In primary seven I was in a class of P.5-7 pupils as my school was very small, with just nine of us in my class of P.7!
We completed many different topics and projects over my time at primary school – some being whole school topics and some just class based. One topic in particular stands out for me and has stuck with me and that is a topic about movies and actors/actresses. We researched different movie types and eras as well as looking at famous actors and their biographies and learned about the Oscars. The name of the topic was The V.I.B (Very Important Bear) instead of VIP (Very Important Person). The bear – which the teacher brought in to class and named Buddy – was the main object of the topic. Each pupil took it in turns to take him home for a night and was asked to do different activities with him and take photos for evidence. Thinking back to this now, I think it would have been a more suitable activity for early year pupils as when I was in P.7 I felt as though it was rather childish. However, it was still a nice idea.
The main aim and outcome of the topic was to be able to make our own movie. The class teacher divided us into random groups so that we were working with peers that we wouldn’t necessarily choose to be grouped with. Even though at the time I wasn’t completely happy with my group, by the end of the topic my confidence in working with people out with my friendship group had increased as well as my ability to work well in a team. I was given the role as team leader and so my job was to ensure that each group member had their own job after we had written the script for our mini movie. There was a range of different jobs – set design, costume design, music director, camera man etc.
The rule of our films was that us as pupils were not to be in the film – it had to star Buddy the bear as the main character alongside different toys which we all had to bring from home including other teddy bears, dolls and barbies.
After yesterday’s introduction to Developing Effectiveness in Learning and Teaching and looking at Interdisciplinary Learning, I can see now that the concept of IDL was brought into this topic as we had to use and link a lot of different skills together to be able to produce the end result – computing skills, art and design and literacy skills were included alongside others.
To finish off our topic, we had an Oscar’s event in the school where our family came to watch our films and we were asked to dress for the part in fancy dresses and suits. By doing this we felt the part and experienced a glimpse of what is involved in the Oscars and what it might be like. This is why this learning experience was memorable for me as we got to act it out for ourselves instead of solely being taught the information. Also, being able to make our own films let us experience and appreciate all the work that goes into film making, all the different people involved and all the types of jobs undertaken as well as being very enjoyable!
