School aims, school song

When I entered the room for this input I could see our character creations on the wall. It was exciting to see and this only emphasises the importance of having children's work up on the wall. It can promote a sense of achievement boosting self esteem, which in turn can help to establish the right atmosphere for the children to be creative. 

The first task of the day was to create a vision statement and our school aims. We did this in groups then voted to select the final outcome. This was more difficult than our previous votes as there was not the time to justify the choices or to combine all the ideas into one. 

Vision statement: 

To prepare the children of our community for their future and provide them with the knowledge and skills to strive in today’s society.

We aim to:  

·         Provide a warm and inviting environment in which every individual is supported to succeed.

·         Always try our best

·         Treat others the way we like to be treated

·         Respect our school and community

·         Take pride in everything that we do.

I would enjoy doing this in the classroom as I feel it is something that the children could really get involved in and it could spark debate. This section would also have strong links with health and well-being as well as language. Once the different groups had chosen their visions and aims and have justified their choices to the class I would then encourage the class to make a final decision using a combination of all the groups' work. I believe this is important as it lets the children see that all their work is valued, which in turn may boost self-esteem. This would also increase their emotional involvement giving them ownership of the project which in turn should improve motivation. McLean (2005, p. 9) emphasises the impoprtance of intrinsic motivation as it "is more enjoyable, but it also helps learning and achievement."

The final task for this input was to write a school song. This was the part I had been dreading most of all. Not only did I have to try to open myself up to creativity but I also had to include music. We started by discussing different ideas within our groups, but it soon became apparent that there was not the time to go about this as we had done for previous tasks. There seemed to be some of us that were uneasy with writing a song, so we decided to work together as a class to get the job done. We threw different ideas out to the class and realised we needed to keep it simple. The song we chose was a well known classic and we pulled together to write the lyrics. We even managed some actions too. Here is the Lochside Primary School song:

It felt really good to work together as a whole class and even create a school song. I did not believe we would manage this. I feel more confident in my own abilities and believe that I might even hold the potential to become a creative person. This lesson was a turning point for me personally and I hope I can continue to grow from strength to strength. I think that within a primary classroom this turning point of self belief could happen much earlier as there is the time to focus on specific episodes of the Storyline and tease them out. I am however, happy that we are getting the opportunity to work through our own Storyline even if it is at a faster pace. 

References

McLean, A. (2005) The Motivated School. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.