Pupil Voice
When building a topic, pupil voice is the most important tool in your toolbox.
Knowing your children, listening to their interests and building your topic with your learners at the core is absolutely invaluable. This does not mean letting them take the reins, but rather asking them about what they want to learn about and shaping your plans together as a team. Asking the learners for their ideas WILL surprise you. They continue to surprise me every day.
Sometimes, though, you need to begin planning for a class you do not yet know.
This is a brief outline of what we do at Ysgol Maes y Llan to hook children into a topic and combine exciting experiences with New Curriculum expectations.
Autumn 2021
Having decided on the topic
All Aboard the Hogwarts Express
I knew I needed to hook the learners in from day one. I knew lots of members of the class already and had noticed many of them coming to school dressed as characters from the books and films on World Book Day the previous year. I knew those children would be over the moon, but needed to bring the rest on board too...
The Hook!
fOR ME, THE HOOK STARTS WITH THE ENVIRONMENT. i LIKE TO MAKE THE CLASSOOM AND LEARNING spaces as immersive and authentic as possible.
Upon entering the classroom on their first day, learners were greeted by a strange looking teacher (it was me). They came to the fireplace to find the letter, addressed to them and found a seat to find out what was inside.
Within the envelope, they found their Hogwarts letter explaining that they had been accepted into the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry - Muggle Division. They were told that there would be a series of surprise arrivals during the day and to keep a look out for owls as they went about their day.
10am - the first delivery
A box arrived from
Ollivander's!
It contained 30 individual wands, made by the gifted wand maker Garrick Ollivander (they were actually made in my kitchen using chops sticks and hot glue... but don't tell anyone).
This made each and every child feel unique and special. Even the typical 'lads' lads' were excited!
Sorting into Hogwarts Houses
Learners were asked a little about what they already knew about Hogwarts. They were able to tell me lots already and were keen to complete quizzes to discover which house they would be in. The quiz I had come up with also gave me a valuable insight into their interests, aspirations and learning needs - win, win!
To make this experience more exciting, I had some soundbites from the Harry Potter Audiobook, ready by Stephen Fry, which I played through the speaker as they sat. It really did feel magical!
The Feast
Finally, for the last hour of the day, we listened to some magical music and had our Hogwarts Feast, before reading the first chapter of our book.
We had butter beer (Cream soda with caramel essence), Pumpkin Pasties (it was actually butternut squash but still), Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans (just normal flavours but they looked good) and Chocolate Frogs (big box from bookers for £3.40)
- Chocolate frogs: they loved them!
- Butterbeer: Couldn't get enough!
- Every Flavour Beans: Nonplussed
- Pumpkin Pasties: Let's just say I had a full bin that day...
Despite the bin full of pasties though, the learners we all smiling, laughing and were quite obviously on board with the topic from the off. As you can probably see here...
Happy Wizards and Witches
Now, they're hooked! Gwych!
The challenge is to keep them not only engaged, but invested in their learning throughout our topic.
The basic overview of the term's planned learning can be found below.
However, to keep the learners continually invested, we needed to think outside the box and come up with something exciting, creative, cross-curricular and MAGICAL! A meaningful project with the four core purposes at its heart.
A Trip to Harry Potter Studio Tour in London
Post-lockdown, we realised this was a bit of a stretch. Not only due to the threat of restrictions, but financially for the families.
We weighed up our options and decided to embark on a creative fundraising project that saw the learners using skills from across the currirulum to plan fundraising opportunities
We needed to raise around £1500 to bring the cost to parents down to just £15 per head. For this price they would get:
- The bus ride to Watford and back
- Entry into the Studio tour
- A lesson in a real Wizard's classroom
- A gift from the shop
- A Maccies tea on the way home
Not bad for £15, right? But we had our work cut out. Here's just a glimpse at some of the stuff the children did to raise the funds...
Honeydukes Pop Up Sweet Shop
Learners bought the sweets and bags from Cash and Carry and opened the Pop Up Shop every Friday at the end of school. We made, on average, around £60 profit each week.
Teddy Tombola!
We asked for Teddy donations... as you can see, we had a huge response! £1 a go and each teddy found a new home. We took £134.
A series of exciting raffles
Families donated goods from their businesses for us to raffle off
We made Harry Potter themed jewellery to sell by reinvesting some of the funds we had raised in the initial weeks
We made 'Divination Candles' in teacups and scented wax melts to go with our jewellery. We went to local Christmas fairs to sell our goods.