QR Code Poetry Stogumber School

Monday 24th March and it's Stogumber and Crowcombe Schools turn to explore the Coleridge Way in Monksilver. The day started with a rather circuitous bus journey which avoided a single S bend, and took 30 mins rather than 10! Undaunted we quickly got the children on task with great support from Stogumber school.

We walked up an ancient Hollow Way which rises out of Monksilver and sits pretty much in the middle of the current Coleridge Way trail. (The extension to Lynmouth is well underway, and being sign posted as I write.) We collected words from the trail, what we saw, heard, smelt, felt etc, and these were scribed down by teachers and helpers alike. In fact we were so overwhelmed that our writing became frantic scribbles, keen to capture the pupils words.

"The wind was whistling silently in the trees whilst brushing past my face was the light fluffy breeze."

Descending down the Holloway track of the Coleridge Way

"Waterfall flowing in me,
Waterfall flowing in you,
I can see it and you can too. 

Cold, icy water upon your skin
It pricks you like a pointy pin,
I can feel it and you can too,
thats the waterfall flowing in you."

Treasure!

We passed Monksilver 13th C Church which purports to have the oldest depiction of dentists in their Gargoyles, (which I neglected to photograph sorry! You'll just have to take a look yourself when walking the trail.)

"The wiggly roots knotted in a web of wonder."

At the foot of the trail in Monksilver

Back in the classroom we worked on the art of writing our poetry, Mrs Mash along with teachers Mr Wedderkopp and Mrs Phillips drew on their educators acumen to draw some stunning work from the budding authors, many had no idea they could write poetry!

"Slimy, slow and sluggish slugs
Wow! this place is infested with bugs
But there's not just bugs, there's also decay
What hideous things I've seen today."

Back in the class with Mrs Mash leading the poetry workshop

The next job is for me to transcribe the poetry, then render into QR codes for laser etching and installing along the trail (with full permissions of course). I would like to thank Stogumber for being so welcoming, and especially their pupils who rose to the task, it was a great day.

Laser etched QR code poetry should be in place early June, so keep your eyes peeled along the trail.

All About Me! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Talk at Rook Lane Chapel, Frome

Rook Lane Chapel, Coleridge Way works, plus my shells tells tales books.

Last week I found myself in the fortuitous (and honoured) position of talking about my own artistic practice at Rook Lane Chapel in Frome.

Over the past year I have been stockpiling images across my different projects including The Coleridge Way, Westcott Farm Labyrinth, Tell Tales Story Cards, Teasing Tags, Storywalks, Reading Den, and now Poetry Pin as well; phew there is just too much stuff!

So when I was asked, I was a little unsure where to start, how to sequence or thread these different elements together, and how to segway naturally between the projects. Thankfully they all have a playful literary core but in other ways each project has a different journey and though they may share the same root, the branches are reaching for a different sun.

Claire Vowell (left) lead teacher with
Norton St Philip StoryWalk Project

The project was organised by Break3 with the initial exhibition titled 'Words in the Woods' which morphed naturally into 'Free the Words' with a sub heading of 'Outdoor Adventures in Literature.'

These are all great umbrella titles, giving me scope to talk about everything, which ironically was the problem, I needed to throw something away. But what? Which parts didn't fit the story. I knew there would be feeder schools coming who were very interested in my Storywalks work with Norton St Philip school (just north of Frome) so that part was essential, but what about the other pieces, somehow they are all part of the jigsaw and all inform each other.

Exploration of old iron workings near Pen Elm, Frome

Recently I attended a presentation by the excellent Guy Mannes-Abbott at Contains Art in Watchet. Guy talked about his work and book Running in Ramallah with a slide show of images taken from the book itself. Guy read and spoke eloquently about his work and the artists with which he collaborated as a handful of slides rolled continuously behind throughout. But there were not enough, I wanted more, more, more!

Why are Y shaped sticks lucky - teasing tag question

So I thought, why don't I throw key images from the last 12 months work into a slideshow, pop it on random and let it roll. After pruning there would be about 200 images in all (some pictured,) making a brilliant texture to the talk and adding an unpredictable cross pollination to the script.

Whilst talking segments would then naturally link together, and over the course of the session make a full and rounded picture of my works, but as it transpired the talk didn't come together quite like this at all. The first section was graced with 'the A team' (their words) from Norton St Philip's school, and they did a stunning presentation of the storywalks experience from their perspective.

