra responsibility for being mentors to the younger pupils, which generally enhanced their confidence and self-esteem. Their speaking and listening skills were enhanced along with their problem solving skills thus widening their vocabulary and increasing their imagination. The transference of these skills will hopefully evident in their future writing. The younger pupils gained an increased understanding of the world around them through building relationships with their older peer group.
The project gave most pupils involved an increased sense of achievement and increased their belief in themselves. The school development plan highlights raising standards in literacy, particularly standards in big writing where vocabulary is very important to enhance writing skills, as an action point. The project captured the interest of pupils who learn in a very specific way a kinesethic style of learning. Actually seeing characters and their ideas coming to life through animation drove them forward to learn more and give them the inspiration to put their ideas down on paper.
The school development plan also mentions social and emotional aspects of learning as an action point. The theme for the Summer ‘08 term was, ‘It’s Good to be Me!’ The project reflected the ethos of the theme and enabled the pupils to feel proud and special.
Whilst details of the videos content was shaped by the participants, the overarching theme was that of Super heroes, what powers and strengths do people need and what skills and abilities may they already have that, if polished up could make them Super heroes.
The project culminated in a screening of the video in one of the school halls at the end of Summer term ’08. All parents and carers of the participants were invited and there was a fantastic turn out. Everyone was treated to an ice cream and a ‘shop’ was set up for everyone to buy cinema type refreshments from. None of this cost the audience anything as everyone was given a bag of plastic coins to use as currency!
The project on the whole was a success. The participants (staff and pupils) learnt a lot about the process of animation and how the pupils can access it easily and get instant results. They also learnt that when developing mentoring skills for the older pupils, we need to have them work in smaller groups, so their roles and what we expect from them are clearer.
The younger children were fascinated with the whole process, some asking higher order questions about how their characters/settings were put into backgrounds - the maturity of their responses was unexpected and need to be further encouraged! The children were keen to see their lego models used in the animation. This they believe will also impact when they are working together using construction things. Many of the girls are now much more keen to choose construction as an activity (rarely chosen before). They also worked very well in mixed groups (boy girl etc).
The older children, when the size of the groups was sorted out – took to being ‘leaders’ and supported and assisted the younger pupils in the work. The team working element in this instance was a success, but only after the number of older pupils was decreased, thus giving them a clearer role and more responsibility.
The discussion element of the project improved the pupils speaking and listening skills and developed open ended thinking etc – at the end of every session the participants discussed what they had done – what was involved, what they need to do next session, what they need to prepare etc.
With the ICT element – the project has motivated the staff and children to use the ICT equipment more creatively. We have made a talking book about themselves, an animated book of the enormous turnip and taped the class doing role play within the enormous turnip story!
As a result of deciding that money would be better spent on training rather than hiring a city centre cinema a CPD training session will be set up for September/October for staff to attend (on a voluntary basis). A further session will be planned for James to follow this up and to come in and be a consultant to the class, once Vicki has set up her own project in her classroom. School have contracted Stan’s Cafe for this work.
Perry Common’s enquiry project was also generously supported by RAIK (Kingstanding Education Action Zone)