PICL

St Michael’s CE (VC) First School has a large number of boys in Year One and was looking at ways to encourage creative writing and hit on the idea of it going hand in hand with a building project.

The Weavers Lane school developed the ‘homes in our location’ idea as part of its participation in Creative Partnerships’ Enquiry Schools programme and has been able to incorporate other elements of the curriculum such as design and technology.

Children researched how people lived in the area in days gone by and in other cultures as part of their project to build three different structures including a summer house, an igloo and a house that people in Brazil live in.

Head teacher Mary Gale said that 40 of its 60 intake of Year One pupils were boys and the school wanted to develop a learning strategy which reflected this. 

“As a school we are constantly looking at ways to engage our children and give them the best possible learning experiences,” she said. “With such a large influx of boys in one year group we wanted to inspire them with a project that they would all want to write about.

“They have had the hands-on element of working with professionals to build the houses and then had a series of different writing exercises to complement this.”

“The pupils have written about housing, the construction of it, how people used to live in olden times and their experiences of building the three houses. They have also been writing letters to the family of one of the artists working on the project who has relatives in Brazil."