I can still remember to this day having some of the most fun I ever had at school learning about topic!
In 2010 our Topic was the World cup ! This was such an amazing topic and something a totally football daft me absolutely loved ! I remember writing a news paper report about the new stadiums in south africa and of course, the vuvuzela and whether or not they should be banned in stadiums.
My teacher obviously noticed how engaged the class were with this topic and so began to relate a large majority of our class lessons to the world cup. I remember playing football in PE and being given the role of captain of Ghana, I felt a real sense of pride (I was 10 okay this was a BIG deal, even if it was just pretend!). I remember being genuinely excited to participate in activities that if they were stand alone lessons I would not of enjoyed. For example art was not my strong point and still to this day is something I struggle with. However we held a world cup fare in the gym hall and we sold many of the arts and crafts we made in class to parents and guardians of pupils at our school. I remember working so hard on making a book mark with the Ghana flag on it (and i mean working hard I practiced this flag for ages to make it the best I possibly could to be sold at this fare). It was such an amazing topic and our teacher really took advantage of the classes engagement and created World Cup math challenges for us to do that were related to the work we were doing in class (very sneaky I know!).
We started this topic near the end of the school year as the world cup started on the 11th of June 2010. It was an amazing topic and will be something that I will never forget!
Our learning about the world cup in P6 really led on nicely to our Topic in P7…….Brazil
This year for me was one of the most memorable as it was the first time I was ever taught by a male teacher (and what a teacher he was!) . Mr Findlay was such an amazing teacher he was fun, he was funny, he was fair and he cared about us as individuals. I remember him gathering us around the carpet and telling us that he had heard wonderful things about our topic work last year and said he knew that the world cup was going to take place in Brazil in 2014. He said that Brazil was notorious for football and totally had me engaged from the offing. I remember Mr Findlay allowing me to demonstrate my football skills to the class that I had learnt at FDS (A brazilian soccer school).
A lot of our class work was related to brazil which was brilliant! It was such an interesting topic and allowed us to explore many curricular areas. We spoke about the amazon rainforest (Enviromental science), we learnt about football and volleyball in gym (Physical Education), We wrote report as about the amazon rainforest and discussed the monument in Rio as well as creating our own art work for our wall display. This led to one of my proudest Primary School memories……
On the final day of our topic the Head Teacher came into class and picked a piece of art on our wall display to get a prize. I had only two pieces of art up on the wall and did not expect to win but I did! The Head teacher said she loved my picutre of the beach and could see that I worked really hard on it. I actually won a Brazil football t shirt and I was so happy I wore it too football training that night!
I really enjoy teaching children about topic as I feel it adds context for their learning. In addition to this it also engages them as they do not always realise until you highlight it to them that they are learning about for example maths or comprehensive skills. I think it is a great way to engage children and positively impacts their learning experiences at schools. I hope someday that I can ensure that pupils have a positive experience in their topic learning (and learning in general) as I was really lucky to have such a positive topic learning experience when I was at school.
