Curious Minds

Rainhill St Ann's C.E. Primary School immersed in history

Curious Minds recently visited one of our Enquiry Schools, Rainhill St Ann's C.E. Primary to watch drama practitioner Chris Ball work with Year 2 pupils.

We found this both fun and a great educational experience.

Drawing upon Mantle of the Expert techniques Chris got the pupils to use their imaginations to travel back in time to Liverpool 1961. To think about the differences in people lives. Through careful questioning he encouraged the pupils to think about and act out the situations, the places and people they might discover.

The pupils quickly remembered what they had done in previous sessions recreating the docks and the Liver Building, with boats bopping on the River Mersey and, our favourite, a stomping, sweating Cavern club with some very nifty dancing.  

Chris got them to think about what a classroom would be like in 1961. How would teachers be different ? A pupil described the '60's teacher as being 'demanding' with a cane. One of the pupil's bought in a photo of his nan, a nurse in 1961, and Chris used this to get the pupils think about how hospitals would be different. How nurses would have been different, more formal and strict.  

The pupils had fun recreating the cartoons on the walls of the hospital, using a wide variety of language to describe the tableaus they created. While we were there the pupils worked with Chris solidly for two hours and we were impressed with their concentration and imaginative ideas.

The Deputy Head of Rainhill St Ann's, Laura Rynn,  said the work was improving pupils imaginative writing because they could describe the detail: the bopping boats, the stomping dancing, the demanding teacher.  Chris built a detailed story that they were involved in, this involvement enabled them to be more descriptive with language.