Introduction to guide and Setting
Topic: London Imperial War Museum – World War 2
Creativity in education allows students to learn in a better way. It helps their interests in education grow to deep levels. Primary levels education for Key stage 1 pupils is designed as per National curriculum (Hallam 2009). Their teaching program is designed to help pupils accomplish basic levels of skills in varied core and natural subjects. The scope of this study is based on a visit to Imperial Museum London. Theme setting for children is done for World War II, where pupils will learn regarding English as the core subject and other three subjects taught will be Arts & Design, history and Geography. KS1 pupils are aged between 5 and 7 years old during infancy of first primary years.
London Imperial War Museum is a British national museum located at four branches. Pupils of KS1 will be taken to IWM Duxford Cambridgeshire branch. The museum has record of military and civil war sacrifice during the period of World War. The museums contains a large amount of materials including documents, sounds, films, arts, scriptures and many more, from where pupils can learn from. Further details regarding the museum can be obtained at their website https://www.iwm.org.uk/. It will not only provide outside class opportunity for learning but will give a social learning atmosphere (Shaheen 2010). Pupils will be made to focus on cross-curriculum approach to develop in-depth skills regarding certain topics from selected subjects. The museum has collection of a number of items from War history, which can motivate young learners easily from their on-field experience. Children will be taken to the museum, briefed regarding various facts and factors they can see. While back at school they will be given charts and flash cards for completing questions related to core subject and three other subjects (Tutchell 2014).
Pupils at the age they enter KS1 levels are often board by classroom settings and discussions. Taking them to Imperial War Museum can provide them with immense learning opportunities with proper guidance. Teachers can value add to museum visits through rich learning and social experiences. Field trips to museums can provide rich educational and learning experience connected to classroom curriculum improving student motivation, change in setting of routine providing student enjoyment or providing new experiences (Compton 2011). Students of KS1 after museum visits is bound to be more enthusiast towards learning History, Geography or Art & Design. With follow-up activities more positive activities can be expressed from pupils rather than in classroom settings. Field trips can provide long-sustaining cognitive learning impacts in all subjects. For this filed trip English vocabulary has been focused on. In the domain of History, all World War impacts that have changed London has been analysed. In Geography knowledge of various places where the War took place will be discussed (Dobbins 2009). In Art & Design pupils will be expected to draw art forms that they visualize from the museum.
Critical Discussion
National Curriculum in England is a framework for key stages 1 to 4 that defines full program of study along with attainment targets (Lytton 2012). It is issued by the law and forms statutory, which has to be followed by schools. All local-authority maintained schools has to follow these programs of study. It was introduced in the year September 2014, with English and math being included from September 2016.
Creativity in primary level subjects encourage pupils to learn through their subjects. Raise questions accordingly and motivate them to take interest to carry activities. Creativity can be done by various efforts by teachers to converge practical field into subjects to create interests amongst students.
Thematic approach in learning to the curriculum is an innovative method of education and developing pupils with complex needs (Craft 2014). The principle focus of this approach is unique and requires to be individualized such that they are capable of meeting challenges of twenty first century. The benefit from this approach includes catering to individual capabilities of pupils that are unique in nature. Creation of an individual learning path by a multi-disciplinary approach in an integrated method for fulfilling education needs. Thematic approach helps pupils learn in 5 distinct areas of learning communication as cognition, independence, physical & motor, creative & expressive and emotional literacy. Limitations of thematic approach includes dilution of focus in learning. It also requires immense amounts of time, which often is unavailable with teachers.
Cross-curriculum skills of communication using of English can be developed by means of which young people access knowledge. Teachers are responsible for development of these skills by emphasis on transferring and applying of these skills throughout school curriculum (Runco 2008). Schools will then report annually regarding each pupil’s progress with Levels of Progression. Communication in English will be developed using cross-curriculum approach by means of learning new words. Communications skills in History can be developed using cross-curriculum skills of various incidents happening at various times in the past. Relative to geography, it will take place in the form of communicating various names of places. In Art & Design they will be typically communicated through various drawings and forms.
Teacher’s guide in KS1 levels includes administering the level as well as prepare according to test administration guidance (TAG). Teacher’s needs to plan for tests by finalizing on key dates, receive test materials also sample tests, administration, moderating, assessing and reporting tests as per framework provided.
Learning opportunity overview/introduction
Early learning amongst children has discussed various opportunities for children to learn in museums. Museums can provide large number of learning materials and source from where children can easily pick up by visualization of facts and hearing regarding certain occurrences (Csikszentmihalyi 2014). These exposures cannot be provided in enclosed classroom environment. Teachers can make use of various methods or equipment to enhance such learning experiences that are given to children. It can help provoke imagination amongst children of the subject matter. Spending quality time at the museum can be a rich experience of learning regarding the unknown world. Children cannot be exposed regarding the impact of world War, which is the present theme in a better way compared to when they directly experience it themselves by facts and figures.
