Discovering Poetic Licence and the Ability to Fly. a Journey

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Discovering Poetic Licence and the ability to fly.A journey towards E –Maturity.Using Blogs as a way to allow children autonomy over their learner journey and atool to find and communicate their voice with in a supportive learning community.The Narration of a Learning Journey.The Abstract:

This piece of work you are about to read serves as a narration through one projectconducted with a year two class. The project’s focus looked at how we, as teachers, canmove more towards the role of facilitators, allowing the children to have autonomy over their learner journey. Throughout the study narration clips, images and views have been used toboth exemplify ideas and thoughts that I might not clearly articulate and to serve as anaccompanying visual narration of what actually happened, illustrating the ideas andpedagogies with real pieces of learning.If as adults we believe that sustained thinking, possibility thinking, questioning andinteracting with the world are key skills that ultimately allow children to become greatlearners, shouldn’t we allow for some part the children the opportunity of have completeautonomy over what they study? This would include autonomy over how they apply anddisplay their understanding; how they use the skills that we model and directly teach andhow they develop, rehearse and revise such learning with our facilitation rather thandirection. Leading ultimately to a point in their journey where they are both confident indeveloping the skills they have learnt and in using them to innovate, create and publishtheir learning to a supportive audience.This discussion will initially revolve around the Project: The Gearies Poetry Researchers.Hopefully offering examples of the Learner Journey, observations on how children,exploiting the potentials provided by technology, can move from being a directed learner toindependent enquirer.This project was designed to challenge positively school policy makers and curriculumleaders. The project allowed children to investigate an area of learning that they viewed asvaluable.The project aimed to discover if two things are possible:1. Can children in Key stage One effectively research and understand their own learning journeys?2. Will those adults making the most important decisions in schools listen to and act on theimplications draw out from child initiated and conducted research?Fortunately for The Gearies Poetry Researchers, Gearies Infants School holds suchcreative risks in high esteem, with the child central to its ethos.

In a nutshell, can we as adults scaffold a research process that allows children tounveil possible answers to the questions we may try to solve on there behalf?

At this point I feel it would be helpful to set the project into the context of our school. Sohere is a quick portrait of Gearies Infants

The Context.About us:

Gearies is a larger than average sized school. The overwhelming majority of the pupils areof minority ethnic background and three quarters of learners are new to English or arebilingual. There is a steady increase of eastern European families and refugees. The takeup of free school meals is lower than the national average, as is the number of pupils whohave identified special needs. The school has achieved the Artsmark gold, Healthy Schoolsaward (they gained a special teaching award for the quality of this), Investors in People andthe Eco-School green flag award.Gearies Infant school serves a multi-cultural community. This is reflected in the school'scurriculum, resources and displays. It is important that every child is treated with equalityand respect. Learning is fun and exciting. Everyone is encouraged to share this outlook. Itis important that the school is a happy place for everyone to work in. Success in learning istaken just as seriously. All of the children are helped and encouraged to achieve their fullpotential in every aspect of the school curriculum. Through early success and praise, it ishoped that children will become enthusiastic life long learners. The whole of the school'scommunity strives to achieve our aims and work together to raise standards.

The beginning of the journey.

My father in law is an architect, and he shared with me a confession that the most stressful,most terrifying part of his work is the beginning, looking at a blank sheet of bright paper andthinking, now I need to create, become inventive. This recollection is one that I discoveredat the beginning of this journey. Here is my idea, but how does it evolve into a reality. So,for you the reader I have tried to identify the key factors that helped me establish thebeginning of the journey, what needed to be done so that the journey could begin. I havefurther supported the quite literal points list with a personal reflection. I hope this helps.

Action undertaken to initiate the project.

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Researching into children’s research-looking at the work of Mary Kellet and theChildren’s Research Centre/Institute.

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Devising a scaffold or framework to adapt ideas of children conducting their ownresearch into a KS1 reality.

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Having a control group to explore if the framework/scaffold will work and besustainable: Gearies Poetry Researchers.

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Sharing this with year group team and school. Inset, teachers as experts.

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Sharing this with other schools.

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Using blogs as a way of sharing the work further, advisory teams, other ASTcolleagues and parents.

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Building into my practice a sustainable approach to this work.

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Allowing time for reflection.

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Reviewing successes and failures.

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Approaching other schools to share practice.

A reflective commentary on this action

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My first steps were to familiarise myself with the concept of research, its conduction andethics. Using the work of Mary Kellet as a blue print to my plans, I took time to adapt thismainly KS2 initiative into a flexible KS1 scaffold. Creating my own adapted researchpathway/guiding structure that was intended to ensure that once I had completed the projectother practitioners would be ale to pick up the model and conduct similar projectsthemselves, sustaining the project and its anticipated benefits. This work I feel was verysuccessful and I now believe that I have constructed a draft model that with further reflection and revision would serve as a resource tool that other practitioners could use as ascript to support their own initiation of such a project.The next stage in this project was the establishment of the Gearies Poetry Researchers,researching into the effects of increased exposure to poetry and its impact on children’swriting attainment.

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