Norton St Philips and Storywalks

I have been working over the last month with Norton St Philips school near Bath, on a project to digitally install interactive trails around their village, as part of a project funded by The Shine Trust. This is designed to lift literacy, learning and attainment within their year groups 2, 3, and 4.  

So yesterday was my third day with the school, and it started with telling a story to get their creative juices flowing. We then moved on to creating simple story walks, mapping locations, writing chapters, and understanding where they are on the google map. Now who can put a finger on the school roof?

We always plan each session in advance, but with a pioneering project there are times when we need to respond on the fly by segmenting or tagging a task differently. I feel I have so much to learn from the professional educators at the school, how to effectively respond to the spectrum of learning styles and capabilities in the class and keep it all on an even keel, whilst still making overall progress is tricky. But I did feel chuffed yesterday, when the room was a hush with just pencils on paper, and everyone was immersed in their tale.

So we are creating the story trail together, of which the pupils are designing, writing and mapping, and in that process cover plenty learning goals. In fact Mrs Vowell said 'On day two we pretty much covered the whole of the ICT curriculum, not to mention the literacy and team leader skills as well. ' 

So what are the current successes?

Well, on the first day we went out onto the Mead, which is a beautiful cricket pitch and play park in simple and safe walking distance from the school. I had prepared a tale where story walkers had to choose a leaf for 'Winning the Forest King's Honour', but to do this they had to take their leaf to see the Forest Kings Judges.

These were digitally placed all around the Mead field and they then journeyed around these chapters visiting the characters. Spider liked soft curly leaves, whilst Moth liked ones which she could see through, each child took it in turn to read the story on the iPads as the tale triggered. One child who will not read in class, nor at home, and not even to the class room assistant, amazingly read out loud to the group from the iPad, brilliant.

On the second day, we had a full on day of literacy where the pupils created their own tales which we then tested in the afternoon. Putting their text into a dynamic environment, seems to sharpen their expectations, their words are instantly live which puts the pressure on. But I like to remind people it is still text, still written words just parcelled up differently and then hidden, and of course everyone loves a secret, so they have to hunt them out to reveal.

This mix of old style reading and writing, coupled with the the ability to geo locate, brings in so many more skills which the pupils seem to relish in it, forgetting that they are doing the tough stuff of everyday learning.

Yesterday we started building four full walks, authored by the pupils themselves, and building further on the Forest Tree King tale, and we got some stunning writing. Here is an example, imagine you are holding your smart phone (or 3G iPad) and you walk across the Mead to the Pavilion, at about twenty paces short, the text below reveals and you can read.

Congratulations, you have found Buzz the Bee. She is yellow and black and has a deadly sting. Buzz has had a hard time sleeping lately because of all the leaves rustling around. She has searched all over the mead for a leaf that has the most colours on. Now you have come along she has a better chance of finding the leaf that she wants. But Buzz is usually out with her friends so you must count to three and then all together say bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Then you will have summoned Buzz, lay your leaves on the path and whoevers leaf has the most colours on will not only win a point but will win her heart. 

Brilliant, and this is just one little nugget, over the next three sessions, we will take and add images, choose locations for their characters, walk, test, and test each others again. Each time we will be reading and writing, using creative thought processes, team building, navigating through maps and new software (storywalk engine), and having a lot of fun. Perhaps we have found a way to sugar the pill a little, it's too early to tell but we are tracking the students progress, and each day feels like a rosette of achievements. 

We are also mindful though of the staff heavy sessions, and the additional tech the grant has provided. Would the same staffing levels be able to make the same progress without the Story Walk Engine? I wonder. How much can we attribute to the project, is a mute point, but all I can say is, currently the project is feeling very strong, the last thing one boy said to me at the end of yesterday was. 

'Home time day already. Oh, I'd love to carry on.'