The Sea Company

REFLECTIONS

2007-05-12T02:23:00.001-07:00

Well, the Sea Company have finished their big commission and has finally wound down. This moment happened to co-incide with our school open evening. As our school is, very sadly, closing down at the end of this academic year, each class had taken on the theme of a decade from the past. As the children have been so consumed by the work of the company, my class decided to choose the Edwardians and set up the whole classroom around the Titanic project. We dressed up as Edwardians, displayed all our research and information about the dive, invited visitors to fill in details on a giant picture of the Titanic, ran videos of salvages and original footage of the ship, set up the computers with the passenger and crew lists and the interactive CD Rom and ran a Titanic quiz. It was great for the parents and other children in the school to see what we have been doing and to take part in the activities.

The children have loved this Mantle. I've loved it too - it's been fascinating, exciting and full of so many possibilities, many of which we never had time to explore. The ultimate tragedy of the story has produced many moments of real poignancy and depth of thought. It's the people that have been the real hook for the children - they've really cared and this has come through time and time again in their spoken thoughts, their pictures and their writing. I'm so thrilled the parents have been so on board and have really seemed to understand and appreciate the nature of this work and what their children have got out of it.

I've learned so much working through this Mantle - it's been a bit of a roller coaster at times but I think I'm getting better at sequencing, thinking through those all important steps to get to a moment, using the conventions and refining my use of language, particularly questioning, to get to the heart of things with my wonderful team of children. They have been amazing - offering me so many gifts and new pathways through the creativity and freedom of their thoughts and ideas.

Thank you also to all the other people who have supported and inspired me along the way: Michael, Dene, Serena, Lisa, Luke, Brian, Tim, Catrin, Emma, Sal, Julia, Emily to name a few!

What next? Well, it looks like the children are raring to set up a health and fitness club - we've come across this poor guy who really needs our help .............

EPISODE 25 THE GREAT TITANIC EXHIBITION

2007-05-12T01:46:00.003-07:00

For this episode we worked in role as the museum staff, organising the exhibition of artefacts from the salvage. We started off by discussing what the exhibition would look like: glass cases containing the artefacts with writeen information about each object; a display about the salvage operation; live interviews with people from the salvage company; videos of the salvage and old footage of the Titanic; a children's area with hands on activities; facilities for disabled people (audio materials for blind people etc). Sombody phoned the salvage company to ask them to prepare display boards about the salvage operation ready for the exhibition.

Advertising: we want people to come from far and wide to this exhibition (it co-incides with the 90th anniversary of the sinking.) We began to plan an advertising campaign, with the team drawing / creating their advertising ideas: posters; TV and radio adverts; internet adverts on related sites; letters to members of the various Titanic societies;hot air balloons and aeroplanes with banners! Lots of great ideas for names for the exhibition 'Hidden Secrets of the Titanic' being the most popular.

At this point we resumed our role as the salvage company, preparing the display boards for the exhibition. The team created photographs with captions, recounts of dramatic moments from the salvage and interviews with members of the team which we stuck onto big display boards ready to send to the museum. While we were doing this we received a letter of thanks from the museum, our payment in full for the salvage and an invitation to the opening ot the exhibition. The letter said that there would also be some sort of presentation to us on the day.

Back at the museum: preparations for the exhibition continue. We planned and made Exhibition guides, giving information and plans showing people the way round the exhibition. We made labels for each of the artefacts to go on display with information about who they belonged to.We then enacted the process of physically setting up the displays, unpacking the artefacts and putting them with their labels into the display cases and placing the display boards around the room. The rest of the museum room was signed by pieces of paper stuck up representing the children's area, entrance area, toilets etc.

The opening day! The class split up into museum staff and salvage company members, with a classroom assistant inrole as the museum curator. I was in role as one of the salvage team, approaching the exhibition full of anticipation. We paused outside the entrance to the museum to say how we were feeling about finally seeing all the artefacts we had salvaged on display. 'Excited - proud - nervous'. We were welcomed to the musuem by the curator and shown round the exhibition by the museum staff. After a while the curator summoned us to a meeting where she thanked us for the great job we'd done and presented us with a plaque.

Back at our HQ in Cromer we put the plaque in pride of place in our newly refurbished reception area and reflected on the whole dive and salvage. The team then began remembering other events from our history - the burglary, the salvage of The Red Flotilla, John Davies ....... I felt things were begining to draw to a natural end. We'd shared some great times together, but maybe it was time to move on ..........

Episode 24- Titanic artefacts restoration

2007-04-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

We need to complete the Museum commission by restoring the researching the objects we have salvaged. We reminded ourselves of the layout of our restoration room (we mapped this out a long time ago), of the equipment in the room and our own restoration kits. we then went to work, carefully restoring the objects, filling in the restoration report forms as we worked. I 'evesdropped' on the restorers, asking about what they were doing / how it was going / what the objects were etc.

We met together at the end to share some of the artefacts we had been restoring. We were particularly interested in a locket with a photo inside that seemed to have 4 diamonds inlaid. The child who had been restoring this could give a clear description of what it looked like, so I began to draw it on the whiteboard. I then asked if she would mind other peole taking a look. She placed the locket on a chair and the others took in in turns to go to the chair, pick it up, sit and look at it carefully and tell the others one thing that they noticed.

The detail that we built up was amazing. One person found a spring that revealed a secret compartmant with another photo inside. Someone else noticed some worn bits of writing engraved into the gold. Somone else thought that the diamonds might not be real. 'I know how to test for real diamonds!' someone said 'you try to cut a piece of glass with them - if it cuts the glass it's a real diamond!'. So he went out with a small team to do tests on the diamonds while we went on discussing the locket. We started speculating on the person who might have owned it. I asked them if they would like to go back in time and meet the person it belonged to and went into role as they asked me questions. I love the way they slip into the conventions so easily now - they're questioning was superb - they wheedled the whole story out of me, however ambigous I tried to be! They would do a superb job as interrogators!!

At this pont the Spring Term was drawing to a close. we had completed our big commission (it had taken two weeksof real time!)/ All that was left was to send the artefacts and reports to the museum and wait for their feedback. We reflected on the whole commission - high points and low points. Had we stuck to our company promises? Had we kept to the rules of the dive? Were we proud of our work? Was there any part of the job we could have done better? The trapped team and the rescue came up as the significant moment of the whole mission. We felt that we should be proud of the fact that we were the sort of people who are willing to risk their own lives to save their friends. 'They would have done the same for us', someone said.

Episode 23 - The big dive!

2007-04-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

Letter from museum received - great excitement! The letter says that we have been granted permission to salvage artefacts from The Titanic that belonged to The White Star Line, but we would have to obtain a special licence to salvage personal items from passengers and crew (obtainable from 'The Titanic Relatives Society.) The museum did say that they would be particularly interested if we could get this licence and would pay us substantially more for the salvage!! They would also like us to restore and research the objects found.

We had a long discussion about this, ending in two opposing factions - those who thought we should just salvage WSL objects and those who thought we should try to get the extra license. We had previously watched a video of one of real scientific expeditions to The Titanic, during which an argument ensued about whether the team should pick up a suitcase found on the sea bed. One of the guys had said 'it's not in our contract - it's not ours to touch!" and the children were fascinated by this - it certainly affected the viewpoints of some of the class who agreed with him. They were also adamant that they were not in it for the money! The other side were not just motivated by greed, however - some of them thought it was important for people to see these things 'it's the most interesting bit' someone said. They also believed that it would be ethically sound as long as the relatives society agreed. Eventually, about 2/3 of the class agreed to write to ask for the licence. I contracted the others into still going ahead with the dive but them being responsible for picking up the WSL stuff - they were happy with this.

The next day we received a letter and licence from 'The Titanic Relatives Society'. They said they thought it was important for people to know about what happened and they were happy for us to salvage personal objects - they also thought they might be able to find out more about their relatives from us.

We could now begin to plan for the dive. We worked together to make a list of what we needed to do to prepare. We also talked about potential dangers - we had seen on the video a minor accident where the sub hit part of the wreckage. The team had immediately decided to return to the surface beacsue of presure on the sub's roof. One of the team had also talked about being trapped 'it would take us about 3 days to freeze to death', he said. I asked, at this point, if there was anyone not willing to face the dangers of the dive. About 6 people weren't so they opted to stay at mission control on the salvage ship during the dive.

At this point someone reminded me that we hadn't done any submersible training - our last few dives have all been free diving. So we decided to run a re-training session. we sorted ourselves into sub teams, each with a driver, a robotic arm worker, a viewer, a photographer and a radio operator. I acted as sub trainer and we watched each sub as I asked them to demonstrate moving round underwater; using the robotic arms; reporting a view seen through the monitor; taking a photograph and reporting back to me via the radio. The rest of the group fed back to each sub team 2 examples of good work and an area to improve on.