Week 1 Activities
Post-visit activities task for pupils
Pupils will be given post-visit tasks for each and every topic. Teacher’s will aim at engaging pupil’s mind in recalling those activities such that they can learn faster. One pupil will be asked to memorize a particular period and then one by one from class can come up. In this way of fun playing pupils will be able to associate names of their classmates with certain period of activities that took place in the past.
In Geography, there can be various activities designed for students that can help engage them in a better. Teacher can provide a map of a cross-sectional portion of the world, where World War took place and then ask student to recollect names of places. Learning new names of countries in this manner will be made easy by visiting the museum.
For Art & Design, there will be various activities designed for pupils. Visiting museum and seeing arts in live forms can affect memory and motivate children to reproduce such forms on their own. They will be able to re-create easily by such art forms.
On-site activities for students will primarily include asking them to take notes of various arts and sculptures that they see around them. Apart from noting activities, they will be asked to take pictures in case they are carrying cameras. They will be spending a day at the museum hence they can draw certain art forms and other sculptures as well. Some of the photographs that were taken during the visit.
Figure 2: A photograph taken at the Museum
The below photograph was taken by a class pupil. The picture was taken during the entry to the museum. The picture relates to cross-curriculum approach using Geography. Pupils will be asked to communicate in class using this picture and then tell the name of the place or location.
Week 1 Activities
A small workshop before progressing on any field trip is necessary to provide a brief introduction to the overall trip. This trip is aimed at motivating students towards their curriculum such that they are able to grow interests (Newton 2012). A cross-curriculum approach will be adopted for the purpose of this trip as History is mostly the primary topic of focus, but knowledge of English, Art & Design and Geography will be developed through it.
Before taking the pupils on a field-trip, knowledge of English vocabulary and comprehension will be developed. Pupils will be provided with a number of comprehensions that they will be asked to complete before visiting the museum. Question and Answers of varied nature will be provided to them for answering comprehension passages.
In History, pupils will be given knowledge on wars that took place that revolutionized England (Craft 2008). Impacts on England after the war will be provided and asked to be analysed by students, but they will not gain much interests in history. The teacher will focus on developing their motivation and interests in history from their visit to the museum. After visiting museums they will be asked to answer specific questions regarding war and their impacts.
For Geography, students will be provided a map of England where various locations will be highlighted. Pupils will be given a rough understanding regarding locations and ways to understand where various places are (London 2009).
Overview of week 1 activities
For Arts & Design classes often there is difficulty in motivating pupils to draw from their imaginations. Tutor will provide various life forms to draw from, before visiting the museum. Life forms as flower vase, blackboard, flowers, fruit baskets will be asked to be drawn.
Overview of the visit
The visit will be highly interesting for pupils as they will be engaged across multiple activities. Before the visit, at the time of the visit and post retuning from the visit, they will be engaged in various recall activities. Pupils will be visiting the museum for the first time, hence they will be motivated and feel highly interested in these activities.
Overview of week 2 activities
The day of the field trip is crucial as students will be provided with a magnitude of information. All those information in one day can be difficult to assimilate all at once, hence pupils will be highly encouraged to take down notes in their copies that is for the field trip. While the teacher will be taking the pupils slowly through various parts of the museum, they will allowed to halt at places, take notes, pictures and other details they want to take. They might even want to take photographs of draw certain pictures they like (Glauert 2013). Teachers will ask specifically students to focus on various materials from war that have been kept at the museum to take notes regarding them. Back at school students will be provided with flashcards of pictures of those items, from where they need to do vocabulary practice.
Post-visit activities task for pupils
The museum will provide large number of items from which students can learn new words as aero-plane, bi-cycle, automobile and many more discoveries that took place during the World War. The below photograph was taken by a class pupil. The picture gained his attention as he liked airplanes, the picture captivated his interests. The picture relates to cross-curriculum approach using history.
Figure 1: A photograph taken at the Museum
Like the above pictures, other pictures and flashcards will be given to pupils for them to learn new words or vocabulary. Collections at the Imperial War Museum Duxford is immense, specially there is a section for aircrafts. There are documents, arts, sculptures, paintings, films, exhibits and sound. Pupils can be also shown films from where they can pick up new vocabulary that teacher can make flashcards back at school. For each vocab, pupils will be asked to connect to core theme of the visit, which is World War II. The below photograph was taken by the teacher. The picture can be used as a flash card in class activity. The picture relates to cross-curriculum approach using English.
Pupils will be engaged in post-visit activities task for the week 2 as well. They will not only recall but also reproduce some of their learning’s from activities.
During on-site activities for pupils, they will be shown various art forms and sculptures, thereafter they can be asked questions from there.
Before visiting the museum, pupils will be briefed regarding various whereabouts and details regarding the war museum.
While following-up of activities, pupils will mainly be asked questions and thereafter have discussions in class. Pupils will be asked to speak during the class reagrding their visit, which will help increase their vocabulory. Some photographs that were taken by students. The below photograph was taken by a class pupil. The picture gained his attention as he was amazed by the different war machineries. The picture relates to cross-curriculum approach using English.
Figure 4: A photograph taken at the Museum
The below photograph was taken by the teacher. The picture has various vehicles that used to exists in the past. The picture relates to cross-curriculum approach using Art & Design.
