Final Lesson Plan

After then being involved in two of the children's lessons and developing our ideas, and also proposing those ideas and taking in all the feedback from Carmen, we then had to round everything up and make a final plan on how we would like the lesson to be run.

We made a decision with Carmen to have our workshop to be on Friday 15th July in the morning. We planned to meet at 8:45am at the school so that we can be there early and be able to set up and prepare ourselves and the workshop before the children get into the classroom (if we are setting up while they are doing their morning routine, they would get distracted with what we were doing and not focus on what they are supposed to be doing). Once the children had arrived, we would greet them off the buses to again get familiar with our faces again before we went into our workshops.

Each of the groups within my group had to create a final lesson plan which consists of the important information which we would be sending the school before we went there to prepare then fully on what we would be doing and to get the materials ready which we would be needing.
When doing these, Claire showed us what a lesson plan is supposed to look like so that we had more of a clear understanding of how they should be displayed. Once all of the groups had finished, we then gathered them together and sent them in an email over the Carmen, she then could have a final look through them all. We also said in the email that if she or the other teachers had any further questions or queries to contact us.

So the next step from here was to make the animal templates for the children to collage/colour in ready and on A3 pieces of paper.

Here are the drawings which I had done for the children to colour in, I put them into photoshop and erased the lines I didn't want there, and I enhanced the black lines to be more prominent and neat. 

Developing our workshop ideas

When we visited the school for the second time, and met class 10 for the first time, we instantly realised that they loved music, and moving to music. They had different types of music for the different activities they were doing, and this made us decide straight away that we want to include some sort of music within our workshop. This gave us the idea of the children dancing with paint on their feet to music, this also is a way we can challenge the perception of peoples views on what drawing actually is as dancing with their feet could be a way of drawing to music just using a different part of the body.

We had also realised from watching the lessons and observing likes and dislikes, we thought that some of the pupils might not want to have paint on their feet which then we came up with the idea of textured shoes so that the paint goes on the shoes not their feet. It will also allow them to see that the textured shoes will make a different imprint to what their feet would make.

We were also told that the students have a short attention spans which means that we had to think about having a second activity as we need to make sure that they don't get distracted and keep focused by changing it up for them. It also would allow us to split the class in two so that they are in smaller groups and would be easier to control.

We then thought about creating some drawings of different animals which the children could colour in using crayons and we could make a small set which they would be able to make into posters.

After having the meeting with Carmen we realised we needed to adapt it a little bit more so we can add collage to help the students who would find it hard to focus on drawing with crayons. Also doing collage, it would allow the children to be more sensory with their work and have that kind of experience involved.

We have also come up with a back up plan incase they can't focus with drawing, that they cover the animal templates with glue and then glitter and see what it produced.

Materials needed:

• Non-toxic paint (2x bottles of each colour) red,blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, pink
• Trays for paint – so students can stand in (x7)
• Rolls of paper (roller per student)
• Textured shoes so they can create different textures and patterns and for students who don’t like getting paint on their feet (5 sets)
• Non-toxic crayons (enough for class)
• Glitter
• Non-toxic PVA glue
• Variety of different furs
• Coloured paper
• Sequins
• Students will need to bring a spare pair of clothes as they will get messy

Presenting our ideas to Red Gate School

On Friday 8Th June, we went to Red Gates School and had another meeting with Carmen (the art co-ordinator) and discussed our ideas to make sure that they were accessible and the we would be able to do them. We all created a handout which would briefly explain our ideas which Carmen could take after with her as well as us being there to explain everything and all the information which we wanted to communicate to her.

Carmen seemed very interested and enthusiastic about mine and Florrie's ideas (and also everyone elses) and she helped by contributing what she thinks would work best with our workshops.

Feedback

There were a few points which Carmen had told us which we needed to take into consideration with our workshop, which meant we may have to adapt our workshops slightly, theses were:

• One of the students in our class has broken her leg which has meant that she wouldn't be able to dance around with paint on her feet while listening to music.
• Two of the students which are in outclass have a lower attention span which means that with the drawing activity/workshop, they might find it hard to focus and might only keep them occupied for a small amount of time. 
• What colours of paint do we want?
• How much material would we need?
• Lastly we had an idea for the students to choose their favourite animal to fill in, however they don't understand the concept of having favourites which means that we will just have to create some different animal drawings, so that they can choose when they are there form pictures.

Response to feedback 

We (me and Florrie) came up with some solutions which would solve the slight problems we have with our workshop ideas:

• For the student which has broken her foot, we came up with an alternative way she cn still be involved in that activity by her using her hands with the paint to dance on the paper with.
• To help the students with low attention span, we have included college and glitter/glue to their choices on filling in the animals they have chosen.
• We would like a variety of colours - red, yellow, blue, green, purple, orange, pink and pink.
• A variety of coloured crayons
• 5 sets of textured shoes
• Glitter, non-toxic PVA glue, fur/felt, coloured paper and sequins
• we also thought to ask the students to bring a spare pair of clothing to school on friday as they could get fairly messy dancing with paint.

