Long Lee Primary School have made an anti-bullying film with pupils in Year 4 of the school
Enquiry Question
How can we use film making to motivate the more able children in their writing and to explore their full potential?
Programme Theme
The Creative Partnerships team at Long Lee wanted to really stretch their able young writers in an exciting and engaging way, and decided to use film to do this. Working with a local film maker and children’s author, the children decided that the topic of the film would be about bullying in schools. They then each produced their own script for a story, and a targeted group of gifted and talented children refined the script to the final version. The children not only acted in their film, but took on all aspects of the production, including filming, directing, set design and more. Their final product is a very professional, high quality film, which is going to be sent to other schools in the area to use in their own anti-bullying lessons.
Sustainable Impact
Enthusiasm for writing
Although the project specifically targeted gifted and talented pupils, the whole class was involved in writing and everyone produced a great piece of writing, as well as enthusiastically completing their reflective journals at the end of every session. As Shyla Lee, film maker, said, “All the pupils were motivated to write, not just the gifted and talented – we couldn't stop them!”.
Learning new skills and language
Working on a film for the first time has been a very exciting and creative experience for both children and adults. The children have discovered new talents they were not aware of before, and professional film maker, Shyla, was very impressed with the skills they developed: “Ethan is an exceptional director. I've never met anyone of his age who can direct like that”. Many of the children have been inspired to think about film making as a future career, and to investigate further opportunities to work in this field.
The staff felt that their ICT skills had been developed beyond what they felt they were capable or aware of, and they are now confident to use these skills independently. Their intention is to buy a video camera for the school and create their own projects.
Sharing the learning with other schools
The quality of the film is very high indeed, and the school are contacting Education Bradford with a view to it being promoted as a PSHCE resource for other schools in the area. The film was also screened at the Imax Cinema in Bradford, an event attended by the children as well as representatives from Education Bradford and the local authority, and was a fantastic end to a really great Enquiry project.
