Campsmount Technology College

After visiting Cramlington last academic year I have tried some of the great stuff I saw there in the classroom. I especially liked the idea of students LOVING their work and LIVING through their work in order to LEARN.

I took part in a session looking at some of the work done at Sand Diego’s High Tech High and what the students did there. 

• Students to take pride in their work, love it, and this was done in the form of displays and even galleries for others in school to view.
•  They took part in projects that took inspiration from many subject areas including their own lives, live it.
• They produce some simply outstanding work and most importantly learn it.

I have been trying some of this in the classroom at Campsmount with student in all year groups and have had some great sucess. With students displaying their work in class they take pride and want to do the best possible as it will be on show for others to see, they “love” their work. They use skills from other lessons and their lives, they “live” with their work. This extra energy used and the fact that they enjoy tasks more has had a positive impact on learning and students have indeed got more out of the lessons and they has also had fun whilst learning.

Every child no matter what their ability has produced some great work with me and it has been great to see the enthusiasm of all in the classroom to produce some fantastic work. It may extend tasks and they do take a little longer to complete but the quality of the work and the level of learning has certainly increased.

I have put some pictures below of some Year 7 work and a picture from Year 11.

This video was used in our INSET to stimulate discussion for our learning vision.

The image within our learning vision document (below) encapsulated the thinking around our discussions. We are committed to developing effective 21st Century learners with the skills, qualities, knowledge and qualifications needed to thrive within our ever changing communities.