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St Peter’s C of E Primary School won the Collaboration through Technology Primary Award with their Partner School, Kilton Thorpe School
The School
 St Peter’s C of E Primary School is a large primary school located in East Cleveland, incorporating two SEN bases. We deliver a broad and balanced curriculum to pupils aged 3-11, giving opportunities to go on residential trips to the Lake District and local youth hostels for the year 3-6 pupils, as well as a range of after school activities for all pupils until 6pm every evening. We are located by the North Sea and have a vast field and woodland area which can be used as an outside classroom. We are an eco school, and have been awarded Green Flag status. We even have our own wind turbine on the school field, which was the first wind turbine for a primary school in the area. The wind turbine powers our Sports and Arts hall that was built through a successful bid for lottery funding. These facilities enable a variety of sporting events to be held on site, including Kwik Cricket, orienteering, cross country, county football trials and many others.
Due to the sports coaching the children have received, we have a league and county winning netball team, as well as a league and county winning girls’ football team. Due to an ever increasing number of pupils on roll, we had to utilise space in school to accommodate all the pupils. We had to use a small hall and the ICT suite as teaching spaces which has impacted on the quality of ICT provision within school. When we were presented with the opportunity to use the resources at our neighbouring school we jumped at the chance and have been doing so for 3 years. We share ideas, expertise and resources and through our experiences we have developed a great way of working as a team. We are very grateful to have been asked to share Kilton Thorpe’s art bid and have enjoyed the experience.
Outline of the project
At the start of the Summer Term, the plan was to bring the entire Year 6 cohort (in 3 separate classes) over for a whole day, once a week for 7 weeks. The subject of the film was to be based on our topic - The Water Cycle. We were very familiar with the subject because we had covered the water cycle across our Science and Geography lessons. As the children have had a rich experience of the outdoors we are very used to getting wet on our residential trips, so choosing the subject matter connected to the water cycle was not a problem! We gathered together as a year group, and we organised children into subjects linked to the cycle. We then made, filmed and recorded the sound over three separate sessions over a 7 week period.
The benefits of the project
This project allowed the children to work with other children in the year that they may not have previously worked with. Some were part of the Junior Support Base, one of our SEN units. There was a real mix of children in abilities and attitudes and because we were based in a new environment they all began on a level playing field. This allowed them to cooperate without any bias towards ability. They respected the space they were working in and worked enthusiastically on the film throughout each stage. For those children who had behavioural issues, they understood that they would not be part of the film making process unless their behaviour had been of a good standard.
 The children enjoyed the challenge of making the film, and were keen to go across to Kilton Thorpe. Their speaking and listening and group work skills improved immensely and it was always warming to see how they would help each other out, sharing ideas or making models and props.
To get through all of the sessions it was important that there was small group work going on, so the rest of the class was with a supply teacher who had an ongoing project for the children to work on. This helped us to dip in and out with the children as the school is physically next door to the art school. By having this support it allowed us to focus on the children that were working on the film.
Advice to other schools and teachers planning to do a similar project
Be organised! My piece of planning for the film was a crossed out mess but without it I could not have coordinated 41 children over several sessions during 6 weeks! We had a clear vision of what we wanted to achieve, with a clear order of how the film was to be put together. We had used our knowledge of previous films, and decided we would go with a mixture of 3D (plasticine) and 2D (cardboard cut outs) media. This would allow us to do the more complex scenes such as Whitby and the reservoir. The relationship between both the Kilton Thorpe and St Peter’s staff was good which helped immensely as we were all on the ‘same page’ so understood what we wanted to achieve.
What next?
We have been motivated by the Northern Grid Film awards. We are now aiming to use green screen within our film making, and would have liked to have gone on location to do our filming. This year we have channelled our work to fit in with one of the categories as we have our aim set on entering the category on E safety.
Why we entered this project for the Northern Grid awards
We entered it because we thought the film reflected the knowledge and skill of the children involved. We were very proud of the finished product and that was down to the planning and technical support that we had as a team. We were very pleased to receive the award and this has fuelled our determination to win more awards in the future.
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