A Q.uite R.efreshing cycle ride

Today I cycled down the Tyne from Wylam to the Quayside with some of my Year 7 students who will make up the logistics team for the upcoming Tyne Project.

We aimed to a few things with the journey:

1. To gather stories, pictures and videos to stimulate peers
2. To model some of the tasks that students will complete when they are 'in situ' on the Tyne
3. To place QR codes on the route so that anyone with a smartphone can scan the code and link to the art that our students will create.

1) Part of the project will involve students contemplating how the Tyne is important to them. Students will be encouraged to speak to their relatives to get some idea of the generational heritage of which perhaps they were unaware. Their interest may come from something they discover on the first day of project where all students will have a trip to various locations along the Tyne.

2) Today students used a writing frame adapted from one shared by Rob Riordan (Emperor of Rigour - High Tech High) to reflect, observe and describe whilst on the Tyne. (Thanks also to Jane Arthur for the simplfied version). They also were encouraged to be curious and ask as many questions as possible whenever something struck their interest, preferably questions that I or my Dad could not answer (thanks for the bike repairs Dad). My favourite question of the day was an ernestly asked: "Why would someone wnat to burn down Dunston Staithes?" qualified with "They're mint!"

3) My students have now placed six codes and more will be placed on the first dasy of the project on Monday 13th June. These students will also talk to students about their cycle ride at the launch assembly this Thursday.

 

Examples of student reflections using the writing frame:



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The Tyne Project

From Monday 13th June students at Cramlington Learning Village in the North East of England are having a week where their normal timetable will be suspended. During this week they will be choosing from a wide range of arts based projects. During the course of the week they will visit The Tyne and create pieces of art stimulated by our local river.

The hope is that this project will do two things:

• Give students a rich experience and help them to develop their artistic and creative skills

• To help them connect to their cultural heritage, using the river as an access point to our regions rich history.

We will then publicly exhibit our art and learning in school on Saturday 25th June so that there is an authentic audience for our work.
We will we be using our blog and our twitter feed @tyneproject as another way to exhibit our learning and then there is the exciting use of QR codes to link to our students' work.


We are placing a number of QR codes along the length of the Tyne so that you can be 'in situ' on the banks of the Tyne and use a smartphone to view the art that our students have created.


Students will begin tweeting and blogging from Sunday 5th June, when a small group of students will cycle along the Tyne to gather stories, photographs and video. These will be used as a stimulus for the whole year 7 cohort in a launch assembly on Thursday 9th June, during which we also hope to have a Skype link to Nagarjuna Academy, our partner school in Nepal, where students from Kathmandu can tell our students about the human importance of their great river, The Bagmati.


'I think that it's a good way of getting children to learn about the history of Newcastle and the Tyne.  It's not just learning in a classroom, we're using Arts to help us explore stories.'


'The QR barcodes are different and eye catching, it great because you can show your work to more people.  I'm really looking forward to cycling down the Tyne as this will be a really active way to learn.'

(Two student perspectives on what we hope to achieve with the project)

This project has been influenced by our involvement with both Learning Futures and High Tech High. Below are the slides I used to present this project to a Project Tuning Panel at High Tech High in San Diego earlier this year. Thanks especially to Rob Riordan and Laura McBain.

Tyne Project - Project Tuning (High Tech High)

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