Huge engagement here - I was so impressed with the way the teams sorted themselves out with the jobs - I dodn't need to intervene at all - their collaboration was something to be seen today. The feedback worked really well too. They had remembered a previous rule we had worked out together that we don't name individuals who need to improve - just using a generic term e.g. 'some people need to ....'.

At this point the teams had decided there should definitely be some specific rules for this dive as it was pretty special. Each team came up with their own set of rules. I thought it might be a good idea to feep a record of each team's mission so I'd made big sugar paper folders to put all the information about t he dive in. I took photos of each team, posing proudly and they wrote their names and jobs on the folders. They then worked together to draw their subs (They all had unique features!) and all the equipment they would need for the dive. There was a big discussion about where the robotic arms actually placed the salvaged artefacts, so we had various ingeneous inventions including airtight compartments and special boxes attached to the top of the sub.

OK - we were ready for the dive. I wanted to start this soon after register - it just seemed like the most important thing on all our minds so we got on with it staright away. We drew the curtains to make it as dark as possible. The teams positioned themsleves in their subs. The room was hushed. One team worked on the salvage ship, sorting equipment and preparing for the objects that would be brought back up. I was on the radio at mission control receiving messages from each sub and asking questions about what was going on. Suddenly someone reported a dim shape in the distance. It was The Titanic. At this point I froze the action. I asked each sub team to agree on which part of the ship they could see. Some said they were above the main deck, some at the bow of the stern, one team near the mast where the reamins of the crows nest could still be seen. (No need to remind anyone of the technical language - it was all there!). Then I asked the photographers to take pictures of what they could see. I also did some thought tracking - asking individuals how they were feeling / what they were thinking. 'I've never felt like this before' said someone.

Then the distress signal came - SOS from the team near the bow - 'some wreckage has fallen on us - we're trapped!' We stopped the action for a moment and I asked the trapped team to come to the middle of the room while the rest of us sat in a circle around them. I then asked them to position themselves as they were just before the accident happened - then to move in slow motion to how they looked just after the accident. (I love this convention - very powerful watching the change - it was all quite subtle actually.) The teams then questioned the trapped team about waht was happening - it transpired that there was a large piece of wreckage on top of the sub. There was still a couple of hours worth of oxygen, but the emergency supply had been damaged. The crew were feeling calm but worried. They were pretty cold too.

We then needed to agree what to do. Each team decided to go off to plan a rescue, including the salvage ship team who decided to send down a remote control sub. Two teams decided to work together on the rescue. Then each rescue was carried out with the rest of the group watching. I asked a member of the trapped team to put up a hand when they felt the rescue had been achieved. It was taking a while with some of the teams so we decided to do a countdown - luckily a hand went up each time - sometimes precariously close to the end - it was pretty tense! The first part of the dive had to stop at this point.

Next day we reviewed what had happened. The teams were pretty proud of the rescue operation - we used the good old blob tree to discuss how we were feeling at different times during the first part of the dive and the rescue. We then recieved a phone call from HQ in Cromer saying that accident and rescue reports needed to be filled in for company records. The session was spent filling in report forms and also drawing the 'photographs' of the first view of The Titanic and adding personal captions (relating to the thought tracking). These were all stored in the team folders.

The dive now needed to continue - time for the actual retrieval of objects. The teams worked busily, picking up objects, taking photos and reporting back on the radio what they were finding. The teams returned to the salvage ship regularly with baskets of objects and the ship teamworked to store them and lable them on board. At the end of this session they drew the artefacts they had found, noting the condition. There were a few mystery objects that could not be identified. They were pleased at the end of this that only a couple of items had been damaged, not through clumsiness, but because the objects were so badly decayed. (Drawing on knowledge here from our salt water test!).

I was really pleased with the big dive so far - I really think we've reached obsession mode here - the children are loving every minute of it and takin gthe work so seriously. I'm seriously proud of them!

Museum Visit

2007-03-04T03:39:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately I was not able to go to the Museum with the children as I was running an MoE workshop elsewhere. A colleague who is experienced in using MoE took my place and fed back on the fabulous morning the children spent in role as restorers. The museum staff took on their role admirably and looked at our company portfolio and information books about The Titanic - they were suitably impressed.

In the week building up to the visit we had started to discuss materials on the Titanic and had been looking at underwater video footage from expeditions down to the wreck to see how these materials had fared after 75 years at the bottom of the Atlantic. We had also been looking at photographs of restored objects from the Titanic and noting their condition. The children wanted to set up their own investigation looking at how different materials fare over time on salt water so we now have a tub ful of salt water and a range of artefacts which is eagerly examined each day.

The workshop at the museum fitted beautifully in with this as the restorers were presented with a range of genuine artefacts which might or might not have come from Edwardian times. they had to write salvage reports on each artefact, including predictions about how these would survive in sea water. The children were really enthusiastic about the visit and are now waiting to hear whether the museum are going to commission us to dive down to the Titanic. They think they were pretty impressed by our work, but, modestly, reckon we have a 50/50 chance of being chosen for the job. We'll see!!

The Navratil Brothers

2007-03-03T07:06:00.000-08:00

The children have been eager to find out more about the story of the Navratil brothers, age 2 and 3 who survived the sinking of the Titanic after being kidnapped by their father, boarding the ship with the false name of Hoffman, Their father passed them into the last lifeboat and died in the sinking. I decided to spend two weeks exploring the whole story through drama conventions, with each child making their own ongoing information book about the story of the boys.

Here is the teaching sequence :

1. Mother and Father in France. Choose 3 children to be the mother and the children as they say goodbye to the father. Decide together how the group will look as they leave (frozen image). Father is looking out of a window, watching his children leaving. Rest of class position themselves as father (collective role). Thought track what the father is thinking. The three people leaving are activated to call back a parting message to father (rest can help by going to one of the trio and whispering what to say.)

2. The kidnap. Look at a poster advertising the Titanic’s voyage to a America – remind children that hundreds of people saw this as a start to a new life in a new country. Children in role as father come and stand looking at the poster, saying what they are thinking.

This worked particularly well. Some of the children are now beginning to use ambiguous language as if they are aware of the power of suggestion and uncertainty in the drama e.g. one boy looked at the poster thoughtfully, turned round to the rest of the class and said'It's time .....'

3. How is Michel going to explain to the boys what is going to happen?
Teacher in role as dad – class in role as boys – as Dad tries to explain that he is
going to take them away, the boys ask him questions.

4. Father tells the boys they need to pack just one suitcase, taking only the things they
need. Children go to draw what they pack in their suitcase (in special books). Also
stick in passenger information about the boys and father. (My class to design cover
for book in ICT.)

5. On board the Titanic. Shared drawing of 2nd class cabin (me drawing big picture as the class tell me all the details to include.) Children to draw their own cabins in their books.

I love this convention - it always works really well, with a huge outpouring of ideas - amazing detail.

6. In role as the children (work in threes). Decide together one of the things you were doing on board. Make into photograph with a caption – two as children, one as caption reader. Draw the photograph and add the caption in your book.

7. The sinking : create frame distance by observations concerning the boys and their father coming from different characters on board the ship:

The passenger who helped to dress and carry the boys on deck.
Captain Smith
Molly Brown
Margaret Hays
One of the children on board.

All these people saw something relating to the boys in the confusion. Sit in 5 groups - one for each role. Take it in turns to call out one thing you saw.

This was an exhausting session, but worth it as the children were very engaged and there was a charged atmosphere because we were dealing with the 'big' moment'. I didn't want the action to get panicky or silly, hence the frame distance by them observing what was happening to the boys rather than being the boys. This seemed to work well.I was given a 'gift' when one child said he had climbed up inot the crows nest and was looking down ontoi the deck, so we all took on that role and said what we could see.

8. Group of children to form the circle of crew around Collapsible Lifeboat D. Child in role as Margaret Hays in lifeboat. Teacher in role as 2nd officer Charles Lightoller (also controlling / slowing down action.) Father and friend with children approach the lifeboat, step by step – CL will keep calling stop to check the rules are being kept ‘women and children only!’ etc. + asking questions to the two men. Children are handed through to Margaret Hays.

The role of Margaret Hays was taken on by a bright girl who has found it quite hard to engage in the drama and is generally reluctant to speak in a whole class context, though has been happy doing all the other tasks so far. It has taken her this long, but today she was there, speaking her thoughts and totally engaged in this role. The crew, with arms linked created a real tension and, again, the 2nd officer 'controlling' the speed of the action semed to stop it descending into something more chaotic or superficial. Someone suggested at this point that we read out the actual words that the father said to his eldest son as he passed him into the lifeboat, so I found the quote and asked one of the children to read it - it was a hushed and poignant moment.

