At the chalkface Chickens
“ChiCkens!” says whizzo, young teacher shelley. i’ve just bumped into her down the Portobello. i used to teach her. We discuss pedagogy. What’s cutting edge these days? “i’ve got one word for you!’
ah. “Chickens!” it was chimpanzees in my
day. My PGCe was chock-full of Russian psycho-neurolinguistics. Vigotsky and his amazing chimpanzees. impenetrable stuff. My brain just hurt. it has stood me in terrifically little stead for later life – and did zilch for the old classroom management. “Chickens!” says
shel again. “The dog’s pedagogical bollox. Come and see!” Why not? i zip off
to Paddingtonacademy and ask for Miss Coles of Chickens. she arrives beaming and ushers me down shining corridors and past prodigiously industrious teachers. We cross a playground and arrive at a rather flash shed. a very posh coop. i’ve taught whole classes in worse. Miss Coles unlocks doors and shines a torch. “Welcome to our chickens!” Blimey! hen heaven!a five-
star boudoir! They loll around in free range luxury. “That’s Monkey! That’s Omelette!” she points to a glamorous, languorous blonde, who looks a bit post coital. she’s half crushed by a massive, plump, louche, fagged out fellow, who resembles
a mobster with his molls. he rule roost. “Tony soprano?” “Ghee! – ‘cept he’s a girl. she’s a bloke. Well, a shemale. surging testosterone!” The ladyboy’s gender
confusion affords Miss Coles a rich opportunity to range freely over the curriculum, to explore transgender studies, patriarchy and pecking orders, Darwin and Marx – and the false dawns of counting things before they are
hatched.and, most charmingly, peace studies. “There’s nothing
funnier than watching kids trying to playfight
while holding eggs.” no chicken is ever
killed and the deceased
have multi-faith funerals. Literacy is, of course,
core. The pupils keep a blog. it’s full of larking wordplay. Miss Coles is “Direggtor oeuf chickens at Paddeggton
acadeggmy”. Check it:
www.pachickens.blogspot.com But, above all, The Chicken
Club is a bonding for eggheads, a sanctuary for waifs and strays. They come in at dawn to protect their chickens from those inner city foxes, from the wicked world – and give them pasta or porridge or big cuddles. i leave hugely impressed by
the whole school and by Miss Coles and her funky chooks. Like so many young teachers, she’s brilliant, inspirational and pedagogically quite eggseptional.
• Ian Whitwham is a former secondary school teacher.
News Slick Shooters win design prize by Pete Henshaw
a new version of the classic game tiddlywinks will soon be on sale at the Design Museum after being created by students. The game slick shooter was
unveiled this week as the winner of Design Ventura, a design award that develops students’ creativity and enterprise skills. it has been created by a team from Walworthacademy in south London. The winning group received a
£1,000 bursary and will now attend a five-day programme of work- shops where they will receive guid- ance from professional designers in order to develop the game, which will be sold exclusively in the Design Museum shop this summer. slick shooter takes its inspira-
tion from the traditional tiddlywinks, creating a cleverly designed, market- able and portable product, which can be assembled from a piece of plastic the size of an Oyster card. Design Ventura is a three-year
education project for 14 to 16-year- olds which allows them to experi- ence the complexities of the design process and learn enterprise skills by fulfilling a brief, problem-solving and pitching ideas professionally. More than 1,000 students from
32 London state schools took part in 2011 and a further 2,000 students nationally joined the online version of the programme, Virtual Ventura, which supports teachers with train- ing sessions and free museum visits to run their own versions of the project. The event featured nine runners-
up whose design ideas included a self-assembly chandelier, and a phone case and Oyster card holder. Designer sebastian Conran,
who hosted the event, said: “Put an imaginative creative youngster in a seemingly empty room and soon they will come out with something
Finalists
Walworth Academy, Southwark: slick shooter. Bishop Douglass School, Finchley: Puzzle Bits (a puzzle/building blocks game with elements of the London skyline). Globe Academy, Southwark: Curva Light (a self- assembly chandelier). Haverstock School, Camden:Mr Glover (a mitten and glove puppet for storytelling, puppetry and keeping your hands warm). Langdon School, Newham:DM BLOX (a wooden blocks game recreating the Design Museum building).
they have made. On the face of it the ‘slick shooter’ may look like a tiddlywinks hybrid, but it is really the sophistication of the game-play, rules and playground league where the design thinking is most evident.” For details on the project, visit
http://ventura.designmuseum.org/
City slickers: (from left) Ali Esayed, Jason Campbell, Olutobi Lawal and Trevan Gibbs, the winning team from Walworth Academy, pictured at the Design Museum with their Design Ventura award
Norbury Manor College, Croydon: London idols (a kit for creating a series of felt finger puppets themed on iconic images of London). Sacred Heart High, Hammersmith: Phonester (a phone case and Oyster card holder). St Olave’s Grammar, Bromley: sixty (a construction system for creating a variety of designs). Stoke Newington School: DiGi-Card (an interactive greeting card). Townley Grammar, Bexley: sight storing (a magazine file themed with the London skyline made fromrecycled/recyclable card).
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16 Europe SecEd • March 1 2012
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Photo: Richard Heald
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