Why try ‘Looking for Change?’ – a Teacher’s Perspective
Hannah Perkins, Teacher at Charles Dickens Primary School, London
I am a year 3/4 teacher at Charles Dickens Primary School, an inner city London school located in
Borough about 5 minutes walk from Tate Modern. We hold creative teaching and learning at the heart of our curriculum believing that by submersing children in topics through the arts, our children remain engaged and excited in their learning and therefore succeed in developing their full potentials in all areas of the curriculum. However, as much as we believe in the methods that we use, we are constantly looking for new and exciting ways to further develop our teaching practices.
When taking on the challenge to use the Looking for Change resource in my teaching, I was unsure of the impact of the work or how it was going to differ from our usual teaching methods. However, I began to realise that the methods were going to support my pupils’ ability to start talking and discussing their ideas, offering a safe opportunity to develop stories about art that were always going to be valued. I also realised that, as the children had to use the evidence in front of them to support opinions and ideas that they had, they were developing this cross-curricular skill essential for success within the modern world.
Session 1 – In school
We introduced our term’s topic, Ancient Egypt, using images of the pyramids and animals found in Egypt. We read information texts about Ancient Egypt, watched films, and began to sketch some of the things that we saw.
Session 2 – At Tate Modern
As a class we talked about specific paintings/ sculptures within the gallery. The children sketched what they saw and then wrote words/ sentences around the images, expressing what they felt the art showed. These stories were then shared amongst the class and developed as the children enhanced each other’s ideas. We also used an object feely bag to develop language and children’s ability to see what was around them.
Sessions 3 – 6 In school
Children were shown an Ancient Egyptian picture of a mummy surrounded by symbols of the belongings that were buried with them. The children began to talk about what the objects and symbols told us about the figure in the painting.
They decided on symbols that would represent themselves and sketched these in their books. We then looked at the way that Ancient Egyptian people were drawn using the schema. Through highlighting the rules needed to draw the Egyptian schema, the children drew themselves using these rules, surrounding themselves with the previously chosen symbols.
Session 7 – At Tate Modern
This visit to the gallery, the children felt more experienced at talking about the art, and as the teacher I felt happier that the purpose of the visit could be determined by the children’s responses. We split into smaller groups and let the children self-guide the visit, stopping at work that they found of particular interest. Whilst the teacher and TA facilitated the conversation through questions developing the children’s ideas, it was the children who led the discussion and tour.
Session 8 – In school
This was the final part of the project. The children completed their drawings of their own schemas and symbols.
Post Project
Having taken part in Looking for Change and seen the benefits that it brought to the children, we decided to use the same method of exploration during a trip to the Ancient Egyptian gallery at the British Museum. The children were immediately engaged with the historical artefacts, and were confident to apply their understanding of Ancient Egypt to telling the stories of the mummies that surrounded them.
It is clear that the skills that the children learnt through this project, as well as the skills I learnt as their teacher, will continue to be used into the future of our learning journey.