Creativity 3 - Raising Attainment in Literacy

Friday, 6 May 2011

The Sketchbook

As part of the project the children kept a sketchbook which detailed their progress across the course of the intervention. Here is a video of the sketchbook:

We have felt that this project has been extremely successful because we have raised the children’s attainment in literacy. We have achieved this through a creative and stimulating approach which engaged all the children from the outset. It became apparent that by removing the barriers to literacy, such as writing, and using multimodal means of learning, the children began to grow in confidence in their own abilities. Having a real audience and end product to aim for, the children found real purpose for their learning. Expectations of the children and their work were always at a high standard. Moreover, the process to which the children were working towards was always achievable, and subsequently focused their learning journey.

It was intended that the children would set up the school’s radio station in the forthcoming term, as experts. All the children expressed an avid interest in launching Diverse FM. However, we have recently heard that the head has decided to defer the setting up of the school radio station. JW and the children are still behind the project and we eagerly await to hear the progress from the school.

Having liaised with JW it is clear that the children have made excellent progress within literacy. JW has spoken to the children’s English teachers who said that the students have ‘increased in confidence in their contribution in terms of speaking and listening’. The feedback from JW is great to hear and that the project has had a profound effect on their continuing learning journey.

We are now looking forward to celebrating the success of the project at the University presentations on the 25^th May alongside our peers’ creativity projects. It will be great to see the children once again and to share with them our success. Although this is closure on the project for us, it is exciting to know that the children will help to launch the school radio station.

Thursday, 5 May 2011

ESCalate Conference - April 2011

We were asked by the University to attend the ESCalate conference at Liverpool Hope University on Monday 11^th April to showcase our creativity project. Although the university had asked us to take part in the conference, we still had to apply to ESCalate for a place in the conference. For this we created an A0 poster that gave an outline to our project, as well as the progress and achievements that the students had made. On the Monday before the conference we heard back that we had been accepted and that we would be going to Liverpool to present our poster.

The conference focussed on enterprise within education and embedding employability in teacher education courses. Throughout the day we attended a number of sessions that were led by university lecturing staff, students and other professionals. They provided an interesting insight into their chosen fields and they left us with a number of things to think about such as:

how different universities approach creativity
how some teacher training institutions work with the community around them to enhance the courses they offer
the use of enterprise alongside education, something that our Creativity project tries to tap into.

The main highlight of the day was a key note lecture by Dr Paul Redmond, head of Careers and Employability at Liverpool University, who spoke about ‘crunchonomics’ through a creative and informative platform.

During the lunch break there was time dedicated for the viewing of poster’s in the main atrium. It was interesting to see other professional’s projects and to gain an understanding of how differing creative approaches have had an impact upon education. The feedback we received from lecturing staff and students alike was extremely positive towards our poster and project as a whole. Since then we have received further praise from attendees at the conference who have commented on the blog.

By attending the event we found that it has highlighted that our university course has instilled us with the professionalism required within education. Additionally it has ensured coverage of the broad range of standards as set out by the Teaching Development Agency, putting us in good stead to enter the teaching profession. Producing and presenting at a conference gave us all great experience in the world of Academia.

Here is a copy of the poster that we submitted to the conference.

Please click here for a larger copy of our poster.

To find out more information about the Escalate Conference follow this link.

Teacher Reflections on the Project.

At the end of the project JW gave us feedback about how she thought the children had progressed as a result of the intervention that we had taught at the school. JW said that the children's speaking and listening skills had improved over the course of the half term; they were more likely to put up their hands in lessons and ask questions – both skills we wanted to instil in the children at the start of the project. JW went on to mention that these characteristics had been displayed by the children in lessons outside of literacy as well as the subject at the heart of our project.

The children involved were writing more whereas previously they were often reluctant writers. A comparison of homework for one child showed a clear increase in the amount of writing completed, which suggests that the intervention had a positive effect in motivating children to write.

Self confidence was mooted by JW and parents of the pupils as one of the key areas of improvement for all the pupils in the group. Some pupils were reluctant to participate at the beginning of the study but were confidence speakers and listeners at the end of the programme.

JW anticipates that these transferable skills will help the children achieve better than the expected levels had the intervention not been carried out.

Overall, the intervention has been successful and the school is left with ideas and resources to help continue the radio station, with the help of the founding pupils.

The Fantastic Finale!

An amazing and impressive finish to the whole project!

Today was an exciting, but also extremely nerve-racking, as guests were to include parents, grandparents, a governor, the Head and a university lecturer, who unfortunately was delayed in traffic and missed the event.

