Getting Started
'Every geography lesson, if it isn't a real field trip, is a virtual field trip'
Chris Durbin
An introduction from the author
I am a writer. FS, KS1 and KS2 teachers work with me to plan and deliver writing workshops linked to their children's curriculum knowledge and understanding. Because much of my own writing is rooted in research, this way of working feels natural to me; a writer needs something to write about and once the research is 'complete' (it never is for me - I always want to find out more) s/he selects and shapes with an audience in mind.
When children create something by processing and shaping their learning, the learning stays with them, and the pleasures of exercising creativity and of receiving audience feedback provide more positive reinforcement.
This three session package aims to sharpen children's awareness of their own environment, develop their visual literacy, by encouraging them to 'read' images of children in other places, using imagination and empathy, and then to gather and share their learning. But this is only a stage in their learning journey, both as geographers and as creative writers.
Ann Hamblen, Writer and Creative Writer in Education
Going to school in Bateau Bay, NSW, Australia
Before you start planning to use this unit with your children, I'd like you to watch this video - the result of a creative writing experiment enjoyed by children living on the NSW coast of Australia. You will see images of what they observe as they come to school through their own locality, and read extracts from their poems. (In the next section you will see the result of the same creative writing workshop, shared with Sheffield children, who also recorded their voices reading their poems.) It reminds us that 'one child's local is another child's global'!
I hope you will be inspired to read on, and try Session 1 with your class.
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How to use this CPD unit
The following 'sessions' can be adapted to fit your time-frame. I have shared these activities with a group of children in one half-day (at speed!), and with another group in several hour-and-a-half slots over three weeks. We have used geography time, IT slots, literacy hours and visiting-writer-in-school bookings... whatever works best for you. This is a good series of activities to adopt/adapt if you are working towards more integrated learning experiences for your children.
The children shown here are all KS2 students. With adaptation, younger children can have great fun with versions of the senses sheet. Foundation Stage children can produce excellent results, dictating their sentence completions to an adult scribe, and seeing them brought together to make a free verse poem.
Children with special learning needs have been able to join in, contribute fully and learn effectively with support for writing and reading aloud.
Course Units
 Introduction |
 Getting Started |
 Going to school here and now |
 Going to school in India |
 Let's pull it all together! |
 Pedagogy and Thinking |
 Plenary |
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