Primary Ambitions, our enrichment programme for Year 6 partner primary school pupils run by our Lower Sixth, has evolved this year due to the restrictions we have all faced given Covid-19.
Unable to deliver the programme face-to-face, our ever-resourceful pupils designed lessons-in-a-box for their assigned modules which included Tropical Rainforests; Maths Maestros; Creative Writing; Life as a 10-year-old Londoner; Filmmaking; Science; Clay Creatures and many more. Each lesson, designed to be delivered by our primary school partners’ staff, incorporated slides, activities, student-filmed videos, games and all the materials required (handouts and resources). The lessons-in-a-box were received enthusiastically but the key ingredient – the interaction between the primary school pupils and our Lower Sixth – was clearly missing as primary schools were unable to come on site.
In an effort to connect, we set up Zoom sessions with our primary schools last Friday. Despite a few technical difficulties, it was fabulous for the pupils on both sides of the Zoom calls to be able to engage with each other. Feedback from the sessions highlights how much everyone enjoyed the interactions:
“The children were so excited to share their work with your students; it was almost like they were meeting celebrities over Zoom. Please pass on my thanks to the students for the enormous hard work that has gone into this project. Our class have absolutely loved taking part.” Queen’s Manor Primary, Filmmaking
“The pupils were extremely well prepared and highly literate – very impressive. They gave genuinely constructive feedback. The Lower Sixth really liked them and clearly felt pleased that they had learnt and enjoyed their efforts.” Emanuel PA supervisor regarding John Burns Primary, Politics
“I found their responses impressive, and the pupils showed how they had retained knowledge from the lesson as well as demonstrating prior knowledge on rainforests.” Emanuel student regarding Falconbrook Primary, Tropical Rainforests
We are aiming to run a 5-week Primary Ambitions module on-site in accordance with government guidelines in the Summer term to enable Emanuel and our partner primary pupils to have the face-to-face experience we originally intended. We are optimistic!
Lisa Irwin, Deputy Development & Community Partnerships Director