9. In the lifeboat, looking at the Titanic sinking. Thought tracking.

10. Back in France. The mother reads the newspaper with the report about 'The orphans of the Titanic. Create a mock up of the newspaper with some headlines, a brief report and a photo of the children. Children to take turns to sit in the chair and read out the headlines and report out loud. Then continue to come to chair, look at the paper and say one thought out loud.

This was very efective. The children said afterwards that they really enjoyed this becasue they wanted to see what was inside the newspaper, especially the photograph. As in the episode of the Dad looking at the poster, their words were carefully chosen and suggestive rather than obvious.

12. The family re-united. 3 children in role (or teacher + 2 children) as mother and sons, posing for photograph for the newspapers. Rest of class in role as journalists asking them questions.

13. Look at the list and pictures of Michel Navratil’s effects, found with his body when it was pulled out of the sea (reveal these one by one). Put each piece into context e.g. coat – bought by his wife for his birthday.

Last of all, reveal the revolver (a loaded revolver was found in his pocket.)

Draw some of the items and write down beside each one the context that you have decided.

This session was incredible! They were fascinated by the very ordinary things that were found on his body - a pocket book, a pipe in a case, a bill for the hotel where he had stayed with his sons in London etc. When the gun was revealed there was a collective gasp! It was interesting that many of the children suddenly decided he was an evil man, even though they had been pretty forgiving about the kidnapping. We got into three groups at this point: those who thought he was bad; those who thought he was good and those who thought he was a mixture of bad and good. Each group took it in turns to present one reason for their case - people were allowed to change groups at any point their mind was changed. This was a huge debate that went on for nearly 20 minutes - why did he have a gun? In what circumstances would he use it? Where did he get it? Who might he fire it at?

At the end of this session several people had changed their minds more than once, but still wanted to know more. One child suggested that we should hot seat Michel and ask him some questions - others wnated to hot seat other people. Great - the children are suggesting their own drama conventions nbow to fit the situation!! We did just that and hot seated Mochel, the passenger who had helped him save the boys and his wife. Powerful stuff - the questions were so focussed beacause they really wanted to find out the truth! What was the truth? Well, even after all their questions there were still many doubts and ambiguities .....

14. Titanic Reunion. Show photograph of the 85 year old Michel Jr at a Titanic Reunion. In role as survivors from the Titanic, move round the reunion room introducing yourself and asking questions to others.

We actually built on this with a quick technique I thought up to focus the questioning more: the survivors got into groups of three to form a 'question circle' in which a) asks b) a question, b ) answers a) and then asks c) a question and so on in a loop. This worked so well - the groups carried it on for quite a time and the questions were realy focussed and supported - they said afterwards that if anyone got stuck then the other two helped them think of a new question. There wasn't one person in the class who couldn't manage to interact in this way. Some of the 3's said they thought they could have gone on for hours!!

The books they have made are great - they have been using ICT time to create documents such as the hotel bill and the menus on the boat the boys might have eaten. They have found photos from books and the internet which they have stuck in and captioned and have written newspaper headlines and reports. They also all wrote a dramatic account of the sinking from the point of view of one of the people in the story - some engaging and dramatic writing arose, I believe, from the fact they had 'been there' in the drama and explored different perspectives and viewpoints over time.

Parent Responses

2007-03-03T04:59:00.000-08:00

Questionnaires were sent out to Year 2 parents after 1 ½ terms of their children working in role as a shipwreck salvage company.

Here are some quotes from the returned questionnaires - I was stunned by these responses and their understanding of the depth and range of learning in MoE:

‘ She has often talked about the company work she is involved in – she shows me the pictures and work relating to this during the morning before class begins.’

‘He will talk about what he has learned without prompting which isn’t normal. He is excited about the way you are teaching him which is brilliant!’

‘She seems very engrossed in the team effort this work involves and has told us all about the different roles. She’s the bones expert! ‘

‘She’s definitely motivated by this type of learning – there’s obviously a great deal of enthusiasm for this project, not to mention the excitement factor. She is always pleased to tell us she will be doing company work today. It’s almost role reversal and she’s become the adult!’

‘It extends and challenges her way beyond the classroom, e.g. when we were at the beach she will be beach combing for objects to include in her company work or asking us questions or looking in books we have at home.’

‘It‘s very important for her, as an only child, to learn to work in a team situation. It has stimulated her to ask various questions she might not have asked about before.’

‘It’s a great way of holding onto children’s attention and interest rather than the obvious teaching formats.’

‘She talks about it all vividly.’

‘He’s been consumed by it!’

‘She really enjoys working in the salvage company. She’s told us everyone has a role and is involved.’

‘He’s completely motivated – I believe it’s because it’s so different – personal and intriguing – he takes it to heart.

‘She is motivated - it’s the only thing she’s come home from school talking about. The role play helps her to get involved.’

‘I think it’s crucial as it covers all learning styles and needs.’

‘Carry on educating others about the importance of this exciting and much needed approach to teaching. I only wish that we could guarantee that Year 2 children will get more chances in the future to experience this imaginative work.’

‘He is coming to terms with life and death through this work together with with the archeological fascination of being involved with salvaging this historic monument.’

‘It’s a fantastic and exciting way of learning. I really like the way it has taken away some of the routine ways of learning and basics.’

‘Lots of chat about the unfolding story of the company – especially the passengers’ personal stories (i.e. The Titanic).

‘There are lots of exciting things to do – we’ve heard all about who is doing what in the company, about diving – looking at the real gear - and about the history of the Titanic . We’ve taped TV documentaries and looked up things in books to feed the interest developed.’

‘Working with the group and with partners is fun. It’s memorable and interesting. The children use their imagination to lose themselves in the drama – they’re really living these experiences rather than just learning about them in a more traditionally passive way.’

‘ He is definitely being extended. He is really keen to learn more. He’s been to the library to find books on this topic and searches on the internet.’

(An EAL parent): ‘ She said many things about the Salvage Company. She told about under the sea and the cylinder help the breath and they have special camera and clothes. The children learn lots of general education and they know real problems and solve problems.’

‘It seems to give school work a purpose.’

‘It encourages imagination and broadens their horizons – most 7 year olds would probably never give any thought to the considerations of running a company.’

‘The Titanic has completely captured his imagination. He gets very into the role play and scenarios. He was particularly interested in the lives of the people on board.’

‘I like the way that one subject can cover all sorts of curriculum areas. It makes learning more relevant and cohesive.’

‘He tells us all about it! Various jobs – he thinks he has an important job as a restorer. ‘

‘It teaches various topics in a practical sense, like entrepreneurship, research, team-work and other jobs and responsibilities.’

‘I like the way they work in a team with a focus, communicating with peers, bringing various talents and understanding.’

‘This is a creative way of teaching. They have goals and responsibilities – it is definitely a good way to learn.’

Children of the Titanic

2007-02-14T08:24:00.000-08:00

While we have been researching The Titanic the children have become particularly interested in the children on board ship. Using the brilliant passenger lists and information from the Encyclopedia Titanica website I created a table showing brief details of about 10 children / families of children on board i.e. names, ages, class of cabin. The children then had to choose one child or family andthink up 5 questions they would like to find out about them. Of course the main interest was whether they had died or survived, but they came up with a real range of pertinent questions.They took the questions home to research on the internet with the web address provided. Children not on the Internet did their research at school.

They were really hooked by this - the morning after they took the questions home they were running in waving information and photographs they had downloaded - and read (I hasten to add!!) with their parents' help. They were fascinated by the stories of each child which we shared with the class as they wer revealed. They were also shocked to find out that only one out of all the 1st and 2nd class children died, whereas 53 out of 75 3rd class children died. (Many questions were asked about this and we need to explore this further).

Over the next two weeks everyone in the class had found out valuable information which we made into a 'Children of The Titanic' folder. The parents had also become really involved - there is a real feeling of productive obsession in the class right now, with me poring over Titanic books at weekends and parents and children working together to find out more and bring in books,photographs, magazine articles and other information. We even have a replica of the Daily Mirror the day after the wreck, reporting everyone on board safe!

I have been getting so many positive comments from parents that I have sent out a questionnaire about how they view our MoE work - three back already, absolutely wowed by the comments - will put some of them on my next post!!

COMPANY PORTFOLIO / TITANIC RESEARCH

2007-01-21T04:01:00.000-08:00

The museum have asked us to bring a portfolio about our company when we visit them so they can examine our credentials! I asked the company members what we might put in a portfolio and we began to recall al the things that we were proud of in the history of the company as well as information like training certificates, job descriptions, ohotographs etc. They were full of lots of ideas and soon began to talk about dives, restorations and other events from our company history. I showed them the folders from the filing cabinet that contained a wide range of information and asked if a group of office workers if they could sort these out and give the appropriate information to the teams concerned. A child who is often on the sidelines has established himself as an important member of the office team - his role being the supervisor of the office noticeboard! His job is to remove or pin up items as he thinks necessary - nobody is allowed to put things onto the noticeboard until he has looked at the information and given them permission - he has really blossomed within this role and takes his job very seriously. At this moment he proudly volunteered to help oraganise and distribute the information.

