PfS curriculum practioner Anna Letts has been working at Cedar Road Primary school since January 2008 in year 5. She visits the school every Tuesday afternoon to take Mrs Greaves and Mrs Evans’ classes in various lessons. 14 of these children visited the Steelbacks Study Centre at Northants Cricket Club last term, they are familiar with the PfS way of working and are encouraging their classmates to be as enthusiastic about the acitvities as they are.
So far, the children have designed their own fantasy football team and explained their choices, analysed NTFC match day programme and manager Stuart Gray’s comment page for sports terminology, nouns, adjectives and verbs as well as player information. One week the children used Cobblers player squad numbers to work out mental maths sums, another week they looked at various sports action photos from the 3 sports clubs (and Arsenal) to write creative , humorous and descriptive captions and mini match reports.
The children are enjoying their lessons and work very well together to come up with some great work. It is always nice for Anna to be met each week by cries of “Anna’s here! What are we doing today?”
Head teacher Kay Gerrett says she has received positive feedback from staff and students alike.
Students comments:
Mrs Greaves’ class:
Leon Karasu “We learn by having fun.”
Curtis Hall “All the lessons are really fun. We learnt how to write sports headlines.”
Abid Rahman “We learnt about different sports pitches, their area and perimeter.”
Aidan Boyd “I loved it when we learnt about the rugby kit.”
Tyrell Tomlinson “I liked it when we learnt about rugby and football.”
Dean Noorell “The lessons are brilliant because they are mixed up (maths, english, geography all together) and you can be creative”
Charlotte Shaw “It’s really cool as you’re learning maths at the same time as having fun.”
I enjoyed the drama part as I love drama. Amy Andrews
I enjoyed making the origami T shirts. Dean
I enjoyed the acting, it was fun and more creative and different to normal lessons. Eve Jackson
I enjoyed the racism lesson. My favourite part was making my ideal classroom. Abid Rahman
I enjoyed the balloon activity because I won the game with my argument. Charlotte
My favourite part was the dream team. Charlie
I enjoyed doing maths as sport is fun. Thank you. Emelia.
It makes learning easier. Alfie.
I enjoyed all of the lessons, they were fun and it was interesting. It makes me better at maths.
I enjoyed the fantasy football team. Lewis Short.
I really enjoyed doing the acting and trying on the rugby clothes. Poppy Felton
My favourite part was learning maths and sports at the same time.
I thought it was fun because I like sports and I enjoyed the things we did. Aimee
I learnt how to write poetry. Lee
My favourite part was the T shirt making. Pheobe
I thought the sport effect made lessons more fun.
I learnt how to make a fantasy team, it was good. David.
Mrs. Evans’ class comments:
My favourite part was when we acted out the parts from the stadium situations cards. Connor Checkley
I enjoyed the bit when we did the interview and the commentating. Mitchell Coxon
I enjoyed the group work outside with the hoops. Archie
I enjoyed doing the role play drama stadium situations. x5.
I enjoyed the poems, they were good. Thank you Anna. Emily
I enjoyed putting the names of the football teams with the right cities on the map.
I enjoyed making the paper shorts and T shirts. It was so cool.
I learnt things about football. My favourite part was having Anna Letts come in to teach. Laura Parton
I liked it when I was filmed with my partner presenting our celebrity intelligences. Megan Abbott
I enjoyed the drama. Shannon.
I liked the origami t shirts. X4
I enjoyed the lessons because they were wicked. Connor
I enjoyed using sport with the lessons. Matt
I enjoyed doing the acting because it was really fun. James Flannery
I enjoyed doing the drama in groups. Thank you Anna.
I enjoyed the maths. Anna Amalfitano
I enjoyed having Anna as a teacher because she makes lessons fun. Katie.
For more information on the school:
http://www.cedarroadschool.ik.org/
Recently, the children have been taking part in ‘Learning to Learn’ activities. Anna has been doing some University of the First Age training which aims to help children understand their own learning, learn how the brain works, thinking skills, all done in an excting, hands-on and innovative way.
The first lesson was on ‘Positive Learning Environments’ which involved a brain training ice-breaker and children working in groups to design their ideal learning environment.
To see more of what the children got up to, click here
Evaluations at the end of the project.
See these downloads for the pupils comments.