Earth Day 2015
Earth Day 2015
September was a hectic month in the calendar of Seely Primary and Nursery school, the children started their new classes, there were new teachers and new routines to get used to and at the end of September Seely held its first annual Earth Day. This was a two day event aimed at introducing children to some exciting geography topics which are relevant to our lives but are not taught on the Primary National Curriculum. Learning and creativity were high on the agenda as prizes and trophies were at stake – this was serious business.
In addition to introducing new and interesting topics Earth Day is also an excellent opportunity for the children to take part in democratic decision making, working in groups, expressing themselves creatively and teaching others. The idea was that for two days we would use our lesson time to broaden our geographical understanding and decide how we wanted to present this to a mixed assembly of children from different years across the school. We were then given time to rehearse before delivering our knowledge in a five minute slot during an assembly in the afternoon of the second day. This may sound like a tall order but the children seized this learning opportunity with both hands and produced some amazing work.
The two days were broken down into sections to make it easier for the children to fulfil their learning goals in a less formally structured environment. Earth day began with class teachers delivering interactive and fun lessons on a geographically pertinent subject. These included issues such as fracking, drilling for oil, wind turbines, the melting of the Polar ice caps and humans’ impact on the environment. The children then decided what the main points of their learning were and what they wanted others to remember from their five minute slot. They then decided what medium they wanted to use to convey this message. The rest of the afternoon and the following morning was spent preparing scripts, practicing lines, rehearsing dances and making models to demonstrate our understanding.
On the afternoon of our Earth Day assembly the Deputy Head teachers, Miss Richardson and Mrs Morely were invited to come and watch our performances and judge which class they thought should receive the geographical understanding award for the correct use of geographically linked vocabulary and a generally strong understanding of the subject that they had been learning about. The children also had a part to play in the awarding of prizes as they had the job of deciding who they gave the most enjoyable performance, which would then be voted for individually in class.
Earth Day was carried out across the entire school with Foundation and Nursery stages sharing their learning together in a special assembly.
WINNERS:
Congratulations to 5L and 6P who won the children’s vote for the most enjoyable performance. Each class received a class certificate and special individual stickers with geographical pictures on emblazoned with Seely’s name on it.
2S and 3H won the awards for geographical understanding and were awarded the geographical trophy which is a star shaped trophy with a geographical scene in the middle.
