Outcomes
Student comment: " I thought it was fun as I could be destructive by cutting, wood burning, hammering and nailing things and it would turn out looking good"
"I enjoyed Time Capsule because I was able to make it in my own way."
The unit allowed teachers to enthuse students with the practical materials skills while moving them on to process skills at a much higher level than they had experienced before.
Starting in 2006 the unit is being delivered through all nine classes as part of the Year 9 core curriculum. Students will open their capsules when they leave school; this is not part of the Year 13 dinner now that the capsules are bigger so students will come back to get them.
There is flexibility within the unit in that where there are different mixes of students in a class the teacher is able to pull out parts of the programme or push the class more in terms of what they produce. Steve found that able students could extend themselves both in their selection of content and containers for their time capsule. He comments that a very wide range of ability and motivation could be accommodated while creating the capsules.
Production of a booklet outlining the unit was a time consuming job but now that the bones of the unit are there it can be rehashed when required. Steve felt that the descriptors at the back for assessment purposes were too 'teacher speak' and difficult for the girls to get their heads around so rewrote it in more user friendly terms.
Involvement in Beacon Practice has improved the junior programmes in terms of the quality of the content. It has also made it possible to give a higher level of support to teachers in the department.
