I decided to volunteer for this experience as I wanted to explore working with different age groups. I volunteered for 3 days, which allowed me to attend 5 different sessions with 3 different age groups. These session began with the children being asked to sit in a 'brain pod' to come up with a group story but because David anticipated a lot of ideas, he would then implement a voting system, so the child's idea that got the most votes would win. I would type up the story as the children was saying it so that they could see there story becoming a reality. Once the story had been given a cliffhanger they would then have to continue the story on their own. It would then be printed and put into their own books, that they then take home with them.
My first session was on Tuesday 23rd April. It was a complete shock in how much I enjoyed it, it was with Year 4 children and they were so enthusiastic and imaginative that this new experience was enjoyable. The teachers that came with this group of children sat back and allowed David, me and the other volunteers to take over the lesson, they did join in with the individual story writing later on in the session. There was 24 students and they all wanted to get involved, however, there was one disruptive student that was easily distracted and could easily distract others. I found it hard keeping this students focus and because I spent my time focusing this student, I lost my focus with the other children on my table. The student did eventually end up with a story but it was short. If a child in my workshop that I will do for DACA behaved in this manner, I would regain their focus by constantly questioning them and keeping them involved with the task at hand and if this was not possible and the child carried on being disruptive, I would ask the child to be removed from the table/class.
I found my second session to be disappointing. As my first session was so enjoyable, the second session fell short of my expectations. This group of children were a Year 6 class and I felt they lacked enthusiasm and imagination, there were 27 students and not all got involved. I would argue that the age difference between both sessions was evident, Year 6 were more focused on their hand-writing, presentation and spelling. The teachers from this session were a lot more involved and I think this hindered the classes imagination as they focused more on restricting and sticking to what the teachers had previously taught them. This time, all the volunteers decided to stick to one table instead of moving around, it felt more personal and I felt more helpful. With the class being half an hour late, meaning the time-constraints had to be changed, I was relieved it went okay. No matter how many test runs there were, elements could still go wrong, I will need to prepare every obstacle that could go wrong for my workshop.
My Wednesday afternoon session was with a class of Year 5 children and I was intrigued to see how they bridged the gap I thought was missing between Year 4 and Year 6. Even though they had enthusiasm and imagination, the children were still more focused on presentation, hand-writing and spelling and grammar. This class wanted to draw their individual stories, I think this is because the illustrator (Daisy) did such a good job, she inspired them to do their own drawings. Once again I had a disruptive student sat on my table, he found it hard to put pen to paper but the ideas were there, I resolved this by constantly referring him to write down what he just told me but he kept telling me new ideas without turning them into a story. In the end, he ended up with a very short story in which Wayne Rooney was a prominent character. The complete table did talk through their ideas a lot which mean't that there stories were short but they did impress me by asking whether they could finish their stories at home in their own book!
Thursday's morning session was with another Year 4 class that had 24 students. Normally I would type up the story the children make up whilst being in the 'brain pod' but this time around, I got involved with the ideas process and voting for ideas. Through this process, I found the students to be restless, they fidgeted, wanted to go back to the tables, asking for a break or the toilet and some children began speaking over David. Some children treated the voting system as a competition and got annoyed when their ideas was not pick, I had to constantly remind them that they could use those ideas later on in their individual stories. I sat on a table with 4 children and the girl sat next to me had difficulty starting off, but with a little encouragement she got writing, she ended up producing a 3-paged dark horror. I found that the children talking about their ideas at the table mean't the children began to copy one another's stories. To get around this I suggested that they read out there own stories 5 minutes before David stopped the task at the end, this seemed to work.
The afternoon session was the shortest class I had with only 23 students. It was another Year 4 class and in the 'brain pod' they seemed restless as well, they also turned the voting system into a competition, some got angry and upset when there ideas was not chosen. I had to remind them it was a group and collaborative idea that will then be concluded individually. The full table struggled to focus on there own work, they were easily distracted and were constantly arguing over the rubber, in the end I had to confiscate the rubber and remind them to focus on the story and not the presentation of it. A child on my table got upset because another child was elbowing him, firstly I moved the child away from him but the child elbowing still continued to be a distraction so he was removed to another table. I found myself strict in this session, it was also my most challenging one but once the children finished off there stories, I felt a sense of achievement.
All of the children were impressed with their book and it gave them the incentive to create a good story. Overall, I enjoyed and appreciated this experience and would love to do it again.
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