We also talked about how we would present our information - plastic wallets were chosen to put in papers which would then be presented in a special folder. We then organised ourselves into different teams who discussed the information they would put into the portfolio. The ofice workers gave out relevant documents from which the teams chose samples to present and they also began to produce their own pieces of information, focussing on events that they were really proud about from the past.

The finished portfolio was impressive, containing a range of information about the company ready to present to the museum.

Our next job was to beginto research information about the Titanic so that we can show the museum that we have background knowledge for when we begin to look at the artefacts.
The company members chose to make thier own books of facts. We had some great resources to help us: a great CDRom especially produced for MoE work (given free to all conference delegates!): some excellent websites, particularly www.encyclopedia-titanica.org which has complete paseenger and crew listings with information about each person: some good children's inofrmation books; excerpts from the feature film (carefully censored!) and an interacive CD Rom where the children can dive down in the Nautile to explorea virtual Titanic wreck.

The children are fascinated by the story, particularly the human element, so we will use the passenger and crew list to get into some really deep explorations of the tragedy at a later point. This commission is huge and will definitely take us to the end of the academic year! In the meantime they have put together some great information books to take to the museum and are busy at home doing extra pieces of research. Parents are reporting frenzied Titanic interest! I'm sure that the depth (ha ha!) of their involvement and understanding has been greatly increased by the whole build up of the Salvage Company and all the drama and related tasks that have preceded what is going to be our first commission since we formed the company in September. I'm glad we didn't launch into a commission nearer the beginning of the work as the whole background we have explored together has created such a powerful context from which to begin this new phase of our work. I would really recommend the frame of a Salvage Company / The Titanic to anyone wnting to engage and motivate the children - beats Florence Nightingale hands down!!! (Sorry Florence - nothing personal.)

EPISODE 20 MUTINY!!

2007-01-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

After a lot of thought and advice from a colleague I tackled the situation of the child who wanted to quit the company. His initial reasons were 'because it sounds boring - just looking at a lot of old stuff'. He is also a child who likes to be the centre of attention and often 'plays up' to a situation for effect, so I wasn't sure how serious he was about it all. Two more important things - he is a bright, motivated child who has really enjoyed the work so far - and he was the one who emerged as the leader of our reknowned 'bones team' and took this role very seriously - all things in our favour I felt!!

We had a company meeting to discuss what should happen in the case of somebody quitting. They wanted to know how it would work in a real job, so I explained about my job: interviews, contracts, giving notice etc.They quickly decided that this member's contract would stipulate notice - ! month to be exact! Someone also mentioned that he might find it hard to get another job if he had just quit another one - someone else said he would be letting down the team. This atmosphere of condemnation, though, soon changed as other people began to say things like 'you're our bones expert - we need you'. At this point I thought it might be politic to go round the circle giving everyone a chance to say something to him about how they felt. Everybody had their say - a couple who passed first time asked me to come back to them - and every person int he circle asked hiom not to quit because: 'you're great at your job', 'we won't be able to find another bones expert like you', 'you're a good friend', we'll miss you', 'we've got so many discoveries and adventures ahead of us', 'we stick together in our team' etc etc - very moving actually - I asked C how he felt at the end, but I knew from the expression on his face as his colleagues were saying their bit. 'I feel special' - he said. (At this point, coming out of the drama, I also reminded him that if he did quit, we would have to find a whole load of alternative work for him to do for the rest of the year!!!)

Then something very interesting happened. He explained that there was a bigger reason for him wanting to go. It was his disappointment last term when we agreed to let Alison Davies have her Great Grandfather's bones. I suddenly remembered that. as head of the bones team, he had been adamant that we should hold onto the bones. He now said that he had been very upset about this - when reminded that we had voted on our decision and gone with the vast majority he was still unhappy, saying that voting is not a fair way of coming to a decision. I waqs amazed that he had been holing onto this for all this time. I said that it was a very serious issue and promised to have a full discussion of it if he decided to stay. We all decided, at theis point to let him go off to think about it and let us know later. At this point we stopped the session and began our Golden Time. After about 5 minutes C came quietly up to me and said that he'd changed his mind and would like to stay. I asked him if it was OK to tell the class and he said yes - of course a huge cheer went up at the news!!!

I think it was OK the way we handled it - with another, less robust character I might have chosen a different tack. It also shows how important it is to listen and give time to issues - if I had just dismissed it all or handled it differently I might never have heard his strong opinions and feelings about the bones dilemma. If anyone has had a similar situation, I would love to hear what you did!!

We decided to give him some time

EPISODE 19 - LETTER FOM THE MUSEUM

2007-01-07T08:15:00.000-08:00

The company have recieved a letter from the local museum asking for their help. (Our local museum service are very keen to support MoE and we have liased with them to create this scenario). The museum have recieved some objects salvaged from a shipwreck in the North Atlantic Ocean. They would like our salvage company to come and examone them as they believe they might come from The Titanic, but are not sure. If we are interested in helping them we will need to bring a portfolio about our company and some background information about The Titanic to show we are equipped for the job. ( When we visit the museum the children will handle the 'salvaged' Edwardian artefacts and write up reports on what they have discovered from them. The museum will then commission them to go to the Atlantic to finish the salvage operation.)

The class were pretty excited about this - some of them had already been talking about the Titanic and some had seen the recent film. The problem here was sorting out the real world from the drama world. I had to explain that we would really visit the museum and we would really handle the old artefacts, but they would not really be from the Titanic. Again I used the phrase 'I think it will feel real' - which they seem to relate to and understand. I also needed to explain that the museum staff will be in role in our drama and they will be behaing as if these are reall Titanic objects. Further confusions happened when the children talked about the film, so we discussed how most of the events depicted actually happened, but the love story was imaginary. We talked about how the film director would have re-created how he imagined it would all look using sets and actors.. As the children have already been working with British Film Institute materials I felt this really helped with their understanding of how films are made. I really want to use footage from the film over the next few weeks so we can discuss more of these issues, particularly interpretation - also so the children begin to get a feeling for atmosphere, personal stories of those on board and the emotional impact of the disaster.

HOWEVER - at this point one of the children declared they were not interested in the museum's request and was going to quit the company. This came out of the blue and I was a bit taken aback, as were the rest of the class! I didn't want to detract from the interest the others were showing so I asked him to just keep that on hold for the moment and we would discuss it properly a bit later - i.e. a bit of stalling so I could think through how to deal with this!!

The rest of the company agreed that they would spend the next few weeks researching information about the Titanic and working on a company Portfolio to present to the museum. we will use information books, the internet, an excellent CD Rom produced specifically in relation to MoE work , the feature film and a brilliant interactive CD Rom where the children can operate a submersible to look at real footage of the wreck, examine artefacts etc.

EPISODE 18 - JOHN DAVIES' LAST DAY

2006-12-10T21:06:00.001-08:00

Over the last week the children have been independently finding all sorts of evidence about John Davies - they are really hooked on his story. I keep being presented with little scraps of paper which 'might be a letter from JD' or small items that might have belonged to him - parents keep asking me ' who is John Davies?' !! The children have also been very interested in what his great grand-daughters reaction will be when she is presented all our information. One child thought she might find it all a bit sad and emotional and suddely came out with the phrase ' I think her happiness will unfold.' This knocked me back - what an incredible piece of language!! I had to seize on this, so asked Tai if he would be able to show her at this moment when her happiness 'unfolds'. He did this with great subtlety, gradually changing his face and his body position on the chair. We kept freezing him and the children were fascinated by the movement of his eyes, his bottom lip, his hands. It eventually transpired that her 'happiness unfolding' meant the opposite of what I first thought - it actually meant that her happiness fell apart as she found out about the death of her great grandfather. As the children began to ask her questions, I was again amazed by the way this child, in role, 'held back' on obvious answers and didn't give much away. I've been trying to create ambiguity and subtlety when I have been in role, and with my use of language in general, and wondered if, by csome miracle, this child has picked up on that - whatever it was, it worked brilliantly and kept a real tension going in this impromptu session.

Today I began the session by reading out an excerpt from the Captain's Log that we found, which has been restored so that we can now read it. The date is the day that the ship sank. John Davies is briefly mentioned as holding the wheel at one point and a cabin boy is mentiones as spotting the fog rolling in from the crows nest - the log finishes abruptly, which got the children very excited!!

I then asked the children if they would like to go into role as JD on his last day on the ship. We have been doing 'time' in maths (every teacher's nightmare!) so I used the teaching clock to signal each hour of the day, starting with 7 in the morning. For each hour the children positioned themselves as JD, showing what he would have been doing and each time I asked one of them what it was they were doing. It was interesting that these varies form very literal actions like steering the ship, to more enigmatic things like 'reading a special diary' or 'talking to someone who is lonely'. I feel that JD has really emerged as a 'real' person over the last week or so and that this is beginning to be reflected.

