Teach Secondary 13.5

real interest in school, and were now being told that they had to exchange their eagerly awaited summer holiday freedom for more time in the classroom , engaged in topics they had no interest in. I decided to use the programme as an opportunity to reignite their love for learning, by packaging the week as ‘AlternativeWays to Learn’. We visited a local science museum. We went on an ice-skating trip. We visited a local beach and arcade. We built dens in a nearby forest. Different environment, same outcomes So how did this exciting timetable of day trips result in any actual summer learning?Well, each day and activity was attached to a class-based lesson. The science museum obviously tied into one of our science days. The ice- skating trip was used as the basis for discussion of how the ice beneath the blades of ice skates generated sufficient pressure to undergo a phase change from solid (ice) to liquid (water). Thereafter, we spent a whole afternoon working on the different phases of matter. Our beach trip then fed into an English session built around the writing of a scene, with the view as our stimulus. As we sat on the sand, we used differentiated reading comprehension materials and engaged in a mark-making session intended to improve some of the students’ fine motor and handwriting skills. Our beach activity also helped students to engage with oral language skills, giving them opportunities to answer questions freely in an environment they didn’t associate with being in a classroom, yet which still delivered the same outcomes. Our arcade trip meanwhile provided a chance for them to work on their maths skills, with the 2p machine challenging their skills at multiplying by 2. Each pupil was given an equal budget and then tasked with keeping track of their spending. They were also given a watch and told to make sure they reported to specific places at specific times. The games within the arcades supported a deeper subsequent lesson on problem solving and computer coding. The den building supported another day of English work, which saw them devising a world where they had to survive in the wild. Once their dens and ‘villages’ were created, we came up with sets of rules for their new society and wrote descriptive pieces reflecting on what had led them to having to flee for the woods in the first place. Built-in learning Yes, the letter that got sent home did invite the pupils to attend a solid a week of fun that most of themwould have likely struggled to access otherwise, simply due to their socio-economic status – but I would argue that another factor contributing to the programme’s eventual success was how these pupils – who could otherwise have expected to see a drop in their results – didn’t bargain for the built-in learning opportunities that they got. Attendance at the summer programme was high, and the following year we even saw pupils wanting to engage who hadn’t been identified as requiring the additional intervention. That can be a common issue after a programme proves successful – but pupils actively wanting to engage more with school than they already are is at least a nice headache to have. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nikki Cunningham-Smith is an assistant headteacher based in Gloucestershire SET-UP CONSIDERATIONS Consider your staffing capabilities and seek input from staff whose creativity and engagement levels are their superpower. Identifying pupils who might benefit from the programme and delivery of the programme itself should be possible with the aid of free resources that are readily available online. Investigate possible sources of funding so that pupils can attend for free. Understand your cohort so that you can get those who need to attend to actually…. attend. Ensure that your summer activities are appropriately impactful, and devise a system for measuring the extent of that impact. 73 teachwire.net/secondary P E D A G O G Y

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