Once the dust settles after the Year 6 SATs are over, you'll want to give those pupils opportunities to move beyond the curriculum and enrich their learning. So we've adapted some of our most enjoyable and stretching creative maths, science, literacy, history and visual arts workshops to extend thinking, develop skills and deliver new content.
And including The Bunker (maths), Messages from Space (science), Spotlight on Shakespeare (literacy), Stage Your Own Macbeth (literacy), 1066 And All That (history) and Class Collage Mementoes (visual arts), our Life Beyond SATs programmes will support you and your pupils in keeping the learning going on right to the end of term!
If you have just the one Year 6 class, you can put together your own menu of up to three workshops. While two-form entry schools (or bigger) can choose to offer a shared experience to the whole cohort - or provide different workshops for different classes!
The Bunker (Maths)
At the heart of maths, of course, lies the ability to identify, analyse and predict patterns. so, inspired by the work of Alan Turing and his fellow mathematicians at Bletchley Park during World War II, The Bunker is based in cryptology – the writing and reading of codes. Appealing to all age and ability ranges, The Bunker has a simple premise. Working in teams, and at their own pace, students need to identify as closely as possible the location of a Enemy Radio Transmitter by cracking a series of increasingly fiendish numeric, geometric and semiotic ciphers. The more codes they crack, the more precisely they’ll be able to pin the Transmitter down.
Messages from Space (Science)
Clerihews are fun but descriptive four-line poems - so they're perfect for the descriptive rigour demanded by science. After a warm-up activity exploring some of the characteristics of a range of inhabitants of the universe (including stars and comets as well as planets and black holes), and armed with our beautifully illustrated FactFiles, pupils will mix metaphors, similes and astronomy as they create - and perform - their own Cosmic Clerihews!
Spotlight on Shakespeare (Literacy)
Shakespeare didn't write his plays to be read - he wrote them to be experienced, of course, as living, breathing narratives. So our. Spotlight on Shakespeare programmes offer pupils a uniquely "actor's eye view" of a text of your choice. Mixing whole group activity, classic drama exercises, structured improvisation and grappling with the text, pupils will explore the backstory, meet some of the principal characters, bring to life key "landmark moments" and respond to "unseen scenes". Our approaches can be used to explore any of Shakespeare’s plays – but for Year 6 we particularly recommend "Macbeth", “Romeo and Juliet”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “The Tempest”.
Macbeth in a Day! (Literacy)
One of our professional theatre practitioners will bring our specially abridged "Forty Five Minute Macbeth" and spend a day directing your pupils as they rehearse it. By the end of the day they'll have explored all the characters, mastered the verse and learnt the moves - and we'll also provide you with a list of cheap and/or easy to make costume and prop suggestions. And by the end of the day, you'll have a performance fit for an audience!
Note: Macbeth in a Day can accommodate a maximum of two classes in a single day.
1066 And All That: A History of Britain
Extending children’s learning beyond the national curriculum, while also exploring British values, this workshop sees pupils working in teams of Historical Ambassadors to teach each other about some of the important moments, both famous and infamous, of British History since the Battle of Hastings. Armed with enticingly designed FactFiles, teams will explore moments from the Black Death to the Second World War, selecting key facts and preparing and presenting short dramas to bring them to life. During the workshop, pupils will annotate our beautifully illustrated Timelines - which can be either taken home or used for displays.
Memory Lane – Year 6 Leavers Show
Working with professional theatre practitioners, your Year 6 pupils will be supported in remembering the things they’ve learnt, people they’ve met and the places they’ve been to while they’ve been at your primary school. They’ll then be introduced to a structure which will allow you and them to devise and script their very own year 6 leavers show. You’ll need to carry on rehearsing after we’ve gone - but you’ll have all the elements in place to produce a performance that’s guaranteed to wet the eyes of every member of the audience!
Outcomes: Personalised, tailored performance – but with a structure, you can adapt for use in future years; opportunities for parents / carers / families to share in their children’s happy memories; acquisitioned skills in script writing, performance and stage management.
Get in touch:
To find out more about our Post SATs workshops please contact us on 0151 708 8886, or email us at info@ascreatives.com.
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