The next part of the session is the most thrilling I have experienced in theis mantle so far. We sat in a circle, still in role, and I asked each child to say one thought that they had had that day on board ship. The responses were quite similar at first - 'I'm worried about the fog', 'I'm tired with all my jobs'. Then one of the boys suddenly came out with 'I'm thinking about my family - I want to see them so much.' (I'll say at this point that this boy, although loving the drama, is often very OTT - very excitable and loud and likes to get a laugh from the rest of the class, which has threatened to 'spoil the moment' several times previously - in fact he had already had to sit out of this session for 5 monutes and had just chosen to return to the circle.) He was very serious in the way he said this, though, so I invited him to sit in the middle of the circle and to show how he looked as he was thinking this. With the utmost seriousness he sat with one knee propping up his elbow, his head bowed and his hand covering his face. The rest of the group were fascinated by this and wanted to talk about why you put your body in certain positions whan you are sad. One boy said about the hand covering the face 'it's like he's trying to hold his sadness in - but, you know, it's no good doing that becasue it will always find a way out again.'

After a while we activated Jak to answer our questions. Amazingly, like the boy earlier on today, his answers were brief and ambiguous - 'I can't tell you' or even just a shake of the head. Is it that, somehow, these children seem to have picked up on the air of ambiguity, or 'less is more' that can make this work so powerful?? I don't know - but it was brilliant!! The children were very concerned about JD's sadness so I asked them to go up to him one by one and say something to him to perhaps make him feel better. They crept up to him, some gently touching his shoulder and whispered kind words to him. Nearly all the children in the class wanted to do this and it was magical to watch their absorption and thoughtfulness - I really felt that this had reached a new depth of engagement and investment. After, we reflected on how we had felt doing this, and several of the children commented on the way we had approached JD so as not to be intimidating - on all fours, or low and creeping. They were keen to ask Jak how he had felt when they came up to him and thrilled at his positive responses. I'm so proud of the way he dealt with this - he had to hold the pose for a long time and never lost his poise or sincerity - this must be real proof of the way in which MoE can engage children deeply. He recieved a spontaneous round of applause for his role!!

The next 'gift' was from another boy who talked about how he was thinking about opening his garden gate at home and waling up the garden path, past the flowers, to his front door'. This blew me away - what a powerful and symbolic image! I glanced around to see if the children were fed up - they weren't so I asked if he minded us asking him some questions about the garden and the door. This child was completely absorbedand unself-conscious as he answered questions about the colour of the gate, the gravel path and what sound the lock made when it clicked. When asked who planted the flowers, he answered simply 'my wife the washerwoman'.

I have been thinking really hard about my own language, since our last residential weekend with Luke Abbot and my colleague's help with a brilliant booklet on the use of language / questioning in MoE. Today I felt that I was beginning to get there for the first time as I'm sure my own language (and silences!!) helped to encourage the depth and freedom of the children's thinking and responses. I also feel that I am more relaxed and intuitive about picking up on the 'gifts' that the children are offering and using them. As I become more familiar with the conventions, I am finding it easier to use them off the top of my head and finding an appropriate one to fit the moment. I feel I am also beoming more coherent in moving from the symbolic / iconic to the enactive - it's so obvious when it works isn't it??!!!I'm really thrilled with this session - it was a real shiver down the spine job and has made me even more committed to using this work as a powerful and meaningful way of learning in my classroom. I want to get here again!! Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me get to this moment!!

EPISODE 17 - THE LIFEBOAT

2006-12-10T20:42:00.001-08:00

Part of our remit from Alison Davies is to find out exactly how her great Grandfather died. We received a phone call from her today, saying that she had unearthed a family rumour about there not being enough lifeboats on the Red Flotilla. She said that if this proved to be true, she would cause trouble for the World Line Shipping Company. We needed to call a company meeting to discuss this - we need to keep good relations with the shipping company who have just paid us well for the salvage. Some of the children thought that we we should not try to find out about the lifeboats as we could end up in trouble as well. At this point I played the decil's advocate and said that if we found it was true we could keep it quiet - no-one would no. Many children were adamant in their response that the truth is paramount and that we should find out, no matter how bad it makes the shipping company look. The final consensus was to carry out the investigation because honesty is important to us - and, as one child rightly pointed out - the shipping company has already paid us and Alison is offereing us good money!!

I asked the children if they would like to see what it was like on one of the lifeboats after the sinking of the RF. Four children offered to go into role as people on the lifeboat and the rest of us sat, forming the shape of the lifeboat around them. I asked the four to make still images of three moments: when they first were lowered into the sea; when they watched the RF sinking from the lifeboat and, finally, when they had been in the lifeboat for two days. The four chose subtle and careful positions wihout any prompting - they're pretty used to it by now!! The rest of us talked about who they might be, their body positions and what they might be thinking, before activating them to answer questions. The questioning was a bit banal at first, following the lines of 'are you thirsty?' 'are you seasick?' etc, so I decided to model a question along the lines of 'how did you feel when you saw the Red Flotilla' disappear under the waves?'. I did this out of frustration and am not sure if it's 'feeding' too much - but it did then elicit a wave of 'deeper' questioning, culminating in one of the passengers revealing that he had been separated from his little sister, who had died when the boat sunk. At this point the atmosphere became very poignant and hushed - his responses were quite low key, but emotional and were very powerful from being so.

The children followed this session by drawing a picture of a lifeboat from the RF and adding speech or thought bubbles for the passengers. There was great engagement in theis activity, even though it was towards the end of a long day!! In retrospect, I'm glad I did a bit of 'feeding' as I don't think the session would have been as powerful for the children without it getting beyond that first level of questioning.

EPISODE 16 - HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

2006-11-27T11:34:00.001-08:00

We held a company to discuss how / where we might more information about John Davies, a sailor on The Red Flotilla. The children suggested: asking his great grand-daughter if any other family members might help; asking the Shipping company he worked for; looking on the Internet; going back to the house where he lived. We also had evidence form the wreck itself to look at - some of it mioght tell us about him. Could one of the skeletons we found be John Davies himself? I told them that there were history experts who might alsobe able to help us by finding documents - would we be interested?

Over the next few days I started to bring in various documents: a letter from the shipping company historian with further details about the shipwreck; a census from 1905 of the village JD lived in; church records showing births, deaths and marriages from the same village and a folder full of photographs of people, objects, buildings and ships that members of the family and our 'history expert' had found . We began to look at these in more detail - making links and connections between the documents and between all the things we knew already about JD. Some of the more able children really grabbed this difficult challenge with both hands - using the family tree to work out ages that family members lived to and making some amazing links between pieces of evidence. They were very excited when they found out certain things I had 'planted' in the documents - like the fact that he had a daughter who had died at the age of 3 just before he set sail on his last voyage - and another daughter who had lived to the age of 99. They also found a family member who died in 1942 which some of them knew was in World War 2.

We decided to make a folder of all the evidence we were putting together to present to Mrs Davies in a couple of weeks. The children were keen to make a nice front cover with 'History of John Davies 1872 - 1906' on it and his photograph underneath. They annotated the family tree, the church records and the census to put in the file and then began to draw some of the finds from the salvage which they thought might have belonged to him, writing their reasons: 'the pearl necklace was a present for his wife', 'the buckled shoe was the right size to fit his foot' The bones team decided that the skull with some remains of hair and a sailor's hat still on it might have been JD. They agreed to do further tests to find out if it was really him. (If it is we will reveive the discussion about the ethics of what to do with human bones - should they be buried / returned to relatives? etc.

They then set to task sorting the photographs - again making links and piecing together evidence to try and draw conclusions. They became thoroughly immersed in all of this as the evidence in the file for Mrs Davies grew and grew. At one point somone asked - is this what real history experts do? Someone else said - 'if they do, I'd like to do this when I grow up - it's fun!' They also kept talking about Mrs Davies - 'do you think she'll be pleased?' was one question.I was suddenly struck with how much more meaningful this approach to history was than discussing historical 'facts' with the children. This work has been about what historians do - how they find out - rather than 'what happened' of 'who it happened to' - I'm sure this learning has been much more powerful and purposeful - the 'evidence' took a lot of time to prepare but was fun and has been completely worthwhile as I have watched what the children have got out of it.

