On Monday I had the pleasure of teaching the Year 4 children at St. Luke’s School in Brighton. With each class we discovered special places and thought about how to protect them for the future, this lead onto exploring the special qualities of the South Downs National Park.
To start we thought about our own individual special places such as the den at the bottom of the garden, a fabulous holiday destination where special memories were made, chilly walks up to the top of Devil’s Dyke and hot summer days on the beach at Seven Sisters.
We then looked at images of scenes from around the National Park and wrote descriptive words to add to the vocabulary washing line to help with the rest of the project. Sorting out the images into the seven special qualities provoked a lot of debate and encouraged the children to think about what they liked too.
Despite the cold we then went outside to play the Facts & Figures running game, the children were really quick to locate all of the information and were keen to ask further questions about new things that they had learnt.
To finish we looked at the users of the National Park and what types of things that they would like and dislike. This will be used to do further classwork on conflicts and resolutions.
This introduction session has sparked off the topic and the children are now taking part in a couple of follow up sessions in the South Downs. First the group are going to visit Saddlescombe Farm to see how farming has shaped the National Park and experience the fabulous views first-hand. They will then be taking part in the Schools Art Exhibition with Towner Gallery, focusing on the building of the National Park and how they have inspired painters such as Ravilious.
I’m looking forward to seeing the work that the children produce and hope that they enjoy making connections with the wonderful landscape.