St Johns, Totnes. Saturation Week Part 1

This week I have been on placement at St John's Primary in Totnes working with year 6. Throughout the week the university students and the year 6 class has been working together in order to achieve the John Muir award. The award is based on conservation and is split into four sections discover, explore, conserve and share and the children learn about the nature around their school and the importance of conserving it.

Each day we spend the morning observing a different class in the school and in the afternoon we return to year 6 to work on the award.

Monday: Spent the morning with year 4 where they were making shoe box worlds based on stories they wrote before half term (these were inspired by the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe).

At lunch the KS1 children were kept in for wet play. Instead of the usual manic I've found at every-other placement I've been on, at St Johns they put the children in the hall and played Just Dance. Obviously it was not played with everyone having a controller instead the children just spread out and tried to copy the dance moves on the screen, very entertaining to watch and allowed them to get some exercise even though they couldn't go outside.

In the afternoon we met the year 6's that we'd been spending the week with and went out to explore the surrounding woods with them and to see what jobs need to be done by the end of the week.

Tuesday: Morning was spent in year 2. I was surprised as to how well behaved these children are, in the hour I was there, there was not one problem with behavior.

The school has DPA (Designated Physical Activity) where the children go out into the playground between lessons to have a 2 minute run around. This I think is a great idea as it helps to get their blood flowing which helps them to concentrate in their next lesson.

In the afternoon we gathered branches which we used to create hurdles and my group started on our main job which was to put wood chippings down over a boggy area. The hurdle fence making was very interesting to learn and was something a bit different.

More to come...