Anti-Bullying Campaign in French

The following film was made by year 12 students studying French at Fortimere School to highlight the effects of bullying and was influenced by the french style of film-making with melancholic scenes in soft focus and personal narratives:



Another interesting film was made by students at Stoke Newington High School (Media & Science specialisms) using an interesting combination of puppetry and play with depth of field:

Film School (INK Ideas)

In July 2010, students from Year 10 (current year 11) took part in a project to shoot a film in a day. Over three weeks of preparation they planned and scripted their short film "Icarus", which was then filmed using professional equipment. The film was premiered on 29th January 2011 at the Curzon cinema, Mayfair and is documented here as part of INK Ideas.

Year 4 'Linking Words, Linking Places' Project

This 4-day thinking project began as a borough wide Literacy project from the LINCCS group (Camden based, now defunkt) in 2010 and the only input we had was the slightly cryptic statement: "Linking Words, Linking Places". I discussed this with my Year 4's - some of whom had already begun to develop more lateral thinking skills. We agreed not to respond literally to the brief - the work that followed aimed to take advantage of the broadness of the remit.

In a single week, through four 60-90 minute lessons we:

• Established that we could interpret 'Linking Places' as subjective memories - places in time
• Shared stories and memories and the language that we associate with them
• Explored language - and how words signify 'things'
• Developed and recorded a formal response to the brief

After the first session I realised that although we were supposed to be rehearsing some work for performance, by far the most fascinating aspect was the process. When I presented unusual linguistic ideas - e.g. George Perec's book A Void - children were not only showing a surprising depth of understanding but they were all highly stimulated and engaged - at different levels they were exploring, and becoming curious about language itself, in isolation and in its typical context.
The video came about by accident - although I do use video frequently. I asked the children if they wanted to perform their pieces live or show a video 'journey' . They chose the latter; although the final 4 minutes is essentially what we would have performed live.
I would like to do more work in which creativity is central to learning...curriculum permitting.

Year 4 hope you enjoy their video,

gx

Animation summary of Ken Robinson's speech at RSA

Have a look at this great method of explaining key concepts using animation involving a speech by Ken Robinson:



Here are a few more animated concepts commissioned by the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA):

Surprising Truth about Motivation



21st Century Enlightenment

Thomas Tallis School is a specialist Arts status college in Kidbrooke, South East London, and made the decision to set up YouTube throughout the school. They have set up a profile called Tallis Tube, where videos from all departments can be posted. I particularly like this video, which shows how mobiles might be used in lessons such as biology to explain processes - although this student needs to be taught how to hold the camera still...

It is inspiring to see a school prepared to adopt the use of web 2.0 applications so enthusiastically and, in particular at a Senior Management level. At Thomas Tallis college, Jon Nicholls, the Assistant Head who has been at the forefront of pushing the school towards the use of popular open-source applications such as Flickr and YouTube. Click here to visit his school blog. I would very much like to invite him over to discuss how he sees the role of learning communities support creativity.