The first thing you notice when you enter the classroom is the illuminated whiteboard displaying the familiar white background and friendly font of the Google home page. Southborough CE primary school in Kent, sandwiched between the commuter towns of Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells, is trying to fold the virtual skills of ICT into one of its most practical lessons: art and design.
To kick the lesson off, two children, Eleanor and Charlotte (both 10) begin with a PowerPoint presentation about masks. Eleanor operates the PC while Charlotte tells the class about the history of masks in different cultures around the world. The girls enhance their presentation with images pulled from the internet and a few sound effects (a roar of a lion, canned applause at the presentation's close).
Charlotte has a few nervous pauses in front of the class, fluffing her lines a little at first, but she's clearly resourceful and recovers quickly enough to save face. Her first lesson this afternoon is how hard such presentations can be.
The class are making masks. The traditional arts of papier-mâché are used, of course, but the teacher, Stephanie Hayward, wants to use the children's mask-making skills as a basis for their introduction to ICT. To do this, she's commissioned the class to design the layout of a book about masks.
The school is lucky enough to have a deal with a local educational book publisher, and the whiteboard is used to project the layout of one of the books the children are familiar with (the Step-by-Step series of books published by Search Press). Hayward then asks the class to deconstruct the style of the book on the screen.
All is going well until the girls finish their presentation. As they log off the computer, there's an awkward pause as Hayward takes time to load her own presentation. She looks uncomfortable stooping down at the computer, which is kept at child's height. For want of a second machine, the lesson loses a little momentum.
"Think about graphic design," she says to the class. "Ask yourself what dictates the style." Hands shoot aloft as swiftly as Hayward can turn back towards the class. Arlo notices the borders, while Imogen spies the similar layouts of the different books. And as the answers ring out, Hayward uses the whiteboard to annotate the children's thoughts, placing her virtual red crayon marks directly on the screen, a task that would be difficult using more traditional teaching tools.
This passage lasts for about 20 minutes before the class splits into two. Half remain to make masks of their own, while the others move to the computer room down the corridor.
Once the computer group has trooped in, each of the 12 children has their own flat-screen computer. The teacher sits at a computer at the front, operating another whiteboard. The children's "mission" is to recreate the style of the Step-by-Step series, building a book about masks.
A Q&A session refreshes the children's memories about the Microsoft Publisher design package as Hayward builds a sample page. Questions asked earlier in class are answered with this practical demonstration. "How do you draw an oval box, Miss? Can you put a picture in a circle?" Enthusiasm is not a problem.
As soon as the demo is over, the kids bombard Hayward with more technical questions. A good 15 minutes is taken-up dealing with missing files, stray fonts and basic design queries. But this passage is key to the session's development.
The children identify the problems for themselves, and any recurrent difficulty can be highlighted by Hayward on the board. And it's not just technical glitches that attract the group's attention: once a student stumbles across an innovation, it spreads throughout the class. When Katrina learns how to tilt picture boxes, for instance, the rest of the class learn from her and soon every screen has its own tilted box.
Hayward's lesson plan then introduces an element of competition. She tells the class the best two designs will be presented to their peers busy making masks next door. The boys, predictably, respond well to this and there is a palpable redoubling of effort going on.
"What should you do all the time when working?" asks Hayward as the clock moves towards the session's end. "Save, Miss," say the children in unison. But as it's time to pack up and move next door, it is hard to stop the kids clicking.
Then there is another problem. The printer has mysteriously stopped working. "There's obviously a block on it," explains an unflustered Hayward. "I'll have to look at the server in a minute." But who solves the problem? Nobody seems to know, but the printer spluttered back into life a few minutes later without a visit to the server.
The masks project covers several skill strands, combining learning objectives from ICT, art and design, and literacy. Students are encouraged to reconstruct the design and editorial considerations of a textbook — something older pupils are introduced to in media studies. Less didactically, the task is about observation, the reading and reconstruction of a visual style as well the development of technical expertise.
Back in the classroom, the best work is put up on the wall. The other half of the class is still wearing artists' smocks (old shirts worn the wrong way around) and many students are working on their masks. They are excited and Hayward asks them for a minute's silence.
She compliments many of the layouts, but one of the covers is singled out as the best. Arlo is deemed to be the outright winner. He seems quietly pleased.
All too soon, for some, it's time to pack up. A quick clean-up rota is agreed and, before you know it, it's time to go home.
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