EPISODE 15 - VISIT FROM MRS DAVIES

2006-11-26T11:10:00.000-08:00

I reminded the children that the commission for the salvage of the Red Flotilla had come from the shipping company who owned the ship. I asked them if they would like to read the letter that the shipping company had sent, thanking us for the salvage. The company was based in Ipswich and thanked us for our hard work, stating that the finds would be exhibited in their company building in Ipswich Docks. At this point the children started to become interested in the whole are of ownership - who does actually own the finds - the salvage company? the shipping company? relatives of the people on board? What about the skeletons / bones? Should these be returned to relatives who might want to bury them? (I feel this is a very important and ethical issue and we need to discuss this in full at a later date). The shipping company also told us in the letter that they had had a visit from a woman whose Great Grandfather had served and died in the Red Flotilla. She was keen to find out more about her relative and wondered whether we could help.

The company were all very keen to help so I asked them if they would like to meet the relative there and then. I was thrilled with what followed as, to me, it showed how the building up of belief in the company - how we behave - what our building says about us etc - has paid off. They were very clear about her arrival in our Reception area - about how she should feel welcome and the importance of signing in. They decided she should be shown up to our meetings room and organised the chairs in a circle with a special visitor's chair with a cushion on it. Someone offered to be the receptionist and someone else to show her to the room. I asked them how she might feel about the visit and they said that she might possibly get a bit upset, talking about her dead G grandfather - so a box of tissues and a reassuring pat on the back were prepared. I went into role as Alison Davies, coming into the room clutching a plastic bag, looking a bit nervous. The company gave me a wonderful welcome, asking me poitely to sign in and showing me the waiting area and the drinks machine. I was then escorted with great care to the meetings room. I told them that I knew hardly anything about my great grandfather and would love to know more, so would like to commision the Sea Company to find as much about him as possible.

At this point I began to look a bit upset as I talked about how he might have died. The atmosphere was very poignant as the children offered me tissues and one put her arm me and offered reassuring words, echoed by others in the circle. It was a special moment for me as the group seemed very un-selfconscious and 'together' in their empathy - not one giggle spoiled the moment! I went on to show them what was in my bag - part of a family tree, a photograph of my great grandfather and a chinese fan in a box which I told them had been discovered in a drawer in his house. I asked them if they would like to borrow the items and was reassured they would be kept safely in the company safe. The children told me they would work really hard to find out as much as possible and drew my attention to their company promises about honesty, working hard etc, before showing me back out of the building.

I was really pleased with this session - it had a special atmosphere and flow that seemed very natural, calm and thoughtful. I was so proud of the way the children had dealt with the whole situation with little or no 'teacher talk' fom me - maybe I'm getting there!!!

EPISODE 14 - SALVAGING THE RED FLOTILLA

2006-11-26T10:44:00.001-08:00

We agreed to go back in time to remember the salvage of The Red Flotilla. I laid out a huge sheet of paper on the floor and we started to map out what the shipwreck had looked like when we found it. The children were very immersed and specific about the details of the wreck and a clear picture soon emerged. They then went back into role as the divers, working in pairs to search the wreck for salvage. As they 'found' things they drew pictures of them and stuck them onto the picture of the wreck in the place they were discovered. The children are so familiar with the diving routine now that they got into pairs, checked each others' equipment and practised their signals without any prompting. Some of the divers began to find bones so we stopped to discuss the implications of this. So far we knew nothing about who might have died in the shipwreck. Here was evidence that some people had died. I was slightly concerned about this moment because I didn't want this to turn into a skeleton frenzy, but, amazingly, the children were reasonably restrained - treating these finds seriously and discussing what to do with them. Someone decided that we do have a specialist 'bones' team back at HQ so we would need to pass over the human remains to them.

Back at HQ the children went into role as restorers and filled in reports about their finds. A small group volunteered to be the bones team and took the evidence (in the form of pictures) outside the classroom with clipboards to investigate the bones and write their report. The finds were fascinating and included: a flag with faded letters; the Captain's log; maps; a cracked cup; a buckled shoe; a necklace of pearls; a rusty key; a broken clock (somone suggested that the time on it might be the time the ship was wrecked); part of the steering wheel etc. Again, I will use these ideas as 'gifts' to further the drama - maybe we can begin to find out more about the people on board - or how the ship sank. We were so busy restoring that I had forgotten about the bones team outside in the corridor - they had been there nearly 1/2 an hour and came back with pages of findings which formed their report! Great engagement today!

EPISODE 13 THE RED FLOTILLA

2006-11-12T04:46:00.000-08:00

One of the past salvages recorded on our time line was of a ship called The Red Flotilla. We decided to explore the story of the shipwreck and the salvage. On a large sheet of paper we started to fill in details about the shipwreck: it happened in 1906; the ship was sailing from Spain to South Africa; 100 passengers were on board - rich Africans who had holidayed in Spain and were returning home; the wreck happened in the Atlantic - strangely far out at sea (why was the ship not sailing down the coast as might be expected?); the wreck was caused by bad weather - thick fog, followed by a storm. We then began to recall the salvage, which happened three years ago. The children got into groups and each one made a 'photograph' of one aspect of the dive - the trip out to the Atlantic; diving down to the wreck; searching the wreck; bringing stuff to the surface; the journey home and finally restoring objects in the restoration room. The dive proved to be an eventful one, with an attack from a giant squid! The groups positioned themselves to make a mini time line of the salvage and then brought the photographs to life one group at a time. We will continue with the investigation into the Red Flotilla as the children were keen to know more about what exactly happened and want to find out about the people on board.

EPISODE 12 TIME LINE

2006-11-12T04:25:00.000-08:00

The children have previously agreed that our company has been running for 5 years . They thought it might be a good idea to put up a time line in our HQ reception area to tell visitors about the history of our company. They became very interested in the idea that company members might have joined at different times so I asked a show of hands of those who were there when the Sea Company was established in 2001. They began to talk about how they were all nervous at first, but soon began to work well together. then they started recalling when other members had joined - right up to the 'new boy' who only started last week! Someone remembered a diver who was very quiet and shy when he first started but who was now a popular and confident member of the diving team. I asked them all to draw a picture of themselves and to stick it onto a large time line in the year they joined the company. Then they began to talk about other significant events in our history - past salvages; the first meeting with Mr Green (boss); a visit from the Prime Minister and a visit from the Queen. Other events, such as the buglary were also placed onto the time line. Another example of 'gifts' from the children - a whole load of rich ideas which we will explore over the next few weeks.

EPISODE 11 - MR GREEN’S VISIT

2006-11-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

The company were busy at work when Mr Green arrived (a male classroom assistant in role). I think the children were pleased to see a different adult in role – they’re getting bored with me every time (must use other adults more!). I had organised a clip board for him with a series of questions. The children were so keen to show him all they had done – he wanted to see the improvements to the reception area; our company display ;our promises; our signs and notices; electrical improvements and our divers licences. The children showed immense pride in showing him all these things and I think they began to realise that all our hard work was worth the effort – it also made me realise the amount of work we’d done over the last few weeks – I felt rather proud too! The visit proved to be a natural conclusion to the half term and was a great way to finish the first block of this Mantle. I’m really pleased with how it’s gone so far – the children have enjoyed it from the start – I had worked hard on the first steps in and they seemed to work well in drawing them in. As the weeks have progressed they have become more immersed and engaged and several parents have commented on how they’re talking about the Salvage company at home. They love the shipwreck fish tank and keep bringing in pebbles and shells to put in it and have also been bringing in salvaged objects – costume jewellery, bits of pottery etc. I can’t wait to see what happens next half term! Is it time for our next big commission?

EPISODE 10 - ELECTRICAL MATTERS

2006-11-01T13:54:00.000-08:00

We received a letter from Mr Green saying that he was concerned to have received a report from the electrical safety officer saying that there were a whole series of faults and hazards in our company HQ. He was also concerned about our very high electricity bills and wanted these to be reduced somehow. He said that if these problems were not sorted out our building might be under threat of closure.

After a brief discussion we found out that some colleagues knew quite a lot about electricity and some didn’t so we decided to find out as much as we could before addressing the problems. Over the next week we made our own circuits to make a bulb light up, found out about switches and added switches to circuits and did a survey of the building to find which items worked from batteries and which from mains electricity.

We then went into role as electrical safety officers, looking round our building for faults and hazards. The children worked in pairs with clip boards, making notes as they went around. This seemed to work brilliantly – I’d say 100% engagement as they did their job – so simple as well!! They found loose and broken wires, cracked socket cases, broken walls revealing wires, faulty lifts, sockets near sinks etc etc.They then had to go back to their office and write up their report, listing the faults and work that needed doing to remedy them. The following day one of the reports was read out to our colleagues who decided which jobs we could do ourselves and which jobs needed professional electricians. Then back into role as electricians / company workers sorting out the faults. They also made safety posters to put up round the building. I came back in role as the safety officer to re-inspect the building and the children showed me all their repairs – of course the building passed the test with flying colours!!

To try to cut down on bills we also made posters telling people to turn off lights etc when not in a room. We also began to discuss alternative sources of electrical power. Some of the children knew about solar power and thought that this might be a cheaper source of electricity and also better for the environment, so we decided to look into this. The children looked up information in books and on the internet and drew diagrams to show how electricity is made from sources such as coal and oil. They then found out about solar, hydro and wind power and looked at how a model car with a solar panel worked in the playground, making it stop and start by blocking out the sun.

