Creative Communities Project
We
have recently taken part in a very exciting project with Y6 children. At Hartlepool
Museum, pupils learned how to catalogue artefacts and looked at the various
exhibits which trace the history of Hartlepool. Children brough in their own
items to make a class museum. The highlight of the project however was working
with our author in residence, poet Andy Croft.
We had a lot of fun learning about rhyme with Andy and also wrote two plays. One was about the bombardment of Hartlepool in World War 1, and the other about the evacuation of children in World War 2. We cast children in the parts of the characters and made scenery.
We were excited when Creative Communities sent a professional video company to film our plays. We then presented the plays on the opening night at Hartlepool Art Gallery and the video was shown daily to the public in the gallery, for the whole summer. It was a very proud time for our school.
Children in costume outside Hartlepool Art Gallery
Working with Chris Connaughton
Y6 and some Y5's took part in a project about Charles Dickens with the actor and writer Chris Connaughton. Chris came to school dressed as Charles Dickens and took on the role of Dickens as he was thinking about characters and the plot of his book "Nicholas Nickleby". We asked him questions as Charles Dickens and then did a lot of writing of our own.
We spent the another day at Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle where we learned about the Bowes Family and looked at the wonderful exhibits.
Chris also took on the role of a Victorian schoolmaster and taught us about life at school in Nicholas Nickleby's days. Chris then came to school for another day and we presented our writing to an audience. Chris is coming to our school again and we are looking forward to his visit.