Hello everyone!

Posted by in Time

Here in England we are three weeks into our work on ‘Time’.

Classes have been paired (older children with younger children) to work together on different themes.  Our classes are all named after different places in Northumberland where our school, The Dales is, in the north of England.

Our Creative Projects ‘What’s in the Box?’ and ‘Carnival’ both showed the positive outcomes of working together (along with the challenges!)

Now the development of our Creative Curriculum is moving on, with 2 important changes:

  1. We have introduced a half- termly, whole school planning meeting, where ideas and skills can be shared.  Teachers will then be responsible for collating this information onto the Medium Term Plan.
  2. We have moved from thinking in terms of ‘projects’ to half-termly themes. These will include creative coverage across the curriculum, working to engage all of our children and to involve them in the planning process thereby giving them a sense of ownership of their learning.  STEAM will be included as part of this.

Time teams are:

Blyth/Newbiggin:  Stop and Go

Bedlington/Seahouses:  Clocks and Watches

Blagdon/Amble:  Time Travel 

Druridge/Hexham:  Keeping Time

Cresswell/Wallington: Time Machines

Each team will decide how often they work together and what outcomes they would like to achieve.  In the past, we have found lots of opportunities for Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

On Creative Curriculum Sharing Day (Thursday 8th Feb) we will invite families, Governors and members of the community to visit an exhibition of our work around the theme of Time.

Our biggest challenge so far has been the English WEATHER!    Snow meant that one trip to ‘Mr George’s Museum of Time’ had to be cancelled.

Other classes have visited and had a fantastic time exploring the museum.  There were many things to see and do and to inspire work back at school.

The children also visited an old railway station where they looked at timetables, made their own tickets and explored.  Good fun and learning was had by all!

The ‘Stop and Go’ team started with a party to get to know each other.  They played ‘stop and go’ games such as Musical Bumps, Pass the Parcel and Races.  Yesterday they enjoyed a train ride to a place called Morpeth where they saw a big clock tower.  Back at school they made ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ clocks and mice.  They sequenced the journey they had made.

Hexham and Druridge classes have been working with a dancer from ‘Dance City’ as part of thier work about ‘Keeping Time’.

We are excited to see how the work on ‘Time’ develops!

Tick Tock!