Wednesday 8th December

Wow! An emotional day, as it was our last official lesson with the Yr9s. A fabulous day none the less and the children excelled themselves with creativity and flair!

It was very apparent how the children have all grown in confidence in not only their speaking and listening skills, but also as people. The last two weeks has really been an exciting time for both the Yr9s and us, which is definitely evident in what they have produced.

Today they started by finishing last week’s features: Sport, Gossip and News. They were then able to critique their work and many of them reflected on their feature to help them improve their second.

All the children finished their second feature before lunch: Weather, Comedy, Interviews and Soaps. This enabled us to decide as a group the ordering of the features and to choose their songs.  We also had the opportunity of evaluating the project with the children, and they made video blogs about their feelings (these will be posted in the following blog).

Over the past 7 weeks we have watched the children grow in confidence; from their interviewing and questioning skills, to working as a team with peers they may not have necessarily chosen to work with. We all felt that they really worked well to accomplish a lot in one day and the most important part of today was that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. A great achievement for all of them!

We also spoke about the Fantastic Finish with the children today. In January we will have a private celebration with selected guests: from the school, university, parents, governors and hopefully external people who have helped inspire the children. The celebration will enable the children to introduce their pilot radio broadcast for Diverse FM. The outcome will hopefully mean that the school will continue the radio station with our special group of Yr9s to becoming the experts!

We will now just have to wait in anticipation for the Fantastic Finish in January!

To view the lesson plan click here.
To view the powerpoint click here.

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010