Lunts Heath

Case study
A Y5 non-fiction placement at
Lunts Heath Primary School, Widnes


Overview

In January and February 2008 I was invited to work with a Y5 class at Lunts Heath Primary School, Widnes. The brief was to work with the children using a non-fiction topic during a series of visits over the course of five weeks. The visits were planned into the children's literacy work, and my role was to offer them methods of improving their written and visual literacy skills through a variety of individual and collaborative (teamwork) tasks.

The topic chosen was 'countries of the world'. The intention was for children to engage with the topic and interact with each other as they were guided through a series of structured non-fiction activities.

Children worked in seven mixed-ability teams of four, (28 children in total), with each team studying a different country. Information books and websites were used as learning resources. Homework was set in preparation for each week's visit. The resulting work was a loose-leaf A4 book from each team, focusing on the country of their choice.

Evidence of work

The following images show some of the work produced by one team of four children (one girl, three boys). Their chosen country was Australia, and the title they gave to their book was G'Day, Australia.

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Evaluation

The following passages are feedback from the teacher whose class I worked with:

"John was extremely well prepared each week and liaised closely with me regarding the medium term and weekly planning. He set the children preparation tasks for each future lesson which became our literacy homework for the week."

"John engaged all the pupils across the ability range and the children looked forward to his arrival each week. He had a very pleasant manner with the children which they responded to."

"As for myself, there has been a subtle shift in my perspective on non-fiction writing. The insight I have gained will be a definite asset in my future planning. I would love to work with John again, and I would most certainly recommend him to other schools."