(Above) Pupils from Scotts Primary School at the Museum of London. All photos © Rachel Hayward/Culture24
Culture24 Learners and Teachers' Editor Rachel Hayward went along to Scotts Primary School's KS1 Great Fire of London session with Paul Clifford, E-Learning Officer at the Museum of London. Scroll on down to view Paul in action on YouTube.
Key stage1 Museum of London session: Make group videos all about the Great Fire of London
Introduction and setting up the video making activity
"How do you know so much about the Great Fire of London - were you there?" (Paul Clifford)
To refresh the children's knowledge about the details of the Great Fire of London and show them that the story of the Fire has been pieced together from original source material and artefacts, Paul began the session with the Museum's Great Fire of London film interspersed with a fun question and answer activity:
"How do we know so much about the Great Fire of London?"
"Was anyone there?"
"Were you there? Were your teachers?"
"Did someone tell your teachers? How do your teachers know?"
(Above) Paul shows the children a wig to start a conversation on key figures involved in the story of the Great Fire of London.
Various Great Fire related artefacts were on the tables for pupils to look at, touch and talk about:
"A bucket - what's inside it?" (Answer: tar)
"Tar makes it…?" elicited an eager chorus of "Waterproof!"
Having artefacts in front of them and being able to touch them, and in some cases try on, made the children think more closely about their function and design - ie the helmet's long back protected your neck from the heat and falling debris.
Paul then introduced the children to the gadgets the pupils would be using in making their videos about the Great Fire of London: PSPs and Disgo video cameras and Moviemaker software. He took them through the dos and don'ts of making a video.
(Below) The pupils making their video films in the Museum of London
Technology making a difference to learning
Once in the museum, the pupils were able to take charge of their task and I saw lots of confident interviews taking place on camera. I was impressed by the way the technology facilitated genuine engagement with the museum artefacts. No-one was telling the pupils what to say; they were reading information for understanding for themselves and obviously enjoyed trying to get across their appreciation of what they saw across on film.
Back in the new, state-of-the-art Clore Education Centre, pupils were able to view their efforts with the Movie Maker software and then edit their work back at school.
View Paul Clifford's Great Fire video making session at the Museum of London with Scotts Primary School on YouTube:
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Paul Clifford, the Museum of London and Scotts Primary School for allowing me to cover the session.
