B&Q here we come – yes, with Year 3

I met with two amazing teachers at Alderman Leach Primary School in Darlington last week. They were really challenging! After some discussion their creative partnerships project plan is looking like giving Year 3 pupils an opportunity to build and construct – on a large scale. A pupil led project, with materials and tools around, and an exploratory approach offered – in the hope that pupils experience and enjoy taking risks and develop some responsibility for their own learning along the way.

I found it was me panicking, asking ‘but what curriculum do we need to cover?’ as they insisted that they could look at anything that hadn’t been covered naturally at the end of the project and mop up missed topics over the rest of the year. For them it was the attitude to learning that they wanted to explore and support pupils to build curiosity.

All three of us have been inspired by  Grounds for Learning and their approach to risk assessment to support not hinder such activities, and love the idea of taking young pupils to B&Q shopping, loading the trolly up with saws and drills (and that is early years pupils – our Year 3’s should be a dream then!!).  And are enthused by the excitement and achievement of pupils working with The Tinkering School in the US – especially the 7 year olds making their own rollercoaster –  now we are talking….

Gever Tulley founder of The Tinkering School’s blogs this inspiring and challenging post

“One of the great pleasures of running the Tinkering School blog is that I get amazing email from people around the world. One message that really got me thinking was one from John Wood who took some time to list his accomplishments before graduating from high school:

• Build a 180mph race car
• Build a cannon that fired a 13 ounce cannon ball 1000 yds into a 12 in. target.
• Build a house
• Invent a learning system, to teach my sister the functions of complex machines of any complexity (I later found out that I had rediscovered systems theory)
• Invent a diagnostic system to understand many of the disfunctional interrelationships in my nuclear family (With a little help from Fritz Pearls)
• Develop a plan to extort $20,000,000 from the city of Houston, Tx. (Why I mention this ridiculous idea is amusing. I wrote the idea up for a tenth grade composition class and got lots of unwanted attention! It was also the impetous for a successful life long career in security!)
• Learned to repair and refit loose dentures for my grandpa and read an anatomy book.
• Graft 5 types of apples on one tree
• Repair plumbing
• Repair electrical apliances (vacuum sweepers were my favorite)
• Operate most common heavy equipment (front loader, dump bed trucks, backhoe, Ditch Witch etc.
• Use high explosives
• Work a gold mine
• Survive in the woods, desert or in a city for a week at a time without planning or provisions. (This one got me grounded for months!)
• Defend myself against against a knife or gun attack (both have saved my life)
• Repair an elevator
• Write a poem to a girl that made her cry with joy

John graduated high school in 1971.

In summary he says:

My life has been enriched by my childhood experiences more than I can express. I have done things others can only imagine or dread. However, without the freedom that my father gave me to risk life and limb without tragic injury, none of my successes or my facinating life would have transpired.I would have stayed the frightened, withdrawn person, I was as a small child.

I’m not advocating or recommending this list of accomplishments, but I marvel at how impossible it would be for most kids these days to do any of them.

But here’s what I do advocate: we should all strive to write a poem that moves someone to tears, we should all have lives that are more interesting that what we watch on television.”

Are we risk averse as adults? How do you fare against the TV challenge? What challenge do you give yourself?