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 Simon Mills reports on the experience of taking his Year 5 class to It's About InterActive Learning
Teyfant Community School in Hartcliffe is about seven miles from the university, on an estate built in the post-war housing boom of the 1950s. The school is large with over 450 pupils aged from 3 - 11. The estate, built on the edge of the city on the lower slopes of the Mendip Hills, now suffers from many areas of deprivation which are being addressed through various government funded programmes and initiatives. The school population is constantly in flux. On average 30% of a year group can change during a key Stage.
Our students bring to school with them experiences from diverse social backgrounds, many of which still see education as a process which is "done to them". A very high proportion of our students enter school with significant learning delays, emotional and social difficulties and very low self esteem. Ofsted commented that the main form of communication in our Foundation stage is "grunts". The development of speaking and listening remains a high priority.
As a fully inclusive school Teyfant finds a huge range of needs in our classrooms. For example in a typical key stage 2 classrooms attainment ranges can stretch from children "working towards level 1" to students working well above the nationally expected average for their age. The behavioural and social needs of our students are also a constant factor in planning for learning. Holidays and even weekends can have a major impact upon individual children's behaviour patterns and their ability to socially interact.
There are many rewards from teaching at Teyfant. I have worked there for 15 years. But it can be an exhausting and high stress experience. In the community there is a lack of esteem for educational opportunity. We have been battling for years against the local phrase "normal for Hartcliffe". The local Heads now talk about the "poverty of aspirations" which as a cluster of schools we face. We are committed to raising the aspirations of our students and their parents. As a staff we constantly celebrate the small steps of our children in order to lay the foundations on which to build theirs and our achievements. So the opportunity to take part in It's About InterActive Learning was not to be missed.
The group I brought to the event were by then in Year 5 and I was no longer their classroom teacher. We had worked together when they were in Year 4 on my first mathematics design initiative. They knew that I had been writing about them and that what we had been involved in was called "research". They had received postcards from my "teacher", Professor Sutherland, when she had used video from our classroom at conferences. At the beginning of their Year 5, as part of a literacy unit, they explored research strategies and decided that I was someone they could interview about how you go about it, and why anyone would want to do it.
It seemed only fair that as major contributors to the research and to my learning they should have the chance to see what had been done with the work we had done together, and the video that had been taken.
There was a great deal of excitement about visiting the mysterious place that I had spent so much time talking about. We were also going to see what other children had been doing, and meet people who spent a lot of time on this thing called research.
 I was initially worried that they might be over awed by the occasion; I had planned a lesson, working with Excel in a way that was new to them. How would they react to this? It was nearly six months since we had "reasoned together". How would being "on show" affect the way they worked? I think I was more nervous than they were, but they quickly set me at ease. There they were, established in their corner of the Great Hall of the Wills Building, a magnificent cathedral of academia, and for them it was business as usual, they belonged there. They engaged with the activity, ignoring the hive of activity around them. Visitors came and visitors went; they interacted with them as if they did this kind of thing every day.
Pride doesn't express the feelings that watching them in this environment evoked for me. The highlight for me was the sense of celebrity they gained. I watched them giving interviews to the press, explaining what they had been doing, and why or whether they enjoyed using ICT as part of the mathematical experience they had in school. They were honest and open about the fact that, yeah, they liked using the computer, but they wouldn't like it if they had to use it all the time. But, they said, they did like talking about what they were doing, it helped them understand, and make sense of things. I was not surprised at the level of self confidence shown by the group. What was unexpected was the matter-of-fact and "professional" way they dealt with the attention they were getting.
After a short break for refreshments in another room, we returned to the Great Hall. Unexpectedly, one of the keynote speeches was still being delivered. Unprompted, the children entered the hall quietly and respectfully, and their consideration was acknowledged by the speaker.
I am often still surprised by the things that my students do. But what keeps me motivated and engaged is how the young people I work with manage constantly to challenge the perceptions of others who often have fixed and negative images of our neighbourhood - based on no personal experience.
The journey back to school was great; the children talked about the visit. What did they think of the University? The "place" was huge, and very old; they still hadn't seen my classroom, though had been interested to meet my teacher. It was not at all what they had expected; they thought it would be like the local secondary school, or look like the college at the end of the road. What had they enjoyed? They had definitely enjoyed the attention, and being able to explain what they were doing, and they talked about what they had said to the reporters, and other interested adults. The music making computer they had played with was great too; they wanted to know if we could get that stuff for our computers at school. There had been loads going on, and they had been a little put out that they hadn't had a chance to have a go on everything.
Would they like to go back again? Did any of them think they might like to go to university when they were older? Several of the students said they would really like to go there again and wanted to know if they had to wait until they were older. During lessons in school I often say things like, "This idea will be really useful in life outside of school" and "If you go to university you will use this for? "
Going to university when I first began teaching was never on the agenda for most of the young people I worked with. Opportunities like the Interactive event, and the university's widening participation programme are bringing these ideas closer to home. For the children who took part in It's About InterActive Learning a window opened on a world that even though it is only 7 miles from where they live, was, and is still to some, a mysterious galaxy in a universe far far away.
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