Figure 5: A photograph taken at the Museum
The below photograph was taken by a class pupil. The picture gained his attention as he liked the figures very much. The picture relates to cross-curriculum approach using history.
For teaching history, there are a number of activities that can be done using sounds and films or documents collected. With role play in class, teacher can depict in a fun manner ways how each development during World War period progressed. For each period description, KS1 pupils will be asked to connect them to the theme of World War II.
Geography class can be made highly interesting by memory activities, where each pupil will be asked to relate an incidence to a certain place. With over 3,000 collection of art in that period, students can learn in their class many new names of countries from where war generated.
Art & Design classes will be impacted in a great motivational manner. Students, who were not motivated to draw will be asked to select any art or sculpture from World War II period and then draw them.
Travel Information: Visiting the Imperial World War museum can provide a thrilling learning experience for pupils. However, there are certain travel preparations that needs to be done before visiting to provide overview regarding the visit. All children will visit the museum from school in school arranged busses.
Tour: Proper travel arrangement to cover any first-aid risks will need to be ensured. Preparing beforehand the travel will give a safe and secure experience as small children are involved in this scenario (Newton 2010). Staff: Along with class teacher, additional teachers who do not have classes and attendants will be accompanying students.
Website risk assessment: There are various equipment and machineries kept at the museum hence proper care has to taken such that children do not harm themselves. A first-aid box will be carried along such that it can provide any medical attention required during the trip with small children. All emergency numbers has to be kept handy such that it can be used at any time during the field trip.
Eating Space: A snack arrangement will be prepared and taken from school to attend to any pupil in case hungry. Children will be taken to cafeteria in museum for refreshments.
Storage of bags: Pupils will be asked to carry minimum amount of language and sports shoes, which can help them move around swiftly (Whitebread 2015). Some pupils will be carrying camera along with their regular bag packs, those will also be allowed. In case someone wants to carry handy cameras, inexpensive ones that do not have risks from getting lost can be carried along the field trip. All pupils will be asked to carry a small note book and pencils to note down any points mentioned by the teacher during the trip. Water bottles and any other necessary items will be checked before starting on the trip.
Key Vocabulary: Museum, war, airplane, tankers, heroes and so on.
Note sent home to parents: Pupils and parents of theirs will be briefed prior to taking them on a field trip to Imperial World War Museum. Permission will be sought and proper arrangement for snacks will be asked to be provided to students. After completion of the trip, all pupils will return to the school from where they will be dispersed (Rawat 2012).
For the purpose of developing a course curriculum based on cross-curriculum understanding a wide range of books, internet sources will be consulted. Key resources will be internet as maximum information regarding the museum can be obtained from there. Other books will help gain in-depth knowledge of ways to develop curriculum in an interesting manner.
References
Compton, A.K.J., 2011. The interplay between creativity and assessment in initial teacher education (Doctoral dissertation, University of Leicester).
Craft, A.N.N.A., 2008. Creativity and early years settings. Developing reflective practice in the early years, pp.93-107.
Craft, A., Cremin, T., Hay, P. and Clack, J., 2014. Creative primary schools: developing and maintaining pedagogy for creativity. Ethnography and Education, 9(1), pp.16-34.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Wolfe, R., 2014. New conceptions and research approaches to creativity: Implications of a systems perspective for creativity in education. In The systems model of creativity (pp. 161-184). Springer Netherlands.
Dobbins, K., 2009. Teacher creativity within the current education system: a case study of the perceptions of primary teachers. Education 3–13, 37(2), pp.95-104.
Glauert, E. and Manches, A., 2013. Creative little scientists: Enabling creativity through science and mathematics in preschool and first years of primary education. D2. 2. Conceptual framework.
Hallam, S., Burnard, P., Robertson, A., Saleh, C., Davies, V., Rogers, L. and Kokatsaki, D., 2009. Trainee primary-school teachers’ perceptions of their effectiveness in teaching music. Music Education Research, 11(2), pp.221-240.
Imperial War Museum. London, 2009. Imperial War Museum North. Trustees of the Imperial War Museum.
Lytton, H., 2012. Creativity and education. Routledge.
Newton, D.P., 2010. Assessing the creativity of scientific explanations in elementary science: an insider–outsider view of intuitive assessment in the hypothesis space. Research in Science & Technological Education, 28(3), pp.187-201.
Newton, D., Donkin, H., Kokotsaki, D. and Newton, L., 2012. Creativity in art and music (pp. 62-79). London, UK: Routledge.
Rawat, K.J., Qazi, W. and Hamid, S., 2012. Creativity and education. Academic Research International, 2(2), p.264.
Runco, M.A., 2008. Creativity and education. New Horizons in Education, 56(1), p.n1
Shaheen, R., 2010. Creativity and Education. Online Submission, 1(3), pp.166-169.
Tutchell, S., 2014. Young Children as Artists: Art and Design in the Early Years and Key Stage 1. Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Whitebread, D. and Coltman, P. eds., 2015. Teaching and learning in the early years. Routledge.
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