Research and archive
Interviews with practitioners
First interview | Second interview
Practitioner - Michelle
what part did you like or find interesting and why
I found the training on our inset day very interesting because i think it made us come back to class and start thinking about how to use the workshops differently. The questions that we needed to ask the children were different ... I think that was the best thing to get everybody on board. I found that really really helpful
What unexpected out comes have you observed and what have you learned?
Today with a little boy called Josh. A child who would never engage in anything like that, he was always outside in the garden, doesn’t want to come in and use the workshop or anything and we had the most amazing spectacular work from him today. I told everybody when I came back down ... other people couldn’t believe what he did. And he was the leader with the other children. I was absolutely amazed by that.
Are there any other observations?
Ted one of the ones has realised about the glue and scissors debate and has now started to fixing things together in the workshop and putting holes in things. He’s one of the children who has realised that you just don’t need the glue. We did take the sellotape and the glue after we did the initial training and they did keep asking for it. Actually, going off somewhere else to find it. Ted has moved on from that and is fixing things together.
Another child, Tony and he was with the Compers (?), pushing smaller pompoms in to fix the eyes with. A fish he made or something.
I think you got the children to engage for longer, there was definite evidence for that.
Have you any ideas about how we could do things differently
The session times were good before the kids started to get bored. I liked the idea of taking the groups out of the room and going upstairs as well. They will be looking for other things to do in here. The way you engage with the children , it kept them engaged.
Did you think it was useful to use the thinking hats about the topic or materials?
I do think it is useful. with more training we would use these techniques,. I’d like to do the full 6 hour training and quite a lot of the other staff here would as well.
Any other comments?
Its been absolutely fantastic.