It was also very exciting to be able to show the children what they had achieved, as they had not heard the final podcast. We began to set up the venue, which was to be in the library, with JW’s help. The children arrived after school, all looking very nervous about the prospect of showcasing their work. B very kindly offered to open our project to the audience, and we rehearsed his informal speech. The photographer also arrived from the Bognor Observer, and took a photograph of Helen and J, working with the IWB; they also collected quotes from the children about how they were feeling about the Fantastic Finish. The children helped set up the chairs and programs, which seemed to help them calm their nerves, and JW brought the refreshments.

The Head was keen to speak to the three of us, and he was pleased to see the progress we had made with the children. The guests began to arrive, and the children began to show their anxiety, however, we had every confidence in them, and we were glad we had made video reflection of their learning to show the parents.

The whole presentation was very professional. We introduced B, who did a fantastic job, at explaining what the project had been about, something he would not have had the confidence to do at the beginning of the project. His Mother was very proud. We showcased the children’s final podcast, and although they were embarrassed to hear themselves, we could see how proud they were of what they had achieved. Whilst it was playing, we had a PowerPoint slideshow of all the photographs from the project, which encapsulated the whole process and enjoyment, both the children and us had had. We then showed the children’s video reflections, which was great, as it took the pressure off of them speaking in front of the audience, and meant they were a true reflection of their learning.

To finish the presentation, we awarded the children with certificates and JW with flowers for all their efforts throughout the project. We then had the opportunity to speak with all the guests, and it became apparent the impact we had had on the children as a whole child. Parents spoke about how their children were more confident, not only with their school work but at home. One parent said how J was now talking about school more frequently at home, and it had improved her home/school relationship with him. Another child, who initially didn’t want to be a part of the project, had dramatically improved in his self confidence. By week two, he was thoroughly engaged and began to come out of his shell. His Mother also said that B had cancelled attending a Gifted and Talented workshop for the Fantastic Finish as he was so proud of his achievements.

On a personal note from all of us, about the parent teacher relationship, this event really highlighted the importance and impact we can have on a child if we have mutual support. We were surprised to see so many Dads at the presentation, which was not only lovely to see, but they were also fully engaged with the project.

The powerpoint for our final celebration can be accessed by clicking here.

Here are the children's reflections on the project.

To listen to the final podcast click here.

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010

10th January - Preparation for the fantastic finale

On 10th January we went into school and continued preparations for the fantastic finale. All invitations have been sent out and we were quite nervous about the celebration. We videoed the children reflecting on the project and hope to show this at the presentation - it should help to alleviate the nerves of getting up and talking in front of people. Final tweaks were made on the podcast - it really is fantastic. We needed someone to introduce the project to the parents and thought of T. It turns out that he can't come though so B steps up to the mark. His confidence has grown so much over the course of the few months we've worked with them.

Fingers crossed it all goes well on Friday - and that the children and guests turn up!

Here are some words from our university tutors in response to our email below:

Dear Creativity Team, Creativity Tutor and AAs,

We have some very exciting news about our creativity 3 project, as we have now finished recording the podcast to propose to The  School in January.

As you know, we have been working with eight Yr9 pupils to help raise their literacy attainment, through the pupils producing their own radio broadcast. Their finalised version includes: News, Weather, Sport, Comedy, Celebrity Gossip, Interviews, Soaps, songs and their own jingles. The three of us are currently finalising the podcast and editing the last few features.  

We would like to invite you all to celebrate with the children for the Fantastic Finish. The Yr9s will be having a private gathering to share their work and prose that the school continue to make a live radio broadcasts. The aim is that the Yr9 pupils will then be able to become the radio experts and help run the radio station in the future!

The preliminary date for the celebration is Friday 14th January, 3pm, at The School. If there is anyone you feel we may have forgotten to invite please let us know :)

If you haven't seen our blog recently there a sneak preview of the podcast and many photos etc... The link is http://raisingattainmentinliteracy.blogspot.com/

Thank you,

Helen Goodall, Ollie Hughes and Sophia Koiston.

Dear All

Thank you for your invitation. By the way, the blog is superb - a truly digitally literate, multimodal experience!

Kind Regards

Carole

Great - in my diary, keep me posted. Do we need to do certificates for the children? if so, please can you send list of names and exact name of project (Diverse FM?)

D

From: D

How exciting and well done! I'll see if I think I might make it nearer the time if that's okay!

C

Resources, lesson plans and more

Lesson Plan 1
Lesson Plan 2
Lesson Plan 3
Lesson Plan 4
Lesson Plan 5 and 6

Lesson 1 Powerpoint
Lesson 2 Powerpoint
Lesson 3 Powerpoint
Lesson 4 Powerpoint
Lesson 5 and 6 Powerpoint

Genre clips:

Advert 1
Advert 2
Comedy 1
Interview 1
Interview 2
Jingles
News 1
News 2
Real radio jingles
Sport 1
Sport 2

© Sophia Koiston, Oliver Hughes and Helen Goodall 2010