Holidays and homework

Holidays are approaching again, and parents have to find things to do with their offspring. Some of them, like mothersoup are tempted by who knows what pressure to offer their children "more of the same" in the form of holiday homework. I want to say to them - forget about the workbooks! If little Timmy wants to write a poem, do sums, read about dinosaurs, great! Let him do it and tell you about it. If he wants you to explain something, so he can achieve what he wants, fine! I think mummies are really for doing fun stuff with, and for allowing fun things to happen, however the children interpret that. So put that shiny workbook firmly back on the shelf beside the others.

I'm going to sound all Happy Families now. In the dim and distant at home, my children painted, glued-and-sticked, made cardboard creations from cereal boxes, made playdough with me in a variety of colours and then played with it, cooked and baked stuff and ate it...you get the picture. When they were a bit older they wanted to learn knitting, sawing, yes and sewing, making bigger and more challenging creations. I assisted by giving them the things they needed and offering help when asked (or, in the case of the sewing, arranging for Granny to visit.) They made up dances to their favourite songs, wrote out the lyrics and moves, and constructed concert schedules for which Granny and Grandad, when available, and I were the ticket buyers, audience and critics etc etc They also liked to read, do sums and asked me to give them quizzes. When they were older they made quizzes for each other and developed complicated paperwork for imaginary clubs they invented. They wrote their own stories, books and magazines. At that stage, I mainly just listened and admired when required. All this was on their own terms and not dictated by me. We went to the library, the swimming pool and the park, sometimes ourselves, sometimes with friends, played football, learned to roller skate, ride bikes and skateboards....

The things I've described cost little or no money, but they were certainly valuable. The fact that I now have four well-balanced and bright young adults who say they remember those holidays fondly and will probably eventually do the same with their own kids is probably proof enough. And of course they were learning Maths and Spelling as well as a whole host of other things, in a "need to know" way - their need, no-one else's.

I'm almost certain that if our holiday activities had been a structured diet of Teach Your Child Maths and Practise Your Spelling, mixed with extended sessions at the Easter Sport Academy and the Revision Club, my children would be no brighter, and a lot less well balanced.

I loved the holidays and looked on them as an opportunity to spend time doing things we all enjoyed. At the heart of it all was the fact that I enjoyed being with my children....

Ch-ch-changes

And I'm quite proud of this!

Music lessons

I've attended 2 concerts this week which made me proud. Both involved my younger son, in his classical music persona, and I was of course immensely proud of his efforts in both. He played cello in the orchestral one, and sang in the choral other.

But I am also proud to be part of a teaching service that enables young people to come together in such a positive and creative way. The standard achieved by the youngsters was outstanding in both contexts. This could not have been achieved without the corresponding quality of teaching staff who instruct technically and inspire aspiration beyond the expectations of all. In particular the music staff at Peebles High School deserve much praise and respect for what they have achieved there over the past 10 years.

I hope also that what we achieve in Music in the Primary sector gives pupils an enthusiasm and basic knowledge that they can take forward to their larger cohort at Secondary School for the inspiring teachers there to build on.

When in Rome...

This term the children in my class have been enjoying most areas of the curriculum taught through our topic (Ancient Romans). It's been great to see their motivation through active learning and the links they are making naturally. Their ideas and conversations have been illuminating. ACE in action!

Last week we were asked to provide some of our jotters for ongoing audit - specifically our writing and topic jotters. As a lot of our learning has been active, the children have not done a great deal of formal writing about their work, though more will naturally emerge as we gain more background knowledge to use. When I said I had no "topic jotter" to hand in, I was met with surprise by my line manager. In their "writing" jotter the children have imagined themselves to be Roman soldiers at Housesteads fort, researching and giving themselves appropriate Roman names and then written home to their families about life in Northern Britain. Lots have included Latin words they have picked up, and all have at least some pertinent detail and some conventional features of a letter.

But in my classroom and elsewhere you would easily find evidence of all four capacities:

• Roman Villas in the process of being made, in groups (SL, EC)
  
• wooden catapults in the process of being designed and made individually (thanks to the excellent PGDE student I've had) (SL, EC, CI)
  
• a Wikispace all have now contributed to, some from home, and ongoing (SL EC, CI, RC)
  
• pictures on our school website of our informative visit to the Roman camp at Trimontium and the museum in Melrose (thanks to the vastly knowledgeable curator) (SL, RC, CI)
  
• labelled legionaries made by the children, and beautifully (thanks to my CA) displayed on the wall (SL, EC)
  
• cartoon strips the children made of the Romulus and Remus story (SL)
• Roman sums in their "maths" jotters (SL)
  
• photos that one pupil brought back from her half term holiday looking at Roman sites that we all so enjoyed seeing on the whiteboard and hearing about from that well-informed pupil (EC, CI)
  
• children who have already been to the NMS Early People Gallery with their parents and can tell you about some links between Romans and Celts (SL, CI)
  
• lists of talents from round the necks of the slaves at the slave market that we held (SL, CI, RC)
  
• fabulous gladiuses (should that be gladii?) and scabbards that a few have finished designing and making (SL, CI )
  
• some Roman artwork produced by the children under their own steam (SL, CI, EC)
  
• some books brought in by the children with post-its at interesting pages, showing they have actually read what's in there. (SL, CI, EC)
  

In a couple of weeks time, we'll have had a Roman baths afternoon, where we'll use olive oil on our hands and do the whole room to room business, and a Roman feast for which we'll have taken turns to grind some stuff in a pestle and mortar; we'll have learned more Latin and made more connections with our language. We'll carry out fair testing of our catapults; we'll make coins; dress up; find out more about Roman beliefs; do more Roman Maths; and later, visit the NMS Early People gallery and experience the artefacts there. We will do lots of writing on the way but it probably won't be in a project jotter, though I may offer children this as an additional option if they want.

And it's not just about keeping them occupied. If you talked to the children you'd be in no doubt that this has been an exciting and memorable topic for them and that their learning from it has extended well beyond the People in the Past Learning Outcomes of 5-14. You can already identify challenge and enjoyment, depth, breadth, progression, personalisation and choice, coherence and relevance and we are only half way through.

And yet, my jotters were handed back with a raised eyebrow.

In my generous moments, I can sympathise because my line manager is in a difficult situation - she can probably not now tick the "satisfactory" box for the topic jotters from P4. But in my professional moments I worry about future assessments of my work as a teacher. I am confident that these children have experienced wonderful opportunities in all areas of ACE, their learning, achievement and attainment have progressed in lots of areas and they are in the process of becoming aware of how they are doing it, but they have not written about all of it in a project jotter, so no tick for P4 and me :-(

Hmm. Back to the reality of the 21st Century with a bump.