Tried and tested ideas from the classroom
GIFTED AND TALENTED CHILDREN UNITE THE COMMUNITY TOWARDS A COMMON GOAL
By Jodie Collins, G&T Co-ordinator, South Rise Primary School, Greenwich
At South Rise Primary School we have children from a wide variety of backgrounds and talents. We wanted to make the best use of the range of skills available in the community. The perfect opportunity arose in the form of a playground project bid process. The bid required the children to plan and prepare a proposal for how their school would use £10,000 to improve their playground. The work had to be led by the children and extra points would be given for use of ICT.
So we gathered a group of children from the Gifted and Talented register from Years 1 to 6. They were mainly gifted in the following areas:
- Maths
- Science
- Writing
- Speaking and Listening
- ICT
- Art
So after an initial period of working in mixed pairs and as a whole group deciding on what they thought would be good for their playground, the hard work began!
The children in the Speaking and Listening group went to interview members of school council, teachers, pupils at playtime and the premises manager. They found out what children wanted – representing each Key Stage – and what teachers and other staff thought would or would not work. They fed their results back to the group.
The scientists then went to work. They looked into materials used in the products listed. They had further talks with the premises manager to find out what risks are involved with each potential material in the build.
The mathematicians, meanwhile, were measuring the playground and drawing up scale drawings of each area ready to add measurements of the playground equipment chosen. The additions they chose ranged from swingsets to sandpits and from playground markings to outdoor classrooms and awnings.
The artists then worked on their impression of what the playground would look like. They worked using the scale drawings provided by the mathematicians and added their own ideas as to how the children could create and add their own designs to the playground which wouldn’t even cost us a penny!
Then the final part of the project was the bid proposal application itself. The children who were in the Speaking and Listening group dictated their ideas to a voice recorder and pass it on to the gifted writers who then added their own ideas and wrote first drafts and then the final application form.
The gifted ICT workers took photos of the current playground and saved photos of the equipment they wanted from the internet. Using this they created a powerpoint presentation and a video which showed why they thought we deserved the money and what we would spend it on. They also created a video showing photos and film clips of the children from each group working on the project to show the 'behind the scenes' outtakes!
Using a project like this we were able to unite the children from the Gifted and Talented register from across the school and give them real purpose and the resources for them to grow and learn and push themselves to improve their skill set. They were each aware of their own, and each others’, strengths and it made them all more reflective about what being 'Gifted and Talented' means and how they can use their skills to help others.
Although we did not win the overall competition the headteacher was sufficiently impressed to include their proposal into a 3-year budget plan for the playground improvement and has offered to put a plaque up with their names on to honour their hard work at the school for years to come.