Proposal Presentation

On Tuesday 28th June, me and my community group had to create a powerpoint presentation which we were to present to our teachers about our placement and the workshop ideas we had. However, even though we were not getting funded for this project, we still made a full proposal including costs for materials we needed and extra. Obviously we aren't actually getting money for it, but we made a proposal as if we were starting from scratch, however Red Gates School kindly offered their materials to us which had to be specifically non- toxic. We also included information about the school and the research we had gathered together and in our separate groups, this also included how long our workshops were going to last, and also the ideas we had. Within our group, we separated into our pairs to make a slide each which we would then present together.

When we presented together, I think that we communicated well with each other, and we worked as a team to communicate our plans fully to our audience. Our presentation lasted around half an hour, which actually was pretty long, but there was a reason for that, even though we are in a group of 10, we are separated in 4 groups to different classes due to the children and how they react to too many people, this meant that each class would have to come up with their own ideas separately but at the same time still pitch ideas and work together to help each group with what they think would work best. Each pair had to present their own ideas which meant that the slide show was longer as we had to do it separately then come together.

Over all the comments from the teachers about our presentation was mainly positive, however we had some feedback which would help us for the future. They said that we were very good as working in a team and seeing as we didn't start with a placement and had to find it ourselves, that we had done well to have done as much work as we had, and also said that we communicated well with each other and they can see the ideas we had for the workshops were well thought about,  they also liked that we considered to give them a handout of our presentation ideas as no other group had done that. The slight negative feedback we got back was that we had a little bit too much writing on our presentation  which we should keep on the hand out, but only bullet point on our actual slide show. They also said it would have been better to include some photographs to create a visual, but at the same time it would be hard as we cannot have the children's faces in the pictures if we were to have any.

Me and Florrie created the slide shows with the titles of CLASS 10 however the others are a joint slide which covers the school in general not just our particular group but for all of the groups together.

Second Lesson Visit To Redgates School

We visited Redgates school to see how the lessons work again but for a different subject rather than art. Our class were being taught maths and you could see that their concentration levels are really challenged when doing maths as they need to focus more on one specific thing.

Before the lesson, we went to the school early so that we were there before the students arrived, this was because they wanted us to go to the buses to get the children and bring them into the class. The reason why we done this was so that the children could again become more familiar with us again and remember who we were from before. I had the job to collect Reece one of the students my allocated class (class 10) and he remembered me straight away. Once all the students had been taken to their classes, the students have a bit of time outside to release all the energy before they have to sit and focus.

Once they had come in from outside, the students sat in a circle and started with the day of the week and linked it with the colour yellow and the smell of lemon. Before the students got to smell/taste the lemon, they had to say it or communicate it using makaton. They then also said hello to the new faces in the classroom which were me, Florrie and also another new assistant. Because we had been there before, they had to try and remember mine and Florrie's names however they had to ask the new assistant what her name was.

Even though we are there to focus on art and make an art workshop, we observed a maths lesson so that we could get  better understanding on how the students learn in different circumstances. Starting the maths lesson, they got separated into 4 groups (based on their abilities) which is where me and Florrie were placed with one of the students with the highest pre national curriculum level in the class. We had an activity where there were a row of items on the paper and one was the odd one out. She would have to name all of the items on the paper and then decide which one was the odd one out. This was when I found out that she really likes drawing, as when I saw on back of one of the sheets of paper a drawing which she done, I then asked her about drawing and she said she really loves drawing, this helped us as it gave us a new idea on what she might like in our art workshop. This means that we could potentially make a separate workshop for her where she can do some drawing. This would have to be separate as the other students wouldn't have the same ability as her to be able to make detailed drawings as she has a higher pre national curriculum level. However, we could also do a drawing task which all the students can do but it will still allow the higher ability students to draw in more detail.

Then there was another activity and the groups changed so then I was now placed with 4 children while we sung the duck song, each time they sung the song one of the ducks were taken away and the children had to acknowledge that there isn't the same number as before and had to tell the teacher how many ducks were left. This needed more concentration from the students as even though they were having a cheerful activity singing, they found it hard to communicate how many ducks were left.

This made us realise that whatever our workshop was going to be, we really had to consider about how much concentration the children are going to have to have because they get frustrated and distracted when they are focussing on the same thing for too long.

We realised that after every activity, they had a count down from 10 so that they can understand that it is time to finish and be prepared to stop that particular task and be ready that something new is going to happen after and that they won't be doing the same thing again. Once the maths lesson finished, they had a snack break at 11:00am which is where we said goodbye and met with the other students in our group.

