Animation Gives Pupils ‘A Buzz’

The City Learning Centre held an animation workshop at Royd Nursery and Infants in summer 2004 and the school were so impressed with what they saw they they bought the Digital Blue cameras to use within the school. Being part of the Shared Learning Network, Royd invited Pipworth Nursery and Owler Brook into the school for a further animation workshop, which saw the City Learning Centre train over 50 school staff.

Benefits

Years 1 and 2 have been incorporating the equipment into many subjects, including Speaking and Listening, Design Technology, Art and Music. Using different mediums to make the animation such as twigs, sticks, play people, play dough and plasticine, the children have been focusing on animations about Journeys, Celebration and Paddington Bear.

Headteacher Margaret Lee reports a fantastic response from the children. “The children have found the animation absolutely wonderful. They are really inspired by it. It has enhanced teaching and learning throughout the school as it gives the pupils a buzz. They have to work collaboratively together which has improved their personal and social skills and it also gives them incredible self-esteem that they can make their own animations.”

Outcomes

Margaret was so impressed by the pupils’ reaction that the school now holds an animation week for the whole school once a term and the children are given CDs of their work.

“The fact that the pupils have evidence in a film that they can take home is marvellous,” said Margaret, “The films have also been shown to the Chair of Governors and the Curriculum Sub Committee and they are all amazed by what the children have done. Overall it has been a total success.”

The school is planning to focus on animations in Science next Spring.

Learn New Computer Skills

Teachers and support staff from our partner schools celebrated this term after successfully completing their European Computer Driving Licence and Desk Top Publishing courses.

Assistant Manager, Julia Codman, said, “These qualifications will help support the school staff in their job roles. Teachers and teaching assistants can use ICT for many tasks including preparing work for lessons and more generally to help embed ICT into the curriculum.

“These skills will also enhance support staff’s administrative work. They have learnt design and computer skills which will help them to be creative when designing posters and newsletters for the school and hopefully it will save time doing routine tasks, for example, sending out letters to all parents.”

Don’t get ‘left behind’

Teachers from Nook Lane, Marcliffe, Shooters Grove and Hillsborough primaries attended the courses.

Barbara Palmer from internal resources at Nook Lane said, “I felt I was being left behind with computer software, although when I first started the course I did not think I would be able to do it. But the tutors were fantastic and now I am hooked.”

Jill Roberts, a teacher at the same school, agrees. “I did not want to stand in front of a class of Year 5s who knew more about computers than I did. You don’t realise how under confident you are until you do a course like this and see the difference it makes to you.”

Sue Crookes from Marcliffe School, said, “I was caught in between, I was too young to ignore computers, but too old to have had the training in school that children now receive.”

Anyone interested in the computer courses for school staff should contact Julia on 0114 285 5586.

Showcase for Parents

Deepcar St Johns held a showcase for parents of all the work the City Learning Centre have been involved with at the school. The Centre has worked on numerous projects within the school over the past year including Animations, Movies and Kar2ouche.

Year 3 used Digital Blue cameras to create animations for their RE topic on the story of Zachaeus. They completed a storyboard, made models and filmed the animation. The Centre then showed them how to edit it to make the final film.

Year 4 also used the Digital Blue cameras to make a movie on Dreams. They created the storyboard and filmed and edited it themselves at school using the project box supplied by the Centre.

Achieved Learning Objectives

Year 3 also used Kar2ouche for their Literacy topic on the Hare and the Tortoise, creating a story board. Taking it a step further the English B group wrote a fictional story about ‘out of space’ and used Kar2ouche to make the storyboard.

ICT coordinator Hannah Jackson found that the projects enhanced the children’s learning. “It was brilliant, the children were really switched on to it. For literacy especially, the pupils who normally have trouble found it so much easier using Kar2ouche as they remembered it more and all managed to achieve their learning objectives.”

Hannah also found it enhanced teaching. “From a teachers point of view it made it easier as with Kar2ouche you have the work there, you don’t have to keep re-marking it as you just mark the end product. The pupils can also improve their work as they go along, editing it, instead of having to keep starting again.”

Hannah reported that the pupils responded well to the projects. “Their concentration was superb, they were very focused and extremely motivated. They just want to do it again and again!”

The parents were impressed seeing the children’s work presented to them at the showcase, especially as the children explained to parents and other children what they had been doing so parents saw first hand how their skills were being developed.

Hannah hopes that by next year the school will have their own animation equipment and Kar2ouche software. “At the moment we have mainly worked with Years 3 and 4. It would be great to extend the projects across the whole school giving all pupils an equal share.”

New Face

Sarah Peacock joins the City Learning Centre as Curriculum Development Officer. Sarah will support specific curriculum development projects in partner schools, working with teaching staff and pupils to incorporate innovative and motivating ICT into teaching and learning.

Sarah previously worked as a primary school teacher (KS2) as well as ICT coordinator for adult training organisations – working with both women and refugees.

She has a technical background, having managed computer networks, as well as a background in teaching and training. Sarah has also run a UK Online Centre.

Sarah said, “I have been working on a number of projects within primary schools including training pupils at Deepcar St John’s in making short films using Digital Blue cameras and training schools in the new LEA email and calendaring service. I will also be delivering twilight training in advanced techniques in using Kar2ouche.”

Expert Advice

Our assistant manager Julia Codman, and Sheffield South City Learning Centre manager Andy Wynne, have been asked to work as Internet Safety experts on BECTA’s website. Teachers from all over the country can email questions to Julia and Andy for advice on the issue.

Over the past two years, Julia has conducted intensive research into how children use the Internet and also ran Internet Safety workshops for pupils,parents. and teachers in our partner schools, so she certainly is an expert on the topic.

ACTIV Primary Twilight training

ICT primary consultant Andrew Bush has trained over 160 primary teachers in ACTIV primary over the past year. It has been so successful that the twilight training will be running again. We hope that by next year all primary teachers in our partnership will have been trained. Courses are getting full so call the centre for more information.

Interested in partnering with your City Learning Centre?

If you would like to get involved with any of the exciting projects at the City Learning Centre over the next 12 months, please contact Alex Jones or Julia Codman on 0114 285 5586 or email