How’s this for initiative from a class of yr 7&8 students? Faced with the prospect of their teacher going on maternity leave until the end of the year they’ve created their own advertisement to attract the sort of person they’d like to have teaching them in the interim!
Dorothy Burt, teacher at Point England School comments on her blog:
It’s becoming quite common to come across teachers online wistfully writing or tweeting about what they would like to do if they had the ‘right’ conditions to enable them to teach School 2.0 or use Web 2.0 or have whatever form of ideal 21st century classroom they can imagine. They would have motivated and engaged learners, they would have ample technology, fast internet, open firewalls, opportunities to innovate etc etc.
This week I have seen the other side of the coin; students who have experienced and enjoy learning in this way worried about who will be replacing their innovative teacher when she goes on maternity leave and taking matters into their own hands to film their own advertisement for the ensuing vacancy. They went through their usual process of brainstorming, storyboarding, scripting, filming and editing and produced this by themselves. With their permission I have embedded their movie below and if you want to see the full advertisement this link will take you to it…
Inspirational stuff Room 18 students – well done! I hope you get the teacher you deserve.
A bit like the kids in Mary Poppins… Let’s hope they find someone who is Practically Perfect in Every Way…
Thanks very much for reposting their advert. They are a fantastic bunch of kids. We are so pleased that the Web 2 by-line invented by our students in 2005 with KPE, “Let Our Voice be Heard”, has led them to understand that they could have an effective voice in this process. They only need ONE good applicant! It will be very interesting to see if having some feeling of ownership of the application process will lead them to take responsibility for helping the new teacher find his/her feet – because it is never completely easy for a new teacher to walk into a class halfway through their school year 🙂