LWF11 - Dawn Hallybone, Senior Teacher, Oakdale Primary School

Games Based Learning

Dawn asked put your hand up if you are a gamer - just about the whole assembly (at least the pupils) put there hands up. Why do the pupils play games it is challenging, exciting, fun... They talk to each other, the collaborate and learn more. Can we get pupils to see the curriculum like that?

Flips Books great way to encourage boys in particular to read. It is also immersive - they went on an virtual safari and when they were attacked by virtual emus - they screamed and backed away from the whiteboard - that's how immersed they were in the activity.

Two great tools for sharing what schools and pupils are doing: Twitter and TeachMeet. Research is important. Some small scale carried out in Dawn's authority. Case studies of what schools did were created and have now been swapped between schools to see if the ideas can translate into different environments. Also gave example of a project involving two pupils with poor attendance and late coming issues - during the project, they never missed a day and were never late.