Roundhill Community College is a thriving 11-14 college situated on the border of Thurmaston and Syston in the north of Leicestershire. I worked with a selection of young people from across the school called the Eco Group who were concerned about environmental issues. The group wanted . . . → Read More: What If . . .]]> The Mighty Creative’s (TMC) funded project.

Roundhill Community College is a thriving 11-14 college situated on the border of Thurmaston and Syston in the north of Leicestershire. I worked with a selection of young people from across the school called the Eco Group who were concerned about environmental issues. The group wanted to create a film about their concerns but didn’t know in which direction to go. I helped them make a decision by getting them to work together during numerous creative photo and film activities, which showed the group different techniques and styles. This also gave them basic training of good film/photography production and helped them see the importance of planning and storyboarding.

After watching and reflecting on other film makers films and environmental campaign videos we decided on the title ‘What If . . .’ The group were encouraged to be self motivated and to explore both ends of the argument. They looked at the evidence suggesting that humans were responsible for global warming and evidence suggesting humans were not to blame and focused on promoting sustainablilty.

The group created an online survey and website that all the schools in Leicestershire had access to and collated information that they used to form the film. Some of the group also gave presentations in front of the schools governors and had a question and answers round at the end.

“What If . . .” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qEIlTGBneU

” I never knew you could have cameras without electricity!”

Shaimaa    aged 7

The Mighty Creative’s (TMC) funded project.

Mellor Primary School is situated in the Belgrave area of Leicester and has a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. The school . . . → Read More: Photo Explorers (Year 3 / KS2)]]>

” I never knew you could have cameras without electricity!”

Shaimaa    aged 7

The Mighty Creative’s (TMC) funded project.

Mellor Primary School is situated in the Belgrave area of Leicester and has a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. The school wanted to explore all aspects of photography, so we decided to make a camera obscura out of a room. We then made our own cameras and used a traditional black and white darkroom to make photographs and used digital cameras to make photo-sculptures and photo-montages.

Working with an ‘expert group’ of year 3 children (age 7ish) we explored what seemed like the impossible; taking ‘real’ photos with junk as cameras! The group picked were usually quiet and had low self esteem. We wanted them to take risks in a safe environment and to build self confidence. The reflective process included keeping a visual diary using drawings of the cameras and equipment as mental prompts with written excerpts explaining what they had been doing.

Later in the project the expert group addressed their class room groups to explain how to use the equipment which was a brave achievement and helped secure their new found self confidence. The connections made in building cameras and explaining to the classes how they worked lead to imaginative leaps for the teachers and children in what they wanted to do next and gave ownership to the school for the rest of the project.

Digital photography saw the birth of ‘Human Beans’. Year 3 learnt what a ‘prompt’ was and how to use prompts in a creative way to describe their likes and dislikes and illustrated this within photo-sculptures and through self discovery.

Lastly we explored what it would be like to be in another part of the world. Themes such as being under water, on the moon, in a jungle or desert and create Photo- Montages. This really saw the classes working together to create the final master piece and inspired some rather good acting posses and confident expressions.

All the work achieved was used as part of the Mellor Arts Festival at Cross Corners Arts Centre on the 8/9^th of July 2010, which celebrated year 3 and the whole schools success in taking part in the TMC arts programme.

Intake Farm Primary School and Nursery are working with The Mighty Creatives as a Change School in their second year. Inatke want to raise achievement for all by developing an exciting and challenging curriculum. Children have identified a desire to have fun and be able to take ideas across and . . . → Read More: The WOW Factor (Nursery, year 3/4)]]> The Mighty Creatives funded project (TMC)

Intake Farm Primary School and Nursery are working with The Mighty Creatives as a Change School in their second year. Inatke want to raise achievement for all by developing an exciting and challenging curriculum. Children have identified a desire to have fun and be able to take ideas across and beyond the curriculum, making learning “real” with a WOW factor!

The school is looking to develop exploration and questioning, using the outdoors as a vibrant learning stimulus. The school identified that the children wanted to take photographs, make films and experience new things.

I worked alone for the first part of the project, working with the year 3/4 pupils and nursery using photography and moving image as a stimulus.

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‘Alex’s technical skills, communication, clear explanations and calm personality will build staff and student confidence in animating.’ – Edale Teacher

Edale Primary School is situated within a lively and mixed community in Nottingham, with people from . . . → Read More: Amazing Animations (KS1)]]> The Mighty Creative’s (TMC) funded project.

‘Alex’s technical skills, communication, clear explanations and calm personality will build staff and student confidence in animating.’ – Edale Teacher

Edale Primary School is situated within a lively and mixed community in Nottingham, with people from many different social and cultural backgrounds.  This community is one of their richest resources. I worked with 3 different KS1 groups whom all og which wanted to create animations based around the books they were reading, which happened to be, ‘The Light House Keepers Lunch’ by Ronda Armitage.

‘Alex was selected as a practitioner whose animation work demonstrated a child centred approach. His explanations were so clear children in his interview were able to explain complex concepts like stop animation to their teacher afterwards. He had technical ability and a commitment to sustainability within the project.’ – TMC Agent

We were keen to explore how visual stimulus can help the children’s narrative writing, including boys and EAL students, for whom this approach was felt to be particularly beneficial. Animation was decided upon because it is very much the children’s area of interest.

‘The models really helped to get speech into writing and to generate story ideas’.

‘Having real things, play making things and talk, acting out with the models all were good ways to make stories’.

I worked very closely with the teachers as i only had an hour to work with each group each time i was in school, so everything had to be condensed and had to be meaningful. This way the teachers were learning how to create the animations also, as they were left with tasks to do when i had gone, such as storyboarding, set design, character creation and animating.

‘Modelmaking is brilliant!’ – Edale Pupil

‘I’m going to teach my mum how to do it.’ – Edale Pupil

The children were amazed that they were creating animations and loved making plasticine models and films sets. I was keen to engage the children by demonstration and then practical experience, so the class worked together on an activity to produce something where they all played a part. Soon the class were becoming proficient and ended up helping the teachers out . The pupils showed them how to use the animation software (Monkey Jam – ‘Open Source Software) and explained how the animation was working and what they were going to be doing next.

‘ We teached our teachers how to make the models and move things.’

The final animations were shown during a school assembly where parents were invited to sit in and enjoy the children’s hard work. The project has become sustainable and the school are already talking about other projects that can use animation to help embed ‘hidden’ learning within areas that children may find challenging or lack enthusiasm in.