Day 2: Planning and preparing for our first school visit

In preparation for our first school visit, we met as a team to plan for half a day in school in which we intended to introduce the project and complete designs. We also needed to gather information about learner’s prior experience and capabilities within computing or similar software (to crumble) and assigned Dave to this task. We worked well as a team by identifying our current skill sets and assigning roles in order to ensure we had all bases covered.

As part of my role, I created a PowerPoint presentation (A day at the fairground-11hbtad) with example videos, learning objectives and success criteria to ensure smooth running. The plan included opportunities for a talk for learning approach within a social constructivist setting with consideration for a variety of learning needs and preferences. The learning objective and success criteria recognise the importance of identifying learner progression within both DT and Computing and they are as follows:

Furthermore, due to time constraints we carried out the intended work in order to provide the children with examples of what it was we were expecting. The intention was to provide all learners with the necessary scaffolding needed to all meet the objectives and get the most out of the project. Our A3 thought shower contains an inspiration picture, annotated design and materials list and is evidenced below:

I also composed this email to the school in preparation for our visit:

My name is Daniel Griffin and I am writing to you on behalf of David, Alex and myself. We wanted to introduce ourselves and provide you with details of our visit before Thursday.

The project will involve children designing and creating a fairground ride (such as the one attached) using motors and lights controlled by computer software they will write the code for.

On Thursday afternoon, we would like to spend 45 minutes in each class introducing the project and gathering ideas in groups.

By the end of the session, we would like groups to have completed an A3 thought shower using an inspiration picture with a labelled diagram showing the design of their fairground ride, a materials list and some consideration of circuits and lights.

We are scheduled to return to the school on Monday 15^th May to spend half a day with each class making their rides.

In preparation for the session we kindly ask you to:

• Let us know if you have capability to display a powerpoint presentation from a USB stick;
• Let us know school rules regarding taking photos and videos during our sessions;
• Provide us with information regarding any pupils with specific needs including those learning English as an additional language;
• Organise your class into mixed attainment groups of 3 (one or two groups of four is fine).

I hope this is all clear. If you have any questions please get in touch via email.

We are aware of how precious time is during SATS year and would like to thank you very much for the opportunity to work with the students at Sacred Heart Primary School.

We look forward to meeting you on Thursday 27^th April at 1pm.