After a company meeting most of them felt very strongly that we should convert our building to both solar and wind power, even though the initial outlay might prove to be expensive. We came up with a series of questions that we emailed to the council. Luckily my husband is a town planner whose area is sustainability so he emailed back with lots of advice about what to do, how to do it and grants available. We then wrote to Mr Green explaining what we had done to solve all the problems he had outlined and with a plea for him to give us the OK to convert to solar and wind power. They were thrilled when they got his positive reply but a bit nervous to hear he was coming the next day to inspect our newly refurbished reception area and to look around the whole building ……

Mr Green reminded us in his letter that we need to make sure that our company aims and values are be clearly displayed in our new reception area. We discussed what these might be, (changing the wording to ‘our promises’ which the children related to more readily). They came up with some incredibly thoughtful ideas which they then prioritised, giving very strong reasons as to why one promise might be more important than another . I was so pleased that their promises and prioritising was very much based on their increasing knowledge and understanding of what our company is about e.g. they were adamant that the most important issue was safety, both for company members and visitors – I felt this had arisen from re-enacting the dangerous salvage, from the practical test in the divers’ exam and from the work on electrical safety.

These were our final list of promises:

∑ To always keep people safe
∑ To always be kind
∑ To always do our best
∑ To always get the job finished
∑ To make everyone feel at home
∑ To restore things carefully
∑ To always be on time

EPISODE 9 - THE FIRE DRILL

2006-11-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

When we were mapping out the restoration room, the children became interested in signs that might be placed around our HQ building. We used an English lesson to discuss and make any signs that would be displayed: No Smoking; EXIT; THIS WAY TO ….. etc. They became particularly engaged with Fire Exits which led on to the discussion of what a fire door is and what we do if there is a fire. We read our school fire drill, which the children found to be lacking in some vital points of information but were fascinated by phrases such as ‘evacuation procedure’ and ‘assembly point’.

We decided to make an effective fire drill for our HQ and realised that we didn’t know much about the outside area, but quickly decided there was a car park round the back which would be the assembly point. (Some of the children started to get interested in what the car park was like so we will go into this later.) The fire drill discussion was really lively as the children were really worried about safety and whether the priority was to help fight the fire or to get everyone out safely. We had a lengthy discussion about the type of alarm – bell / ambulance type siren or computer generated high pitched beeping so tried some of these out to gauge loudness and effectiveness - anyone walking into our classroom at this point would have wondered what the hell was going on. Discussions about a register to check who was at the assembly point prompted concerns about check in systems to the building – do we have a record of everyone who might be in the building at any one time. (Again something to follow up later.)

The fire drills which the children then wrote were very effective and to the point.

EPISODE 8 – SALVAGE RESTORATION REPORTS

2006-11-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

The children have been busy using clay to make reproductions of salvaged objects. I asked them to take their places at their restoration tables and to show me how they are going about the restoration of their object. I was amazed how long they were able to sustain this role play as I walked round the room questioning them about what they were doing. We then gathered back together and I explained that we need to fill in a salvage report form for each restored object for our company records. (We have a proper metal filing cabinet where company records are stored). I asked two children to work in role while I asked them questions from the report form: they had to photograph the object, describe it, suggest the restoration needed, equipment needed and then photograph it again after the restoration. The two children chosen were dreams and gave the most imaginative responses and detail about their work. After this, everyone went off to ‘restore’ their object and fill in the report form. The engagement in writing tasks such as this has gradually deepened as the work has progressed through the weeks and I have been impressed by the imagination and quality of the writing. As I have noticed in previous mantles, the boys are very willing and motivated to write in these purposeful contexts.

EPISODE 7 - DIVERS’ LICENCES

2006-11-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

In role as divers, I reminded the children that it was time for the yearly exam to renew their divers’ licences. They had to sit a three part test: oral, written and practical. I asked the children to place themselves on a line continuum to show how they felt about the test- one end was ‘very confident’, the other ‘very unconfident’. It was interesting to see the range of feelings – they were pretty much spaced out along the line, with a small cluster at each end. They were very articulate in their responses and very much in role when I asked some of them why they had placed themselves in that position on the line. I then told them to get ready for the arrival of Paula Smith, chief diving instructor (me in role with a clipboard!). (Would have been better to have another adult but none were available!) Ms Smith asked the divers to sit at their tables for the oral part of the test – they were each to name a sea creature they might see when on a dive (extra points given for a creature that no-one else had thought of). Their answers were knowlegable and varied and they were already taking the test seriously. The written test was to draw and label 3 pieces of divers equipment – they worked in complete silence as, again they showed their already growing expertise about their work.

For the practical part of the test we went into the flotation tank room (curtains drawn and lights off to help create the atmosphere). First the divers had to demonstrate their knowledge of signals .Then teams of divers had to demonstrate their skills in the tank: each diver had only 1 minute of oxygen in his/her tank. After 20 seconds radio signals break down; after 40 seconds one of the divers (pre-chosen) gets into trouble and the rest of the team have 20 seconds to rescue them. Each team worked really well together on this – again a great atmosphere (did get a bit ‘samey’ by the time we got to the 5th team though!!).

I finished the session with a bit of a ritual, which the children loved - announcing that all the divers had passed their tests, shaking their hands one by one and awarding them with their new licence certificates.

EPISODE 6 – THE RESTORATION ROOM

2006-11-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

We had previously talked about job profiles of restorers for our company display, so today we began to work in role as restorers. I asked the children to imagine they were in the restoration room in our HQ -what would be in the room? I gave out A5 pieces of paper for them to draw or write feature of the room on which they placed in the classroom where they thought that feature might be. The engagement in this activity was huge and after about 15 minutes we had created a room with restoration tables, sinks, conveyor belts, cupboards, shelves and some great details I would never have thought of – collapsible baskets to collect the salvage, an x-ray machine to look inside things, magnetic bins and more! (the science in this whole project has already been huge!)

I went into role as a restorer whose father and grandfather had also been restorers. I showed the children my (imaginary) restorers kit, which had been passed down through the family and told them how precious it was to me. I described the special box I kept the tools in and how I took it home with me every night because it was so valuable to me. I then showed the children a drawstring bag (real ) and asked them to imagine that it was full of restorers’ tools. One by one they came up, took a tool out of the bag and showed the rest of the class what they were doing with it. The first child set the tone by reaching so carefully into the bag and taking out a bottle of spray which she squirted onto an imaginary object and started gently polishing it. There was a hushed atmosphere and some magical moments as other followed her – I felt that there was a real feeling of investment and belief in what they were doing and that the children were beginning to enter the work at a deeper level at this point.

They went off to draw the special boxes that they kept their tool kits in and also the equipment contained in the boxes – tweezers, scissors, polish, small saws, glue, clamps, sponges, brushes etc.

EPISODE 5 – OUR MOST MEMORABLE SALVAGE

2006-11-01T13:48:00.000-08:00

This was a drama session done before the children wrote newspaper reports about a memorable salvage. They were very interested to find out that the company had a past but decided that we were relatively new and had only been going for 5 years. I modelled reminiscing ‘do you remember the time when we salvaged that Viking ship ..?’ there was a bit of an awkward silence at first but then a lone voice piped up ‘yes, we found all those gold necklaces ..’ it was as if a floodgate had been opened – so many ideas that we had to quickly sort ourselves into smaller groups to continue reminiscing!

The groups were then given a pro-forma to fill in, one person scribing, the rest negotiating and agreeing on details such as ‘age of wreck’, ‘name of ship’, ‘how many people on board’ etc. I collected the sheets and we pieced together bits of information from them all to create a profile of one specific wreck from the past. This turned out to be a 250 year old wreck called ‘The Golden Galleon, carrying 100 passengers, all of whom survived. Items on board included a cargo of gold and personal items belonging to passengers and crew.

I reminded the children that the divers had been commissioned by a museum to find as many items as possible and also to look for evidence about how the ship sank. The children then went into role as divers (we had previously found out quite a lot about divers’ jobs, skills and equipment for our company display.) We worked in teams, using pre-agreed signals for communicating as well as our two way radios, diving down to the wreck and bringing up objects. Back at HQ the divers drew pictures of objects they had salvaged and of clues they had found. Each salvaged object was carefully drawn, noting one significant detail – some of these were poignant – a mirror with broken glass, a child’s toy with a child’s fingerprint still on it, an old book with someone’s name inside. I asked the children to imagine they were the person who had owned the object and to place themselves on the ship before it sank with their object. I then questioned them about who they were / why they were on the ship. The children decided they wanted to draw the people who owned the objects, so we found some information books showing people from around that time to find out what they might have looked like.

