Film Club

I have always been interested in the use of visual literacy to help with learning. So this year as part of my Performance Management I took the plunge and started a Film Club. I made contact with Into Film and joined the school up. This is a great site that enabled me to order films for the club at no cost and gave us ideas and we could review the films as we went along.

I sent out an invitation to the Year 4 children to see what the interest would be. I had hoped that certain children who I felt would benefit would want to come along but that with the exception of one or two did not happen.

We started with 'The Labyrinth' and as I had not seen this film before it was very enjoyable and rather apt as David Bowie was in the film and also wrote the music.

As I had a small group we were able to have interesting conversations about the ideas presented in the film but I was aware that this was supposed to be an after school club and not another English lesson.

We also watched 'Greyfriar's Bobby' which was an older version than the one I knew enabling us to have conversations about how things have changed and the use of animals in film.

Our last film 'Danny the Champion of the World' enabled us to have a more in depth conversation about characterisation.

The children's reading made progress in this time but it would be wrong to say this was down to the Film Club but I think it could be credited with a very minor role in their progress.

Next year, although I would like to continue to run the club, I found running an After School Club quite time consuming so I will see how the year goes. I would like to open it up to Year 3 and Year 4. Maybe after Christmas?



September 2017

Primary Literacy Conference Notes

Ramblings of a Literacy Coordinator

·       Angus Rides the Goods Train – lovely picture book

·       Children need books read to them (Warden House Story Time)

·       Children should have the opportunity just to write whatever they want

·       Helicopter Training can be used for story writing – act out then write it then carry on acting, writing etc

·       Great things can be done with Lego ( I am trying to get the lady who did this workshop to come and do a Staff Meeting)

·       Creativity Week using one text for the whole school –‘Snow White in New York’ by Fiona French. If we wanted to do this I have loads of ideas.

Some thoughts from the author Cliff Mc Nish

·       How to craft a story – 5 point plan

1.     Where do you want your main character to be? Write down other possible characters.

2.     What problem does your character have? What other problems could he have?

3.     What problems could your other characters have?

4.     Add sympathy

5.     Conflict and good things that could happen

·       Four stories we can write –

1.     Overcoming the monster

2.     Dreams come true

3.     Loss of something important

4.     Character transformation

JPG