Developing the creative thinking and writing skills of
the Year 7 pupils
During 2007- 08, a secondary
and two primary schools worked together in the
Transition project. For the secondary school this has
involved trying out very different activities in lessons using
resources produced for primary schools, which accompanied a story
as one way of getting some ideas. To make this manageable time wise
and practical for others to replicate the group chose to use the
story and resources for Goldilocks from
the Northumberland site, which is becoming increasingly popular in
primary schools.
The secondary colleague focused on developing the creative
thinking and writing skills of the Year 7 pupils, taking into
account their prior learning in terms of styles, and the aim is to
increasing the independence of pupils. The end products for them
are their own story, challenging them by including certain
knowledge about language which they ordinarily wouldn’t have been
expected to use at this stage in Year 7 such as some perfect tense
use. Also some activities to teach year 6 some of the new
vocabulary in their own stories.
For the primary pupils this has meant having a certain number of
lessons incorporating activities based on the same story, but then
Year 7 pupils will be involved in sharing their own versions of the
story, therefore teaching them new vocabulary. Read more
(doc, 94KB)
Phonics through song and
rhyme
Transition 2007-08. De Ferrers Specialist
Technology College worked closely with six feeder primary
schools, each of whom teaches French. Teachers had varying degrees
of competency in the language and many acknowledge that they would
like to be more secure in their pronunciation. Each primary school
has had input from a Foreign Language assistant, shared with the
host secondary school but is restricted to 6 weeks per year, not
long enough to have a major impact on pronunciation.
At KS3 the teaching of sound patterns were not
very well established and was an area which needed promoting more
explicitly. Students in KS3 know how to pronounce ‘deux’
but struggle with ‘peux’. This drew us to the conclusion
that to focus on phonic sounds in KS2 may impact on transition into
KS3 and help students access both reading and speaking activities
more readily. At a later stage, it may impact upon writing as well.
Read more about this project
(doc, 53KB)