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Recent Small Projects
Last Year's Small Projects
LAST YEAR, four Small Projects were successful in the bidding process and were awarded a total of £11,000.
This paid for either all or part of the schemes involving four local authorities: Calderdale, Wakefield, Hull and North East Lincolnshire.
Breaking News
Hold the front page! Six primary schools in Wakefield have been involved in this ‘newspaper’ day, created around the historical scenario of the Lofthouse Mining Disaster.
Designed as a pilot, the aim was to create a resource for use via a Virtual Learning Environment (or Learning Platform), to be shared through the use of the Wakefield INSET VLE.
Upper KS2 pupils were involved in creating newspaper articles, within a set timescale, around the historical local event - for which the scenario was written and researched by an Advisory Teacher.
One person acted as a reporter on location and posted information onto the VLE as new details became available. This could be done via email combined with other methods of sharing information via the VLE and through video conference link.
Meanwhile, children in the editorial team had to adapt and redraft their newspaper articles as new information came in.
Part of the aim has been to explore the best way of using the VLE and /or VC to offer this type of project.
Final newspaper reports were posted by pupils onto the VLE to be first shared by participating schools and then disseminated to all primary schools in the local authority.
Making Videos
This project was put forward by Jonathan Longstaff, headteacher of Bolton Brow Primary School, in Sowerby Bridge, Calderdale.
Children at the school were to be encouraged to work collaboratively to produce high quality video footage about “Sowerby Bridge, My Town”, which would also act as a documentary of social change within the area.
As part of the project, children had the opportunity to use and compare/contrast three different types of camera.
Tying in to the Enjoyment and Excellence agenda, the aim was, said Mr Longstaff, to introduce the children to both high quality technical and learning resources and to produce a highly polished product. This would be made available to the wider community through a website, video and dvd.
Good practice from the project is to be passed to other schools through free inservice packages.
Using digital video to support learning in science
This multimedia project, put forward by St Johns Primary School, in Calderdale, has been aimed at increasing the ICT capability of pupils in transition from KS2 to KS3 – primary to secondary.
Based around the subject of health and fitness, the project looked at how exercise impacted on the body, by looking at such aspects as changes to heart rate caused by physical activity. The children also invited a professional sportsman into school to compare and contrast his level of fitness against their class teacher!
The outcome has been a number of video clips produced by the children which support various scientific hypotheses.
These are to be shared, as learning aids, with other schools and teachers, via a website, along with lesson plans and pupil resources.
Learning Platform content creation
Hull, Wakefield and North East Lincolnshire joined forces for this project, after all three local authorities found that a lack of ready-made teaching resources had led to difficulties for schools trying to embed use of an LP in teaching and learning.
The purpose of the project was to fund a small group of teachers to create a “starter pack” of online content that could be used on any Learning Platform (VLE) – with an initial focus on the product, MyDesktop.
Paul Wright, of Hull LA, said: “Some aspects of an LP, such as noticeboards, calendar and email, have been taken up with enthusiasm but it is the lack of ready- made content that has been a barrier to further implementation.
"We used the Small Projects money to release teachers from four schools which have successfully adopted the LP in order to give them time to create learning resources that will be made available to all other users of MyDesktop across the region."
Projects created include Coastal Errosion, Water Use, India, Greek Gods, Greek People, The Bible and The Seaside.
“This project aims to kick-start the process of teacher generated LP content. It will provide teachers with materials to adopt. LAs can then support the Adapt and Create phases.”