Both Claire Vowell (Norton Teacher) and I dipped in to fill out the content where needed, and then I followed with my back up selection of a more traditional slide show and script. All in all it was well received, especially the earlier session, so many thanks to all at Rook Lane, especially Jo Plimmer, Lucia Harley and Claire Carroll.

The exhibition is on until 22nd February at Rook Lane Chapel, so if you catch this blog today you've just got time to swing by. But there will be more, as the 'literacy den' is being nurtured as we speak, and will be roaming over the next six months or so, touring the local schools plus Frome Festival if all goes to plan.

Story walks are go, go ,go!

Next week is the launch of the Storywalks authored by Norton St Philips school between Bath and Frome. It has been an amazing collaboration with Claire Vowell who applied to the Shine Trust for the initial grant. The specific task was to see if geo-locating text would lift literacy and learning with their pupils. With only a single term to field test and gather the data the initial results have been very positive.

The project was primarily focused towards boys reading, by empowering them with the skills to geolocate their own words in locations outside the classroom. A term on and we reviewed this question again, asking in plain English has it helped the fidgety boys read and write more? The answer is simply yes.

On the first day just after the first storywalk.

But what about the girls, have they been left behind, has the gap closed between those of a similar age, or have they engaged in exactly the same way? Have they been swept along with the joy of reading and writing, hiding and seeking just like their male peers. Well again the answer is yes, they have all lifted their abilities and key literacy skills across the board.

Towards the end of last term Mrs Vowell said to me 'I've just had one boy ask if he can use the other side of the paper he was writing on!' Why of course, she replied, a little dumbstruck as normally a single sentence was all this pupil would deliver and now he wanted to write more, and this is just one example of many.

The Sun Dial, a point of reference in the Church yard at Norton St Philip.
Note - we walked passed it again and again, seeing, but not really seeing it,
then one of the pupils pointed it out and suggested this is where this chapter should be located. 

So what has given these pupils their reading wings, surely its not all down to geolocating words?

No I don't think the storywalks concept is the single magic bullet, its integration into current good teaching practice is essential and in the simplest terms perhaps all storywalks have done is assimilated a literacy activity into a more physical context. The same core literacy work is still being completed with a heap of other ones too, mapping, uploading images, taking photographs, filing, sequencing, etc. The skills required for the pupils to achieve this does take some time, but the strength of the system is simplicity, and if 6 year olds can master it then that's testament to its ease of use.

Inputting the story to the Storywalk engine

Having extra help in the classroom and balancing the teacher pupil ratio will undoubtedly help, but one key to this in my opinion is the physical, the raising of the heart beat and throwing off the twitches during learning. At one point we were revealing the pupils own stories on the Mead, (Norton St Philips village green and cricket square,) and I was delighted to see the pupils running with their tablets, eager to reveal their own stories and text.

To the next chapter!

Last term in my mind was just the beginning, I have learnt so much riding shot gun with Mrs Vowell and her team, but there is so much more that can be done. How do we improve what we have created, what worked, what faltered, what are the short cuts and where can we go from here. 

Holly the Hare, part of a storywalk written by the pupils.

Some of these you can plan, others need further flying time, for example on my last day we tested their 'epic trail' (their words) 'The Weaver of Norton'. Towards the end I witnessed pupils acting their story as it was read out loud, and we had been walking for a good hour and a half by this point so I expected the final chapters to be more of a dash to completion, but if anything they were getting more involved and taking longer.

Dragon Head Stone - the Dinosaur story, part of
The Weaver of Norton trail

In short I am incredibly proud of the achievements made by the pupils and staff at Norton St Philips school, next week on Tuesday 14th we will have 'The launch event', press at 11.00 and schools at 1.30. I've ironed the bunting and pressed my shirt, I've rehearsed a few words to say but stage two is now in our sight. We need other schools to see what we are doing and also want a piece of this, to bring me and Claire in to fire up literacy in their schools, to invest in tech which can reveal their pupils words. (Not just 3G iPad mini's, the Nexus 7 by google is brilliant at this too and half the price!)

I am sure phase two will set some new challenges, new locations and new opportunities, but in the mean time, see you on Tuesday.

Get in touch with me at http://storywalks.info