The children of third class participated in The Creative Schools Awards Programme and have been successful in achieving the Creative Schools award for 2014. This award encourages creative learning and teaching in schools and well done to all the boys and girls and their teacher Ms McInerney for the fantastic work they have been doing.
Each participating group submitted its own project proposal and kept an online diary blog of work done along the way. The main emphasis was on work in progress, decision making and learning through experience. Therefore the children were relaxed and full of enthusiasm and childlike curiosity.
We were able to integrate English, History, Geography, Science, Music, Visual Art and Drama into our theme so we were learning in lots of different ways.
The main element of the project was a study of our school environment. This included an observation trail to develop our ‘artistic eye’, exploring our own school garden and a study of the former Mount Shannon Estate. Our school was originally built on the estate in 1803 to serve the children of the estate workers. We went on a guided tour of the ruins of the mansion house and kitchen gardens and found out about lifestyles, occupations and traditions in that time.
Horses were very important back then because they pulled ploughs and carriages. Lauren gave a presentation about shoeing horses and we learned the song ‘Ding Dong Dedero’. We also explored how to make the cling clang high pitch sounds of a farrier’s workshop and clip clop sounds of horses with suitable instruments. We learned how to weave and sew with hessian and learned the song ‘An gcuirfidh tú liom’ which was also a workers song. Workers spend so much time making things from scratch that they sang lots of songs to help them pass the time and cheer themselves up when they got tired.
We had great fun ‘going back in time’ by planning and making up our own Drama and writing about our experiences. We learned about children having to do horrible cruel work and how we have much easier fun lives nowadays. We drew plans of the estate which ran from lower Mountshannon Road near Annacotty up to Newgarden. In Visual Art, we planned the design of the shed Mural and painted it, all with Niamh’s help. We explored charcoal and pastels, clay, fabric and fibre and paint. We really had a great time and all our creative ideas were important.Below are just a few photos of our work. To read more visit www.creativeschools16.weebly.com
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