This school year has been like no other! In fact, we’re starting week eight and I’m pretty sure that this is only my third post for the year so far, very bad by my standards. The goal for the rest of the year will be to put this right and get all the students going with their own blogs.

This week has been the final one of the dreaded NAPLAN testing season. Standardised testing seems to be something that many governments like to establish and we are certainly no exception to that. However, with this over and (fingers crossed) much of our technology up and running we may see a tiny iota of normality returning to LA1 – whatever “normal” actually is.

Yes, I know, I say this a LOT, but it seems even worse this year. I just can’t get a grip on the way time slips easily from our grasp and disappears before our eyes. It’s week 5 and this is only the second time I’ve managed to post this term. Partly, though, I’ve had a good excuse – we’ve been very busy! The students have had to go through the usual start of year testing, on top of all the usual work we’ve been getting through. We’ve started a novel study (Mr Stink by David Walliams) and gotten to grips with a whole new suite of techy apps (this needed a big password overhall too). We’ve been working through our HASS studies on democracy and have begun our Indonesian language work. Maths is going well and the students had a mini excursion to the car park to check out rotational symmetry on the teachers’ wheels (and I forgot to take the photos I was going to post here). All in all it’s been a crazy rush, but I think we may nearly be ready to see a little normality appearing over the horizon – if there is such a thing.

“Who was that masked superhero we just saw?” Well, they’re not exactly superheroes but the new students in LA1 will certainly soon be masked. As part of our online safety learning the students have been busy making masks to cover their identity. This doesn’t mean that they won’t be showing their faces online, of course they will, but the masks are a visual symbol, a message of intent that they will be keeping their full identities safe and private. We’re still at the begining of our 2023 journey and we haven’t yet begun our blogs, but creating the masks is our first step before the students finally go “live” in a few weeks. Check out the three masks below.

2023 is here with a new set of students and, strangely for me, a whole new year group. For quite a few years I’ve been working with fabulous year 6 students, but this year I’ve been given a year 5 class. Apart from the obvious adjustments that I’ll have to make to my usual teaching (not to mention the different curriculum), the blogs will also have to undergo a total rethink. I’m not quite yet sure whether I’ll be using blogs with the whole class, but I’ll certainly be carrying on with my class posts. A new year, new students, new year group and lots of exciting new challenges – 2023 is already promising to be very interesting.

Time just flies, doesn’t it? Our year has now come down to just a handful of days, very soon the students of 2022 will walk out of the gates for their final time. This particular group of students have been a real pleasure, they’ve saved my sanity a number of times (tested it on a few occasions too) with their humour, kindness, smiles and friendships. This has been a tough year, personally, and the classroom has been my “safe place”, my retreat from the many many pressures that this complex and demanding job too frequently subjects teachers to. Teachers may tell you, the students are the reason we do what we do and the rewards we receive from being with them each feeds us with energy and purpose. Regardless of the constant pressures, once we step through the door we remember why we do the job we chose, and it’s that feeling that ensures we keep returning. On 15th December, the students will leave LA1 for the final time, but I’m sure they won’t be forgotten.

For a moment the scene resembled something quite dramatic and sinister, bodies were lying on the ground throughout the library. These bodies, though, were clearly not injured, in fact the only thing they were suffering from were fits of giggles. First aid training can be a little confronting at times, but our presenter was fabulous and she did a great job ensuring the students felt at ease with the whole process. We learnt plenty of new skills and information, although these are the types of skills that will need to be refreshed every once in a while; I found that I’d learnt some new things that I’d either forgotten or never knew in the first place. The students went through their role plays and were able to demonstrate their new knowledge, I only hope they never have to use it.

Take a word like door. Just an everyday kind of word, one we wouldn’t give a second thought to. However, that simple word could be the basis for a world of dreams and adventure, drama and romance, thrills and tragedy. In LA1 we’ve been working all year to develop engaging openings to our writing, particularly with regards to our narrative writing. For example, let’s get back to the word door: This was the moment her life could change forever, she just had to open the door. What door? Where is she? Is it a real or metaphorical door – we MUST read on! such is the power of being able to turn a bland, everyday word into an engaging story starter.

For this task you need to use the word door to create 3 different and engaging story starters. Try changing the genre of the story (thriller, horror, comedy, romance…) and give different feelings to your sentences.

This may be controversial but hear me out. All nations strive to be the best in their education systems, after all, it’s only natural that we want the best for our children and the best for us as a nation moving forward. But what if we’ve got it all wrong? Many nations, such as Australia, USA, UK, Korea… put a lot of weight into their testing processes and even create league tables for the results. A school is generally believed to be doing well if its test results are good. However, none of these countries sit at the top of the table; the nation which is believed to have the very best education system is Finland – and they have NO standardised tests! In fact, Finland only has a single test, and this is voluntary, at the end of high school. So, why are we testing? Are we testing our teaching or have we become nations which teach kids to pass a test? I only bring this up because the students are currently undergoing two whole weeks of testing, so make sure you check in with them to see how they’re going and that they’re not too stressed out by what appears to be a very important process.

Hollywood here we come!

Anyone as old as me (very old) will recall the old stop-motion special effects in movies such as Jason and the Argonauts by the legendary Ray Harryhausen. As a kid, these movies were thrilling, state-of-the-art masterpieces that wowed audiences and had us mesmerised. Following these early great movies came the likes of Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit, still created using the “old”, hands-on process, handling and moving the modelling clay in slow, step by step movements to create a smooth animation. The kids of today are probably more familiar with animations created digitally such as the Toy Story movies, amongst many others by the Pixar studios. This term, as part of our design and technology learning area, the students of LA 14 have begun work on their own stop motion animations; they’ve made the plans, created storyboards and have made the characters, now all they have to do is begin filming. Who knows, we may yet have another Ray Harryhausen or Nick Park just waiting to take the movie world by storm. Watch this space!

It’s great to watch our children having fun with their games and belongings (“toys” sounds a little inappropriate), but once the fun’s over the serious work of persuading them to tidy up begins. This is a side of play that has a serious side to it and can be a positive learning experience for youngsters. Once LA1 had finished using the Meccano sets (see the previous post, “STEAM Power”), they became responsible for accounting for all their pieces and ensuring that the next group of students would have an opportunity to use a full and complete set. Accountability and responsibility are very important life lessons, as is making sure you are doing something for the benefit of others. The students had to sift through all their pieces, arrange them and count them against the parts list in their sets. The students did a great job and appear to have not lost a single part; bear this in mind next time they claim it’s too difficult to tidy up and check they haven’t lost anything.