Research on Learning Difficulties

All of the students in my allocated class room have learning difficulties. I thought that the best thing for me to do which would benefit my workshop would be to research learning difficulties which would allow me to have more of an understanding of the children and give me an idea of how to create the best workshop I can for the children. It would be beneficial as it will help me to get to know the students more and also to see what works best for them and how their learn most effectively.

Learning disabilities are mental based problems which makes processing information more of a difficulty. This can affect skills of very basic levels such as; reading, writing and/or math. Which makes it harder for them to able to adapt to more advanced skills such as organisation, time planning, abstract reasoning, long or short term memory and attention. Someone with learning difficulties would have lower intellectual ability which could create a difficulty with simple everyday activities. An example of this would be doing household tasks or socialising. These tasks would always be affected as they will have less ability to do them for the rest of their lives, however, they can develop and try to learn new skills it just takes them longer and they find it harder to do. This means that they could need more help and support when developing new skills (the amount of help will depend on their level of ability). For example, if someone had mild learning disabilities, they might only need help with things like getting a job or slightly need more help of being told what to do, however, someone with severe or profound learning difficulties may need full time or one to one support. This could be with everything, from simple to more complex tasks, it could also include certain physical activities as some people with severe learning difficulties may be not only be mentally unable but also physically. Mentally, someone with this disability would take a longer amount of time to understand information which is more complicated and interact with other people.
There are also people who have specific conditions such as Down's syndrome and Autism who usually also have learning difficulties.

The students in my class are only slightly verbal, meaning they use makaton to help them communicate. Makaton is a language programme using signs and symbols to help people to communicate. It is designed to support spoken language and the signs and symbols are used with speech, in spoken word order. They are also working between P3-P6 on the Pre national curriculum level which means that they are at the ability of someone from the age of 8 months to 2 years old, where as their actual ages are 8-9 years old.

Experiencing a lesson

Today we visited Red Gates school again, however this time, we experienced more than we did before.
In our pairs, we went into allocated class rooms, and met the children and their teachers. We were there to observe the lesson and understand how the children learn, we needed to do this because it would allow us to be able to think of more affective ideas for our workshop as for them to work how we want them to, they need to be appropriate as the children won't be able to do them if the ability needed is too high.

The students are in the middle school department of the school, and our class consisted of children aged 8-9 however their mental ages are a lot lower. We were given this age group as the art coordinator teaches in this department and it made sense to work alongside her.

The lesson started by getting everyone settled into the classroom, and the first activity was stretching and dancing to the song 'Up Town Funk'. I could see that the students really enjoyed this and made them smile, it also allowed them to let off any energy which they have so that when they were ready to learn. Once they finished the dancing and movement, they sat down in a semi circle around the teacher's desk where the teacher had played calming music/sounds which you could tell relaxed the students after their very energised starting activity.

When the students had calmed down, the main teacher of the class (Carrie) had the children to introduce us by asking what our names are using simple sign language and speaking.
Once we had been introduced to the class, they sang a song which teaches them about the days of the week, they associated the days of the week with colour and smells to help them learn.

The students were very focused around routine as they had a time table which they had one student adapt it to how the day is going. This allowed them to have structure and be aware of the coming topics.

Carrie then done an example/demonstration on the kind of idea she wanted the children to follow with their art lesson, however, because of their learning difficulties, the teacher realised that the students might not copy what she had done but at least if they see her doing it, it would allow them to try it for themselves.

We then got our aprons on and started the art lesson. The lesson consisted on allowing the students to explore the paint and colours within their own terms as it helps then learn about having independence. One of the activities was having a spinning wheel, which we placed paper on to, so that the children could choose a colour (which by them choosing, allows them to have that independence) and pour some on to the wheel with the paper on it. Like how Carrie showed an example of what kind of idea she had the children to do, only one of the students independently span the wheel after remembering what he had seen, but the activity was still good for the pupils as they were looking at colours, paints and glitter and deciding for themselves what they wanted on their art work.

On another table, it was covered with paper, and there were trays, paints and objects such as; toy cars and paint brushes, which the children could choose between, and they poured the colour into the trays, dipped in the object they had chosen and then either pushed the cars/brushes along the paper. The teachers want the students to try to acknowledge things such as patterns and repeating something which some of the students had found independently buy working it out themselves.

After the lesson, we packed up the mess as it got VERY messy, and then me and my pair (Florrie) were given a booklet which included all the children's likes and dislikes so that when we are thinking of ideas for our workshop, that we can take their preferences into consideration and also make sure we don't include any of the dislikes as it could make our workshop not go as well as we would want as the students wouldn't co-operate if they don't like it.