A shark’s tooth had been found embedded in the woodwork, so we came to the conclusion that a shark attack had sunk the ship! We then used ‘forum theatre’ to recreate the most dramatic moment from that dive: a team of small divers miming the action while the rest of the class, in a circle around them, directed the action. Again, the ominous presence of sharks was felt – one of the diving team was attacked but was rescued by the rest of the team. I must admit this session began to veer towards ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoon silliness with gratuitous violence after starting off in quite an atmospheric way. I did stop the action at one point and, out of role, we discussed whether we wanted the action to be silly and funny or serious – quite a few votes for silly and funny – fair enough – but actually the majority wanted it to be serious. We also had to decide whether we would accept any of out team dying in the drama – again the consensus was no, but I didn’t feel I’d dealt with these issues in the best way. Food for thought!

EPISODE 4 – DESIGNING A NEW RECEPTION AREA

2006-11-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

We received a letter from ‘the boss’ (Mr Green), saying how sorry he was to hear about our burglary. However, he believed this was the ideal opportunity to plan a great new reception area to welcome visitors to our building and to publicise the work of the company. The letter gave us free reign and a load of money to design the best possible area. After a brief brainstorm the children worked in pairs to come up with a plan for a new reception area. These were great and included an office area, toilets (M F and disabled), a comfortable waiting area with a huge rug with a sea motif woven in, drinks and snack machines, a children’s play area and a display area to tell visitors about our work. There were also to be display cases with examples of salvaged objects and a huge fish tank with a wreck, models of divers and real fish.

The children then brainstormed all the things that could be in the wall display. This is what they came up with and this is what we spent three weeks of our English lessons and some of our afternoon work doing:

∑ Job profiles with photographs of company members
∑ Training certificates
∑ Newspaper reports about past salvages
∑ An article about us published in ‘Salvage Monthly Magazine’
∑ Labelled diagrams of divers with equipment
∑ Labelled pictures of specialist equipment used by our restorers

We also used clay to make salvaged objects and did observational drawings of objects to make a display in our reception area. (The fish tank will be made at some point when we can borrow a large enough tank!!)

The children enjoyed all these tasks, even though some of the writing was quite demanding. Because it was to go into a display it had to be good quality work and they took this very seriously. A sense of urgency was present due to the impending visit of Mr Green to inspect the new reception area and motivation was helped by the children seeing the work being made into the display as it progressed.

EPISODE 3 – THE BURGLARY

2006-11-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

In role as company members coming to work. We had previously discussed that the room directly through the door would be the company reception area, where a ‘secretary’ would have a desk or office to sign people in to the building. We actually went outside the classroom and walked up to the back door. As I approached the door I suddenly stopped and began to peer through the glass, saying ‘something seems to be wrong’. I asked a couple of the children to look through the glass (the image would be blurry as the glass was frosted). They began to say they could see a lot of mess, tables upturned, things broken or smashed. Someone spotted a broken window. We decided to enter but agreed not to touch anything – some children offered to phone the police. We quite quickly decided that a burglary had taken place. As the children explored the reception area they began to spot all sort of clues – finger prints, footprints, a diary, a cigarette stub. They also discovered that one of our storage rooms had been broken into and emptied of all the salvage artefacts, including some valuable items. At this point I received a phone call from the police, saying they wouldn’t be able to get there for a while, but would we help by writing down / drawing all the clues we’ve found and also listing the items stolen. We did this and ‘sent’ all our information to the police who began to investigate the burglary.

The class were fascinated with the whole idea of the burglary (especially a very lively and vocal group of boys!) and came up with more and more fantastical ideas about how it happened and who did it. Those who wanted kept phoning ‘ sending messages to the police with new evidence – responses from the police were invariably enthusiastic and grateful for their help!!)

EPISODE 2 – HQ – THE DOOR

2006-11-01T13:44:00.000-08:00

We discussed the fact that our company will need an HQ. Even though some of our work is done in the field (an expression that involved a mini discussion in itself!), there are many jobs that need a central building e.g. restoring, researching, admin work. In small groups the children discussed locations for our HQ. We used a voting system to agree the following:

∑ The Sea Company is a large organisation based in London.
∑ The ‘boss’ is called Mr Green and works at the London head office.
∑ There are several branches of the company all over England.
∑ Our HQ is on the sea front in Cromer. (The children decided it should be near the sea, but also near lots of people who might want to use our services.

I then asked the children to imagine walking along the sea front in Cromer and stopping in front of the door of our HQ. What does it look like? What does it say about the company who work behind the door. I began to do a large picture of the door on the whiteboard, guided by the children. This worked brilliantly – they became so involved in the detail – the black gloss woodwork, the brass handle in the shape of a dolphin, the frosted glass windows, the brass plaque with the company name on, the security system with a code and a swipe card for company members to get in. The children were bursting with ideas and I was struck by the power of a door as a symbol of entry, beginnings, possibilities (what is lying behind that closed door?) and also giving the first sense of belonging and belief to the children – it is our door – it says something about our company. This has definitely been the most powerful beginning to a Mantle that I have tried and I will use it in the future.

As we had discussed the plaque the next natural step was to think of a name that would be on the plaque. It was my ADHD child who came up with ‘The Sea Company’ and this was the first activity that she had volunteered to do without any support or persuasion – was this the beginning of her involvement in the Mantle Work ?– well, not quite, as she is still finding some aspects of it very hard, but she is dipping in and out with increasing regularity and is apparently talking about it at home. As the door also required a security code we invented a 6 digit code which we all learned off by heart. The children also wanted to make swipe cards so the rest of the afternoon was spent with string, hole punches and bits of cardboard until they were all proudly wearing their entry cards!

EPISODE 1 – WHAT DOES A SALVAGE COMPANY DO ? DO WE WANT TO WORK AS A SALVAGE COMPANY?

2006-11-01T13:42:00.000-08:00

I showed the children a strange stone, with some sort of symbol on it (found by my son on Mundesley beach!), and told them that in our drama we were going to imagine that it had been found at the bottom of the sea. The children were fascinated by the stone and spent a long time discussing what it might be. They came to the conclusion that it was part of the lettering of a ship’s name as the marks looked like part of a letter H. I asked them what sort of people might be looking around at the bottom of the sea – they knew quite a lot about divers so began to talk about that and then about submarines (the boys’ eyes had already lit up!!). I asked them what these divers might be looking for under the sea – quite a lot of the children began to talk about sea life, especially sharks, giant squid etc – so we will definitely follow this interest later in the drama.

Then somebody mentioned shipwrecks – I hoped they would, but might have fed this idea in myself if they hadn’t!! I then asked them ‘if these divers were working for someone, who might be paying them to dive down to shipwrecks to find things?’. They had quite a few ideas: the captain of the ship, the ship’s owner, a museum, people who had survived the wreck . I asked them if they knew the term ‘salvage’ which they didn’t, so we talked about what that meant. I then asked them ‘in our drama, would you like to imagine that we are members of a salvage team who dive down to explore shipwrecks?’ (the childen ae very familiar with drama and had taken part in a small Mantle in Year 1, working as problem solvers in stories. Most were very keen, but there were a couple of doubters, so we got into small groups to discuss the pros and cons of being a salvage company. Then 3 advocates stod up to give their ‘for and against’ views. The ‘againsts’ thought it would be too much hard work and too complicated and maybe dangerous; the ‘fors’ thought it would be fun and exciting and that we wouldn’t be in real danger because it was only pretend – they also thought it would be great to see all the sealife and to make people happy by finding things they had lost in shipwrecks. We then went to a class vote which was overwhelmingly for (pheww!!). Question – how to make the doubters still feel valued and motivated. ( I did talk to one boy who was very put out, saying just to give it a go and if he still didn’t like it to make sure and let me know!! He was actually hooked by the end of week 1 (double pheww!!)

Introduction

2006-11-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

I have been lucky enough to work as part of a DFES Innovations project group under the guidance of Luke Abbot, Brian Edmiston and Tim Taylor so have had some excellent training in how to use MoE. I have been using Mantle extensively with my Year class over the last1 _ years and have run a mini-beast rescue team, an Animal Sanctuary and a company of architects on a commission in Africa. I have a TLR post to develop the use of MoE across the school and have taught demonstration lessons with classes from Year R to Year 5.Our school is also part of a PLN who’s focus is using MoE, particularly to develop boys’ writing. I work closely with a colleague in school who is also using MoE extensively and together we have run workshops at a series of MoE conferences.I am currently working with a Year 2 class of 30 – approx 2/3 are boys. I have 11 children on IEPs, including one child with ADHD and 8 children from ethnic minorities. We have set ourselves up as ‘The Sea Company’, a shipwreck salvage company who will accept commissions from all over the world! We hope to keep this Mantle going all year. We use most afternoons to do the work and as much morning time as we need, especially during the English lesson.