The Stimulating Learning Environment

-

It is a huge belief and passion of mine that the learning environment should be dynamic and exciting for students to learn in. Since re-joining the staff at Sandringham I have endeavoured to create interesting and exciting displays that above all are inspiring. This September I have taken stock of what I have managed to produce recently and am making plans to create more displays for the department over the next academic year. 


Popular posts from this blog

Blue Hearts for the NHS

-
Image
A project to say thank you with a visual collage from as many students as possible. Sandringham Students across all year groups joined together to create an artwork honouring and thanking our heroes in the NHS. I organised this in collaboration with both the Design Technology and the Visual Art Faculties, The project was organised as a starter activity in lessons. Students were asked to make a heart to thank the NHS. The only rule was that it was to be blue, but they were encouraged to use a wide range of materials and tools, which included traditional fine art techniques, photography, CAD, lego, textiles, digital methods and even snow. All of us involved were very impressed with the variety of designs submitted, and the passion from the students. It was so touching to see how much they wanted to thank NHS workers and our frontline heroes. For some students it was much closer to home with a family member on the front line they really wanted to thank. I delivered some A3 laminated print...
Read more

STEM week

-
Image
 A small STEM week due to lockdown timing This year's STEM week at Sandringham School was smaller than it would have been due to it coinciding with the return to school after the second school closure of the year. I took a lead on planning the DT lessons for year 7&8 and liasing with the overall project lead. It was a shame we could not implement some of our whole school ideas but I look forward to next year!  Using padlet to create a competitive gallery This year's theme was biodiversity.  In DT students were asked to choose from 3 design briefs to  competitive design section of the lesson. The DT lessons were all tied together across the department using padlet. There were 5 simultaneously taught classes for half a year group at a time totaling 20 classes.  When all classes were complete and all students had uploaded their work an overall winner was chosen. The 3 padlets produced were full of work and students were able to see a live gallery and work being...
Read more

3D Virtual Learning Worlds

-
  1.        https://www.thinglink.com/video/1732477096279671652 I am currently reading Jaqueline Wilson's update on the classic The Magic Faraway Tree to my 6 year old daughter Joni. Joni has a vivid imagination and a keen interest in 'words'. One evening last week we started playing on  Midjourney  with her sitting on my knee, to create some of her favourite characters. She told me exactly how she imagined them and we tried various prompt iterations until we got the characters just how she imagined them in her mind's eye. We then entered some of their images into  D-ID  to generate voice. Again, Joni decided which voice suited her favourite characters and we asked  ChatGPT  to help us script their words. She then described how she imagined the enchanted wood to look, with "pink trees", and "sparkly magic", so we picked the best 'descriptive words' she could come up with, and formulated another prompt for  Blockade Labs...
Read more