Teach Primary Issue 18.5

www.teachwire.net | 43 Christian Foley is a writer, rapper and teacher. He works with children and teachers in both primary and secondary schools, teaching, delivering workshops and as a permanent poet in residence. Moving Up (£7.99, Scholastic) is available now. Chris Youles is the author of the bestselling books Sentence Models for Creative Writing and Teaching Story Writing in Primary . A classroom teacher with 19 years of experience, he has been an assistant head, English lead, writing moderator and a specialist leader in education. fruit and ice cream to arrive on a Friday before a long weekend, only to discover it had spoiled by the time they returned to school. Our first selling day would soon arrive, however, with groups bringing out their cakes, brownies, stationery, bouncy balls and smoothies. A hard business lesson was learnt by one group of boys who managed to eat over half of their stock whilst setting up, before all blaming each other and storming off in a huff. Overall, seeing all the children’s hard work pay off, and the profits roll in, was glorious. They’d learnt so much from this project, and applied their knowledge from so many of the areas we’d studied that, despite all the hard behind-the-scenes work, this enterprise project became a summer term mainstay of the school. Days that used to be about filling in time became more meaningful and packed with learning opportunities. TP gross and net profit, and all the other basic concepts you need to understand to run a business. Once each group was finally ready to present their business plan, they would nervously head off to their appointments with our headteacher, to try and secure their funding. They’d burst into the classroom victorious, or trudge back in disappointment when they’d been told it was, e.g. unrealistic to charge £15 for a slice of Victoria sponge. We’d revise and refine the plans together, then it would be time for the hard work to begin. At the car wash We always designated a fortnight over which the businesses could borrow a table from class and come out to the front of the school to sell their goods. Each group was allowed to book two slots at the front of the school at pick-up time; if it was a service industry idea, they could offer their services over the full two weeks. The whole idea nearly came to a sticky end when a group that was offering car washes to teachers spent their first hour throwing sponges at each other in the car park, filling the sponges with small pieces of grit, and then proceeded to ‘clean’ two teacher’s cars not only of the dirt, but most of their paintwork. I felt sorry, too, for the groups who forgot to arrange fridge space and ordered all their fresh happyconfident.com THE B I G SUMMER S END - OF F MovingUp CHRISTIAN FOLEY HAS SOME TIPS ON HOW TO HELP YOUR YEAR 6 PUPILS ACE SECONDARY SCHOOL As teachers, we can easily forget what it’s like to be on the other side of the table. But starting Year 7 is a timeless experience – everyone remembers it. Drawing on your own memories can help put a more human face on what can be a very information-heavy process. In their final term of primary, Year 6s will be bombarded with myths and rumours from their peers about what goes on at their new school. It’s important to try and nip misconceptions in the bud before they take hold in children’s imaginations, so make sure your pupils feel comfortable asking what secondary will really be like. Check that everyone in your class understands how their new school day will be structured, which subjects they’ll be taught, and what they’ll need to wear and take with them to school. The most impactful thing you can do is to address the issue of relationships and peer pressure. I’ve so often seen the behaviour of children I’ve taught at primary change considerably as they join new peer groups at secondary. Make it clear to pupils that forming new friendships takes time, and that true friends don’t pressure you to act in a certain way. Every child will encounter problems as they move through the school system, but we can give them the tools to deal with those in a healthy and resilient way. My book, Moving Up , is a friendly guide for children that I hope will inform and reassure them about transition. It also includes raps about common challenges and worries that children have in Years 6 and 7 – these can make a great focus for one-hour standalone lessons. @cfoleypoetry christianfoleypoetry